Heart’s Nancy Wilson doesn’t agree with Courtney Love’s take on Taylor Swift.
Wilson, 70, who has been the guitarist and second vocalist for Heart since 1974, spoke about the young women currently dominating the music industry during a Tuesday, April 23, interview with the Tampa Bay Times. She named Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Maggie Rogers as some of her favorites before going on to praise Swift, 34.
“I watched the Eras Tour and I really love the fact that she does an acoustic bit all by herself,” Wilson said of Swift’s ongoing tour, which kicked off in March 2023. “It’s such a global event, her show, but to make a point of doing that inside of her show was actually really amazing and cool of her to do. She’s a great songwriter.”
Wilson added that she thinks Swift’s “biggest problem” is “that she’s so extremely good looking,” explaining that “people have jealous reactions” when beautiful women are successful.
“I know Courtney Love is not a fan. I’ve been a friend of Courtney Love, but I disagree with her opinion about that,” she added.
Love, 59, who rose to prominence as the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band Hole in the 1980s and ‘90s, made headlines earlier this month for saying that “Taylor [Swift] is not important” during an interview with the Evening Standard.
“She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she’s not interesting as an artist,” Love continued.
Wilson said on Tuesday that it’s Love’s “job to have the punk ethics and push against what’s popular” and praised the “great songs” she’s written. However, she still thinks she’s wrong about Swift.
“All hail Courtney Love, but I consider Taylor Swift to be very important at this time in our culture,” she said.
Swift isn’t the only person Love took aim at during the controversial interview. She said Lana Del Rey was “great” up until she covered John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and should “really take seven years” off of making music.
Love also said that many women in the music industry are “becoming a cliché” and admitted that she’s not a Beyoncé fan.
“Now, every successful woman is cloned, so there is just too much music. They’re all the same,” she said. “If you play something on Spotify, you get bombarded with a lot of stuff that’s exactly the same. I mean, I like the idea of Beyoncé doing a country record because it’s about Black women going into spaces where previously only white women have been allowed, not that I like it much. As a concept, I love it. I just don’t like her music.”
Love shares daughter Frances Bean Cobain with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who died by suicide at age 27 in 1994.