Black Lips' Cole Alexander: 'Lorde is mediocre and Drake is fake'

Appearing in the AV Club's HateSong series, Alexander took particular issue with Lorde's breakthrough track 'Royals', claiming it made her sound 'righteous'. 

When asked if the Black Lips would ever collaborate with Lorde, Alexander replied: "We’d probably say no...I don’t think I’d do it with her.

"Kesha asked us to go on a tour a couple of years ago and we didn’t go. Her music is totally opposite to us, but we came to her with the idea of doing a track and we talked with her about it, but we never did it. I don’t think Lorde even makes the cut; I don’t think she’s as far opposite as Kesha is. She’s straight in the middle.

He added: "The other thing is she’s kind of mediocre. 'Royals' is catchy enough, but it’s not mind blowing. I like bad music better than I like mediocre music, because at least I remember the bad music."

Airing his grievance with Drake, Alexander said: "I grew up in a decent suburb in Atlanta, but I do think sometimes in hip-hop, you can hear it in his voice. He didn't have that pain in his voice, but it’s a subtle nuance. I'm sure he has some struggles in his life like everyone does, but I just don’t like Drake. He seems kind of fake to me."

And finally, taking aim at 'Thrift Shop' by Macklemore, he added: "There’s that one line where they’re like, 'that’s a cold-ass honky'. I really don’t like that line. First of all, it’s a racist word. I feel like white people, when someone says something racist against them, they’re not very offended.

"They’ve never had to deal with racism so it’s almost a kind of white guilt, or a subtle kind of action...He put a racist term into a black person’s mouth and had it thrown back at him to satiate his white guilt. That’s the way I look at it."