Ariel Pink, Grimes & Madonna: The Feud You Didn’t Know You Wanted

Many will charge that the older Madonna gets, the more producers she needs on an album in order for it to sell to Live Nation’s expectations. As her Instagram account has indicated, Madonna has been continuing to adhere to this formula by poaching the likes of Diplo, with rumors of collaborations with everyone from Beyonce and Nicki Minaj (again) to Disclosure.

Thus, the latest report that she requested Ariel Pink’s influence on the album is no great source of shock. What is, however, is Ariel Pink’s rather caustic response–especially considering he once did a cover of “Everybody.” The L.A.-based diva balked, “They need something edgy. They need songwriting,” he said. “She can’t just have her Avicii, her producers or whatever, come up with a new techno jam for her to gyrate to and pretend that she’s 20 years old. They actually need songs. I’m partly responsible for that return-to-values thing.”

He went on to further show off his antithetical views by adding, “Ray of Light is not cool.” Perhaps this was the final nail in his coffin of insults that prompted Grimes to weigh in on her Twitter by defending, “Ariel Pink’s delusional misogyny is emblematic of the kind of bullshit everyone woman in this industry faces daily.” She then finished him off with, “Also Ray of Light is a masterpiece.” One can only hope that the result of all this turns out to be a Madonna/Grimes/Ariel Pink collaboration.