How atrocious a life does a musician have to lead before you stop listening to them?
Thinly-veiled racist? Right-winger? Alleged pedo with highly dubious defence? Known gang member? Drug dealer?
What are your personal boundaries?
- Relevant artist taggings:
- Bumsnogger »[x]
- Pete Doherty »[x]
- Bono Must Die »[x]
Bumsnogger
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I know next to nothing about a huge number of the musicians in my collection
Not too fussed about finding out. But if I find out someone is a complete bellend, it tends to sour the music slightly.
Releasing shitty records is really my only boundary
I don't mind if they are arseholes. People in bands can be.
I'm a massive Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes fan and despite him coming across as a bit of a knob almost every time I've seen him (which is a fair few) I still love him.
Obv it's always nice if they are lovely people but not the be all and end all.
The Micha P Hinson thing a few years back made me laugh. People were raging and I thought he'd said something relly terrible like he loved the KKK but it was really just he wasn't that big on the heathcare stuff (or something like that). Country musician from southern usa in being a bit republican shocker.
*musician in being a bit republican shocker
unless you're part of a flukey hippy choir, to 'succeed' in 'the music business' (or any of 'the arts', really) requires a fair whack of single minded dog eat dog mentality. so it's never a surprise when it transpires that a famous musician is an awful belm.
Exactly
if the subject bit of my post I nearly put ''people in bands often are'' but thought it might be a touch unfair. But tbh I think it's kinda true.
I remember watching an interview with Distal last year
where he was not only wearing a VOTE RON PAUL t-shirt but actually discussed it at some lengths. I mean I know he's from Atlanta but he's a young guy and it did kinda put me off that he'd use an interview about his music to push being a Republican. Oh well.
Chris Brown is my limit.
I've never listened to a single note, because he's such a fucking bastard. That kind of behavior is something I can't abide, in any musician. I can live with most everything else.
It's a can of worms of a topic
...for instance, does this mean that you can't tolerate partner abuse? Because if so then that's far more musicians than just Mr Brown...
and actors like Bill Murray and Sean Penn.
CAN OF WORMS!
Thaaaaaaaaaat's truuuuuuuuuue
I think what bothers me so much about Chris Brown is that it was so, so public:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Brown_(American_entertainer)#Domestic_violence_case
Compare that to most other people who have been accused of it. That's a long-ass article. That doesn't excuse anybody else, but the worst part about Brown is that he has never, ever seemed remorseful. He's a fucking scumbag. And I honestly lost a LOT of respect for Rihanna when she decided to take him back.
NOT ONLY THAT
But he fucked with Frank Ocean and Drake. Don't fuck with Frank Ocean, and don't fuck with Drake. Super simple stuff.
On the other hand
Frank Ocean and Drake can now join forces for a full-length diss tape:
So Far Gone (-na Beat You Up), Ultra(violence)
:'D
Beautiful
It's a shame about Chris Brown because he released some absolute stormers before he turned out to be a massive cunt
*start
i don't really wanna be the kind of person who condones the life and aspirations of a terrible person
i also often try to make the aesthetic choices that are as polar-opposite to cementimental's taste as possible
Eric Clapton
The line starts and ends there.
probably would stop listening to racist/sexist/homophobic/generally awful people
none of my favourite acts to my knowledge are awful but it definitely would put me off.
I strongly dislike it when punks for example claim that skrewdriver/other moronic oi/white power bands 'made some pretty good songs if you ignore the lyrics'. There's enough good music that you just wouldn't need to listen to them ever.
i'm sorta rambling a bit but yeah
The thing with Skrewdriver et al
is that by its very nature you have to actively seek it out or know the kind of people who listen to it. You're not going to hear it on Radio 1 & think wow, that's a good tune, then subsequently find out they're racists.
Not boycotting an artists who holds controversial beliefs is not the same as supporting their ideology.
For that reason I'd have to say, if I liked the music that much, I'd probably continue to listen to it providing the music didn't espouse the ideas that I found abhorrent. Even though I'm certain the music would be tainted by the association to some degree.
On this very topic, I remember Stephen Fry, being of Jewish ancestory, did an interesting feature on his conflicted enjoyment of Wagner, a noted anti-semite.
It's also an issue that could be compared with the controversy surrounding those rap artists (many of whom have a wide fanbase) who use homophobic/misogynistic language, while claiming that they aren't truly prejudiced.
So, what's worse: listening to a prejudiced artist whose music isn't influenced by their ideology or an artist who claims to value equality while producing music that professes otherwise?
Convicted paedo
Murder's fine, unless the victim was someone I especially liked
I tend to like music that shares the ugly underbelly of life with me.
Depends on the influence of the artist I think
I listened to Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift For You in December and it was still jolly enough. But that was made long before he killed that poor lady, and the murder conviction isn't the most notable thing about Spector, if you see what I mean.
Lostprophets guy on the other hand, for most people, being an appalling paedo is all they might know about him. That and all the Stairwell vs Nonce-bashing and Perv Perv jokes.
Is there a statute of limitations?
If all musicians were thoroughly nice people
much of the music we love would never have existed.
Sure but there's not being thoroughly nice
And there's molesting people. It's not exactly two sides of the same coin.
True
but let's say, for the sake of argument, that Thom Yorke, or Nick Cave, or Scott Walker, or some other DiS fave, was to be revealed as a Savilesque serial paedo tomorrow. Would that information automatically render In Rainbows, or Let Love In, or Scott 4, artistically invalid? I don't have the answer, just interested in how people would react.
Not 'artistically invalid'
but I wouldn't part with my cash for anything else they go on to release, and would certainly feel a bit funny listening to their albums in future. Great music's still great music, though.
anything else they go on to release
I'm assuming they'd be in jail & thus unable to add to their back catalogue.
It didn't stop Barzum
I dunno about 'artistically invalid'
but if, say, Tom Wait's next album was called, *I really love punching kittens right in their stupid little faces, also boo to black people" I'd still probably listen to the rest of his stuff. This is probably because I'm a bad person.
How about if he admitted
that Martha was written about a 7-yr old?
I'd want to know why this 7 year old had her own phone
also what the hell the 'it's been 40 years or more' line is about. I am not cool with people dating the not-yet-born.
Actually if you imagine that Martha is now 47
and then listen to the lyrics, it becomes extremely sinister.
And I was always so impulsive,
I guess that I still am,
And all that really mattered then
Was that I was a man.
I guess that our being together
Was never meant to be
Ugh
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and not imagine that ever again. I love that song :(
Congratulations, you've written a Parenthetical Girls song.
I'll let Zac Pennington know the next time I see him that he needs to rewrite "Martha" to be about catching up with your former lover, after having not seen her since she was 7.
I would definitely buy that.
That makes me an even worse person :/
I haven't heard any of your stuff.
Now I'm wondering what sort of crazy bad life you must be leadin! :-o
i sell drugs to pedos
Doubt I'd stop listening to a band or artist for those sort of reasons
but it might put me off having a listen in the first place.
^this (unless it's properly heinous and violent)
(just remembered that guy from leviathan)
fix
dis is so fucking fucked lately
The guy from Mest stabbed someone
I still bump 'Cadillac' every now and then.
First, their music has to suck
Then, if they have right wing leanings that overshadow the music (I'm looking at you Ted Nugent & Eric Clapton) then that's it. I don't know, there are probably a lot of artists that are horrible people but I'm only aware of their music and I dig it - Hell, I hate a lot of people that are do-gooders, too: Bono, REM, etc etc etc
Getting a bit Groundhog Day in here
This thread in particular seems to come up about every two weeks