REVOLVER:There hasn't been a good music feud for ages: a full-on finger-pointing, name-calling, hair-pulling row that carries the promise of a good punch-up when the warring parties bump into each other backstage at a festival, writes BRIAN BOYD

A half-decent one began to brew earlier this year when Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips went crying to Rolling Stonemagazine, saying that Arcade Fire treat "everybody in their vicinity like shit". There was a bit of verbal handbags for a while between the two bands, although hopes for a dramatic escalation of hostilities were always slim (you just can't imagine Arcade Fire in a mill),

and were dashed altogether a few weeks ago when Coyne retracted his comments and said he was only referring to the people who were running their stage at a particular festival.

The problem with rock stars these days is that they’re just so bloody reasonable and polite in their own “this could damage our career” way. They’re also “media-trained” to within an inch of their lives, even before they’ve released their first single.

However, there’s a really good feud brewing nicely at the moment between two of music’s biggest hitters: Eminem and Mariah Carey. It all began in 2001 when – as Eminem tells it – the pair had an affair that ended a tad acrimoniously. This would have been around the time that Eminem was busy marrying, divorcing and remarrying his wife, and Mariah was busy in search of the marbles she had lost.

On the song Bagpipes from Baghdadfrom his current album, Eminem raps: "Mariah, whatever happened to us? / Why did we have to break up? / All I asked for was a glass of punch / You see I never really asked for much / I can't imagine what's going through your mind / After such a nasty break-up." The song goes on to reflect poetically on Mariah's new husband: "Nick Cannon you pr**k, I wish you luck with the f**kin' whore".

Nick Cannon replied that "I see homeboy is still obsessed with my wife," and later invited Eminem out for a fight, while Mariah took the opportunity to write a song about Eminem called Obsessed. Sample lyrics: "You're so so lame / And no one here even mentions your name / It must be the weed, it must be the E / Cause you be poppin, yeah you get it popping / Why you so obsessed with me? / Boy, I wanna know – lying that you're sexing me?" The video for Obsessedfeatures Carey dressed as a deranged stalker character that could easily be mistaken for Eminem.

Eminem likes to dish it out, but when it's served back at him, tends to go ballistic. Last week, in an apparent response to Obsessed, he rush-released a new song called The Warning. "I'm 'obsessed' now / Oh gee, that supposed to be me in the video with the goatee / Wow Mariah, didn't expect her to go balls out / Bitch shut the f**k up / Before I put all those phone calls out / That you made to my house / When you was wild 'n out before Nick / When you was on my dick / and give you something to smile about."

The phone-calls line is a reference to alleged voicemails from Carey that Eminem says he kept just in case she was ever to deny the affair.

He raps: “It’s a warning shot / Before I blow up your whole spot / Call my bluff and I’ll release every f**king thing I’ve got / Including the voicemails right before your flipped your top.”

These would be the most printable extracts of the song – towards the end Eminem gets very graphic indeed about what he says happened between the pair.

This prompted a measured and clever statement from Carey’s management team.

“While we appreciate Eminem as an artist, lately his work has seemed tasteless and unnecessarily mean-spirited. The public seems to agree – just look at his declining record and concert ticket sales.”

This will only act as more fuel to the fire. The worst, one fears, is yet to come.