Jack Antonoff has elaborated on his issues with Damon Albarn in a new interview, following the latter’s controversial comments about Taylor Swift two weeks ago.
The producer and Bleachers frontman was recently a guest on The What, a podcast hosted by broadcaster Brad Steiner, to promote his upcoming appearance at the 2022 Bonnaroo Festival. During the conversation, however, the topic of Albarn was raised when Antonoff and Steiner got into a discussion on songwriting.
Albarn, best known as the frontman of Blur and Gorillaz, was interviewed by The LA Times last month to promote his recent solo album ‘The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows’ and his upcoming shows in the city.
During the interview, Albarn falsely claimed that Taylor Swift doesn’t write her own songs, and that co-writing “doesn’t count” towards being called a songwriter.
“Obviously, it’s completely absurd and everyone knows that,” Antonoff said during the podcast with regards to Albarn’s comments.
“You’re talking about one of the greatest songwriters of our generation who has her name as the only name on many songs. You don’t need me to explain it – it’s fact.”
Antonoff went on to compare Albarn to former President Donald Trump, whose time in office brought the phrases “fake news” and “alternative facts” into the cultural lexicon.
“I don’t like it when artists take almost this Trumpian approach of just making things up,” he said.
“I don’t care if Damon Albarn or anyone likes or doesn’t like something, but to unequivocally make a statement that isn’t true… not to get to deep on it, but isn’t that kind of everything that’s wrong with our world at the moment? People talking about shit that they have no clue about?”
Antonoff concluded his comments on Albarn by comparing him to former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher. Blur and Oasis were considered rivals by the press in the mid-90s, with their feud known as “The Battle Of Britpop”.
“You wanna go full Liam Gallagher and be like, ‘This person sucks, that person sucks’? Whatever, do you,” he said.
“But to launch this weird, baseless [claim] with this bravado that it’s fact… maybe before you say that, you should shut the fuck up.”
Antonoff has worked with Swift on her last five studio albums, as well as the ‘Taylor’s Version’ re-recordings of her albums ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’.
He was among the first of many to negatively respond to Albarn’s comments online, which Albarn himself would later apologise for after being directly called out by Swift herself on Twitter.
“You don’t have to like my songs, but it’s really fucked up to try and discredit my writing,” Swift wrote at the time.
Albarn – who does not normally run his own social media accounts – responded in a tweet of his own, claiming that his comments had been misconstrued and “reduced to clickbait”.
“I apologise unreservedly and unconditionally,” he wrote. “The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting.”
The post Jack Antonoff speaks out on Damon Albarn’s “Trumpian” Taylor Swift comments appeared first on NME.
