The Library is Open: How the Diss Track Became a Predominant Feature in Pop Music

When Taylor Swift recently released her highly anticipated album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’, all eyes turned to ‘Actually Romantic’. The track is a tongue-in-cheek, for many distasteful, part diss, part diaristic jab at her contemporary Charli XCX, in response to the track ‘Sympathy Is a Knife’ from XCX’s acclaimed album ‘Brat’.

Within hours of the release, fandoms and media outlets alike opened up the floodgates. Discourse spread across every corner of the internet, from op-eds and think pieces to TikTok dissections of every line. One thing was certain: everyone was talking about it.

In an interview with Zane Lowe, and when asked about the album’s reception, Swift welcomed the commotion by stating, “The rule of show business is if it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.”

Diss tracks, by definition, are songs intended to disrespect or attack another person, usually a music artist, but dissing as a concept in music has a long lineage that expands across centuries, genres, and even geographical boundaries.

While it’s widely recognised that the rap genre cemented the diss track as a staple in the mid-1980s, the art of dissing goes much further back. In the 18th and 19th centuries, poets and playwrights exchanged public insults through verse. In Ancient Greece, flyting, a poetic exchange of insults, was a common social ritual, and the Vikings had senna, a similar practice where poets verbally sparred to assert wit and dominance.

Fast forward to the 1980s: hip-hop turned these traditions into a cultural staple. From the Roxanne Wars born out of the Bronx in New York City, where Roxanne Shanté’s ‘Roxanne’s Revenge’ sparked over a hundred response tracks, to Tupac’s ‘Hit ’Em Up’ and Nas’s ‘Ether’, which redefined the genre for decades to come, the diss track became a cornerstone of pen mastery, skilled craft, and for long a true driver of the genre.

Although the rap genre cemented the diss track, pop has long been driven by gossip and complex social dynamics, too. And while rap disses are usually explicit and declarative, pop’s approach has often been caged off and deep-seated in metaphor and melody, allowing for plausible deniability. Long before TikTok video essays, fans were already decoding liner notes, spinning records backwards for clues, and searching for hidden messages, proving that speculation has always been embedded in pop culture’s DNA.

Take The Beatles as an example: their personal dynamics, especially between members John Lennon and Paul McCartney, leaked into songs like ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘How Do You Sleep?'. Or the seminal ‘Rumours’ by Fleetwood Mac, which engulfed listeners in the romantic turmoil between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, in what some might call the longest situationship in music history.

In the pop realm, the diss track thrives within a microcosm of parasocial intimacy. And as it’s been contended that parasocial relationships tend to hold real emotional weight in many people’s lives, it is only natural that listeners are driven by gossip, making it a key feature of artists’ mythology. It becomes a sparring match of sorts, taken out of real life and third spaces, and brought to the digital, where it lives and eventually fades to oblivion.

Dr Holly Tessler, Senior Lecturer in Music Industries at the University of Liverpool, explains, “The rise in diss tracks is part of the wider and increasingly tribal world we live in, which likely stems from the polarising nature of politics in places like the US, where there’s increasingly an ‘us vs them’ mentality of supporting your side no matter what.” She continues, “In terms of parasocial culture, fan groups, particularly ones who are very engaged and loyal, see slights and disses (and perceived slights and disses) of an act as a kind of ‘attack one of us, attack all of us’ kind of reaction.”

As fans perceive their artists as close friends, the intensity with which they talk about it also increases exponentially. Tessler says, “One of the positives about social media has been the ability for people who might otherwise have been feeling alone or isolated to find a group of like-minded people online; once those (parasocial) bonds are established, people feel very protective of them, as well as of the person or subject around which the group has formed.”

However, this intensity often carries negative undertones. After the release of ‘Sympathy is a Knife’, a track that delves into XCX’s insecurities towards a mysterious woman, whom fans perceived to be Taylor Swift, the tension transpired into the public realm, as XCX’s fans belted “Taylor is dead!” during shows on the Brat tour. XCX quickly posted, pleading with fans to stop the behaviour.

M., 27, a fan of Swift, when asked if she felt an urge to look up the context of a diss track whenever attention turns to a certain situation, said, “Yes, and I think that desire isn’t just fan curiosity, it’s a natural response to the way diss tracks are built: they leave questions and accusations hanging in the air and force us to search for context”, she continued, “There’s a real thirst to humanise artists and make them feel closer to us, and knowing details about their personal lives and dramas gives them that more tangible, relatable dimension.”

This innate curiosity goes beyond cultural resonance, as it also drives the creative economy. For instance, in the case of  Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s historically rocky relationship, what began as a lyrical sparring match snowballed into a major cultural phenomenon, amassing billions of dollars in revenue — fifteen million dollars in the case of Kendrick Lamar alone, according to Forbes.

Lamar’s Super Bowl performance, with crowds chanting “A minor” during ‘Not Like Us’, a reference to Drake’s alleged relationships with underage women, was clipped, remixed, memefied, and eventually immortalised on merchandise for posterity.

Tessler explains this phenomenon: “From a marketing perspective, in a world where there is so much competition for listeners, audiences and likes, anything that generates publicity is good,” she continues, “I think what makes them popular with fans is that it’s that same ‘us vs them’ mentality: good versus evil. We see that narrative trope all over popular culture, from Star Wars to pro wrestling to sports and TV dramas.”.

It is no wonder that Swift stated that any publicity is good publicity ahead of her release. In the streaming era, where attention is fragmented and artists are viewed as brands under a capitalist mindset, diss tracks are part of an ecosystem —a kind of narrative marketing that sustains engagement long after release cycles fade, giving fans and media outlets something to talk about and dissect.

It is, however, worth acknowledging the cultural capital held by Taylor Swift as a multi-billionaire white American woman, a position that affords her the freedom to write and release lyrics like, “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave,” without facing meaningful backlash. The scrutiny is far greater for artists of colour and other minoritised groups, and while Swift’s lyrics are often interpreted as clever or cathartic storytelling, artists such as Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are rarely afforded the same grace. Their perceived feud, for example, is more readily dismissed as spectacle or aggression rather than artistry or authorship.

All in all, diss tracks have always been more than musical conflict; they are part of a cultural zeitgeist driven by our human curiosity. Gossip has long been a social tool for communication and community-building, and while at times lyrics may seem vicious or left-field, they turn a wheel that has existed for centuries, and will continue to do so, despite its often unhealthy consequences.

For Swift and XCX, the feud may be ephemeral, but the ecosystem behind it, and the sheer necessity for artistic positioning in such a fast-paced industry where listeners are meaning-makers, will always keep the engine moving. And, regardless of genre or decade, one thing remains certain: the library will always be open.

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WORDS BEATRIZ VASQUES