Far Out magazine, a UK-based online platform, bills itself as an independent voice amid the ever-churning wars inspired by pop musicians. Yet after reading its coverage of these controversies, one is left with the nagging suspicion that rock and pop feuds are routinely overreported, exaggerated, or simply opportunities to hand a microphone to someone famous who has something sour to say about a former colleague—or whoever happens to be dominating social media feeds that week. Much ado about nothing at all? Perhaps. Readers love snark. They love gossip. They love tales of aging geniuses turning into grumpy old folks, shaking their canes and walkers at the birds.

Recently, Far Out ran a squib suggesting that two celebrated pop figures, Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell, share a dislike of the songwriter Paul Simon. The notion is an odd one, if only because it invites us to wonder why their shared antipathy should matter in the first place. Does it really matter what Smith or Mitchell thinks of Simon?Smith fancies herself a poet, a journalist, a writer above all else, and there is nothing wrong with that. Her punk-rock inclinations, however, have always struck me as more performative than anything else. Still, I admire her ability to mash together the things she loves into a visceral presentation that delivers the goods. I enjoy her work, and I appreciate the differences between her and Simon. That she doesn't like him? So what?

Mitchell, meanwhile, has spent her later years taking swipes at her peers, among them Dylan, Zappa, John Lennon, Madonna, Taylor Swift, Don Henley, and Grace Slick. The cumulative impression is that her own work represents the high-water mark of popular music, one that others have failed to reach. She is, of course, an extraordinarily gifted artist who has written and recorded songs that will endure until we stop caring about music altogether. But genius ought not to confer immunity from criticism. Mitchell's own output, particularly in its more pretentious or half-baked moments, could withstand a brutal assessment of its own.

Her apparent grievance with Simon seems to stem, at least in part, from his meticulous craftsmanship: the careful wordsmithing, the painstaking construction, the way he makes music and lyrics fit together. Perhaps she mistakes his craftsmanship for some artistic shortcoming, or simply dislikes an approach to songwriting that differs from her own. Whatever the reason, there is something peculiar about dismissing an artist for being so deliberate in his art.Simon, certainly, is not beyond criticism. There are songs and albums of his that I admire less than others, and his body of work deserves the same kind of honest, unsentimental scrutiny we ought to apply to any major artist. But that is a different discussion, one concerned with the merits and shortcomings of the music itself rather than the personal grievances of its creators. My suspicion is that a fair assessment of Simon's work would come out rather favorably.

As for whether Patti Smith or Joni Mitchell likes him? It's an entertaining bit of gossip, perhaps, but hardly a revelation. Artists need not admire one another, and their disagreements do not automatically amount to anything meaningful. Sometimes a feud is just a feud, a passing squall in the pop-cultural weather. The music, after all, is what ought to matter—and it can speak for itself.