After some 53 years together, we may have been forgiven for assuming that the musical partnership between Daryl Hall and John Oates was one of the most solid in show business. But this week brought the astonishing news that the mega-selling duo are embroiled in litigation, with Hall filing a lawsuit and a restraining order against his lifelong bandmate for reasons as yet unknown. Maybe life has finally imitated art for a band who most famously sang: “I can’t go for that, no can do” but this is far from the most acrimonious of musical creative partnerships.
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel
Still one of the most famous singing duos of all time, things soured for the former elementary school buddies in 1970 after years of enormous success. Conventional wisdom has always had it that Garfunkel grew to resent the fact that Simon wrote all the songs, while the songwriter grew more irritated by the fact that the golden-tonsilled Garfunkel could sing them better than he could (and was also spending time on his acting career as well as music). Thus, as often seems to be the case in such spats, the things that made them great tore them apart. They famously reunited for the 1981 Concert in Central Park (which spawned a bestselling live album) but relations remain frosty: Simon once said they got along great as long as they weren’t working together.
Liam and Noel Gallagher
The Gallager brothers’ feuding started well before Oasis split. As early as 1995, the Fierce Panda label released Wibbling Rivalry, an infamous recording of a violent argument between the brothers at a hotel in Glasgow the previous year (typical dialogue – this from Liam: “I fuckin’ hate that twat!”). Having quit the band on several occasions, Noel walked out for a final time in 2009, declaring he “could not go on working with Liam a day longer”. Judging from their frequent spats since (“the angriest man you’ll ever meet … a man with a fork in a world of soup” says Noel of Liam; “potato” says Liam of Noel, frequently) a reconciliation is very much a case of definitely, er, perhaps not.
Taylor Swift and Katy Perry
Not a creative partnership in the longstanding sense of a Lennon and McCartney, perhaps, but the two pop queens were duet partners (on Swift’s Fearless tour) and reportedly mutual admirers. By 2014, though, Swift said she was “never sure” if they were friends or not and suggested that Perry had tried to ruin her tour by hiring her people. The latter responded with an infamous tweet: “Watch out for the Regina George in sheep’s clothing”, which compared Swift to an antagonistic character in Mean Girls. Still, in 2019 the pair appeared together again in Swift’s video for You Need to Calm Down … so perhaps they did.
Ray and Dave Davies
The Kinks produced some of the best loved songs of the 1960s (Waterloo Sunset, You Really Got Me and the rest) and one of pop’s most infamous sibling rivalries. Dave once said Ray told him his life was perfect until he came along; they managed to keep the group going until 1996 despite 30 years of squabbles, onstage ruckuses and flying cymbals. In recent years, Dave has called Ray a “vampire” and “megalomaniac” although despite everything always insists: “I love my brother”.
Diana Ross and Mary Wilson
With 12 US No 1s, the Supremes were the most commercially successful and sweetest sounding of Motown’s many classic 1960s acts but as they became more successful the all-female singing group’s relationship grew increasingly less harmonious. Particularly, Wilson felt co-founder Ross was bidding for solo stardom to the detriment of the group, and it’s certainly the case that the name changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes before Miss Ross left altogether.
50 Cent and the Game
The feud between the two former G-Unit members is one of hip-hop’s longest-running feuds. It started in 2005, when 50 infamously fired the Game live on radio, which infuriated his fellow rapper so much he tried to enter the building, shots were fired and a security guard was hit in the leg. A public reconciliation in 2005 didn’t last and although things have been quiet lately the ruckus is estimated to have produced an astonishing 100 diss tracks.
Phil and Don Everly
Just what is it with these singing brothers? As the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil made their names in their teens with a succession of classic songs in the rock’n’roll era and beyond but despite the sweetness of their vocals their relationship was infamously fractious. Years of trademark sibling rivalry erupted into a ten year separation in 1973 when Don’s drunken mangling of the words to Cathy’s Clown ended in an onstage argument. When they reunited for a tour a decade later they refused to be interviewed together.
Joan Jett and Lita Ford
Although the Runaways had a male svengali, the 70s teens remain the epitome of a leather-clad, hard-rocking, all-woman band. However, guitarist Lita Ford angrily insisted that singer Joan Jett scuppered any chances of a reunion by bringing her “controlling” male manager along to what was supposed to be a girl’s night out. “So it’s like, ‘Dude, answer the question. Are you interested in putting the Runaways back together?’ She never answered.”
Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon
Fans of seminal New York noise group Sonic Youth were stunned by the couple’s 2011 split after 27 years of marriage and even longer together in the group. The band split on the spot and co-founder/bassist/vocalist all-round icon Gordon later suggested that singer/guitarist and ex-husband Moore’s affair with a longstanding associate was a combination of a “starstruck woman” and his “mid-life crisis”. Ouch.
Bob Marley and Peter Tosh
Jamaican reggae giants Bob Marley and the Wailers (initially called simply the Wailers) may have sung One Love in their music, but years of tensions over Marley’s elevation to the star role erupted in 1973 in a backstage fist fight between co-founding singer and guitarist. Five years later, they were publicly reunited with when Tosh joined Marley onstage for Get Up Stand Up and the pair enjoyed a hug: a belated case of “let’s get together and feel all right”.
• This article was amended on 23 November 2023 to correct a reference to a remark made by Dave Davies.
