On May 5, 1984, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds got married after their bands toured together that year. They’d been playing Australia and New Zealand alongside the Eurythmics and Talking Heads, and just a few months later, they were tying the knot.
In 1985, they had a daughter, but divorced in 1990. Despite their marriage ending, they remained friends and even toured together again in 2018. “We have kids and grandkids, so we get on well,” Kerr said of Hynde, speaking to The Sunday Post at the time. “She goes on the stage, and I see an icon, one of the greats. When she comes off stage, we’ll chat about when we’re next taking the wee ones to the park when we’re both in London.”
The following three couples were iconic mostly during the ’90s. While only one of them lasted, they were still important moments in time for the artists involved. Often, they inspired each other during their relationships, but did so even more after their breakups.
PJ Harvey and Nick Cave
Personally, there’s barely a day that goes by when I’m not thinking about PJ Harvey and Nick Cave. Their brief relationship was often tested by Cave’s drug use, which eventually led to Harvey ending things after just a few months. But they were so artistically similar and visually striking, standing next to each other.
Who can forget the stunning music video for “Henry Lee”, simultaneously stark and saturated with humid longing? Cave has been married to his wife Susie since 1999, and they seem to be a solid pair. But the intense, tumultuous passion that swirled around PJ Harvey and Nick Cave was so heady that it carved a lasting place for itself in rock music’s romantic history.
Kathleen Hanna and Adam Horovitz
This rock music romance has stood the test of time and continues on a solid trajectory to this day. We can’t help but shed a happy tear for these two punks who found each other over all the noise.
Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz of the Beastie Boys met in 1995 while their bands were playing the same festival. In her 2024 memoir Rebel Girl, Hanna detailed their thoroughly ’90s courtship. They talked on the phone, traded mixtapes, she bought a Beastie Boys poster, and kissed his picture.
But Horovitz was technically still married at the time. He separated from actress Ione Skye in 1995, then reunited in 1996 before separating again that year. That timing lines up with Hanna’s recollection of Horovitz bailing on a trip to see her in Olympia.
She moped in her room, eating nothing but watermelon and ignoring his calls, determined to get over him. But after several days of this, Hanna recalled, he was finally ready to come see her. They married in 2006.
Justine Frischmann and Damon Albarn
Justine Frischmann of Elastica and Damon Albarn of Blur were the Britpop power couple from 1991 to 1998. This isn’t so much an example of a great relationship, all things considered, but they were absolutely iconic at the time.
Allegedly, their unbalanced competitive attitudes were one of the reasons for their split, alongside various interpersonal issues. They seemed well-matched at the time, but that was a blessing and a curse. The two were well-matched in many of their negative traits as well.
But this is also in the context of the ’90s Britpop scene. Notorious for fabricated feuds, toxic relationships of all kinds, and tabloid trash that went completely unchecked. These two may have been the It couple of the scene, but their break-up overshadowed their work for a while.
Didn’t help that Blur’s album 13 is allegedly all about the split. However, much of Elastica’s final album, The Menace, referenced the break-up as well. Although from Frischmann’s perspective, it wasn’t as tragic for her as it seemed.
The post Celebrate Rock Romance With These 4 Iconic Musical Couples – One Pair Married on This Day 42 Years Ago appeared first on VICE.
