For example, I personally can’t listen to Guns and Roses without immediately thinking “that Axl sure is an asshole”, and that sours the entire experience.
I think it’s crucial…
Yes. You listen to music without knowing anything about who wrote it and you feel something. That feeling has nothing to do with the composer or performer. Now if you find out the composer/performer is a “bad” person, I would recommend not giving them any money that could contribute to them spreading their “bad stuff”. I’d still enjoy the music because your enjoyment isn’t furthering their bad agenda.
I can live with artists having different views/believes/opinions, but when it comes to actions they did, then it’s a different story for me.
E.g. I don’t enjoy Rammstein anymore
Yes. It’s fine.
There is so much music now, once I found out an artist doesn’t align with my values it’s easy to drop them.
Yeah, just do a little piracy
Nope.
Eric Clapton is an anti-VAX conspiracy theorist and a racist. Van Morrison is anti-VAX conspiracy theorist and a racist. John Lennon is a serial abuser drug addict, beat women and abandoned his own son. Steven Tyler from Aerosmith is a pedophile. Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot chili peppers is a pedophile.
Etc.
Anytime I learned something horrible about someone famous, I write them off completely.
Don’t forget Ted Nugent helped funnel Russian money through the NRA for Trump and is a pedophile, Meatloaf is anti-vax, and Roger Waters openly supports Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
Yup.
Don’t get me started on “Kid Rock”
In fairness to Eric Clapton, he did have an extremely rare life-threatening reaction to the vaccine. He may be off the deep end now, but I think at the time of recording Layla etc. he was a fine guy as far as I know.
Eric is a racist way before he was an antivaxer.
In 1976, on stage, Clapton praised Tory MP Enoch Powell, and declared that Britain must stop itself from becoming a “black colony,” and said “England is for white people, man.”
He went on to say:
“I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should vote for Enoch Powell. Enoch’s our man. I think Enoch’s right, I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking… don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country. What is happening to us, for fuck’s sake?”
Already didn’t like Steven Tyler, but that’s news to me.
Guess he’ll never change my mind now.
Wait, Anthony Kiedis!? That’s news to me.
It was to me too, had to go looking - guessing this from Wikipedia is what it was:
Kiedis acknowledges in his autobiography Scar Tissue that he had sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl when he was 23, before and after learning of her age, in the 1980s. This inspired him to write the song “Catholic School Girls Rule”.
Not defending anyone here, but a paedophile is someone who’s sexually attracted to prepubescent children. I believe these days it’s extended to the early stages of puberty as well.
Most girls are well over that phase at age 14.
A 23 year-old having sex with a 14 year old may be morally and legally wrong depending on culture and jurisdiction, but the cases where it’s actual paedophilia are likely a small minority.
Again, I’m not defending anyone, but calling every person who’s attracted to minors a paedophile only serves to diminish the effect of the actual ones.
I love clarifications like this! Good on ya.
Depends on how parasocial I am. Never gave much of a shit about Win Butler as a person, so I don’t really think about the shit he’s gotten up to, but the several months when I thought Conor Oberst might be a rapist were devastating
Win’s is still so tough to me. I read through each of the statements and my final thought was: he did some bad things, but nothing that’s going to get him thrown in jail. Similar to Aziz Ansari if I remember correctly. Now whether or not punishment would be morally right is another discussion, obviously our legal system is Very Flawed.
To an extent I can, like Axl is a complicated one given his mental health issues. Nothing excuses his behaviour but he seems to have grown as a person and managed to somewhat control his shittier side.
But there’s definitely a line. I can’t really enjoy rammstein or die antwoord anymore
What happened with Rammstein and Die Antwoord?
Turns out Lindemann is quite rapey, and Die Antwoord had this whole (alleged) sex slavery thing with an Australian rapper.
Seems often they’re not just making up their lyrics after all but singing from experience
Die antwoord also adopted, abused and abandoned an albino African child, Tokkie, who spoke out a few years ago. They’re truly awful and Tokkie’s documentary is worth watching.
Also Marilyn Manson has been evicted from my music library for sexual abuse. I have no interest in supporting known exploiters, and I can’t listen to their music without thinking about how awful they are as people. No regrets, there’s plenty more musicians out there worth my time.
Yeah I can. Gonna get a bit hippie on you here but it really comes down to how the art make you feel and not the artist. One personal example is jeepers creepers for me. I love that movie but victor salva is a POS that deserves to be castrated. Now another question you should ask yourself is the actual companies behind the media could be evil too, overworking their employees, underpaying them, etc…, are you going to stop watching it? A good example of this is the anime industry or some record producers
I mean, theres 3 categories for giving them a pass on their transgressions (as a fan, not legally or morally speaking) IMO.
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The art/performance was just so far beyond good that you cant deny the cultural significance. E.g Michael Jackson, Elvis, Tupac.
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You had a personal connection to the art before they did the shitty thing or before it came to light. (In my case: early Chris Brown, Kid Rock) They were big in my late teens and early 20s and I have positive memories associated with their songs. Not the percieved quality of the art.
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They had their day in court, did their time and time has passed. E.g Mark Wahlberg, I dont know the guy, I dont know if he is a good person or not these days. But the last documented occasion of him being a huge violent racist asshole is 1992… 32 years ago.
This is great. It’s not perfect, but it’s great. It feels like an impossible task but it feels more possible with a structure like this.
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Originally I thought I could, but no. Because when I listen to the music, I’m giving that artist money, attention, and power.
That results in giving them a bigger platform to spew their bigoted opinions/actions is counterintuitive to my goals. I would rather not.
If I liked them before I knew, yes. But if I knew going in, it’s hard not to think about.
I have to, otherwise I wouldnt listen to music at all…
I just try to avoid giving money to the living bad ones
