Specifically Marilyn Manson and Kanye West. Am I overthinking this?
Explain Manson pls
Is Marilyn Manson a dick? I thought they were just weird.
He groomed and allegedly raped an 18 year old.
Ok, fuck him.
Nah, he’s always gone beyond weird. Even back before the band got famous, he was a major asshole to people and abusive. If you can find people that were in the scene back then, it wasn’t even secret; some of the early fans were proud if he did something shitty to them.
It depends, mostly on yourself and how you feel about it. Most artists have shown some form of shitty behaviour - Dave Grohl cheated on his wife for example. Is that enough to stop listening to his music? Probably not. Kanye West released a song called “Heil Hitler”…is that enough? Probably, but does that also count for his older songs? You decide. No one else can.
I’ve never felt guilty for consuming media of people who have done bad things; it’s not that it’s not important to have integrity, I just assume everyone I could consume media from has and does, and the difference is that I’ll either never know, or don’t know yet.
We can’t just throw away historical and culturally significant works because the creator(s) are terrible, in part because broken, complicated, terrible people make these works because that’s where the creative energy is.
If they get even a cent from you, then you are funding their crap. Also whatever you don’t like about them will certainly be part of their art. If that doesn’t bother you, then sure, enjoy what you want.
I can’t, personally. Same with any art. Kanye can get fucked. Manson can get fucked. Pantera can get fucked. Neil Gaiman can get fucked.
Some are harder to walk away from than others though. Sandman and Death were two of the first comic book characters that I ever got to read complete stories of and not just random back issues. But I’ll never be able to look at another Gaiman creation again without thinking about everything.
Others are easier to leave behind. Bands like Pantera always came across as macho dickheads that beat up kids for listening to heavy metal back in school anyway. So I feel nothing saying nazi metalheads fuck off
What’s the problem with Pantera? I know almost nothing about them aside from an album plus a few singles
Phil Anselmo, singer of Pantera, in 2016:
And seeing that made me feel stupid for never picking up on the white power undertones in their music before. Honestly it’s made me feel something not good about a lot of metal bands in general since, considering that this very year, Metallica, Slayer and Pantera were still happily touring alongside each other as opening acts for Black Sabbath’s 20th final tour.
Thank you. That’s a shame. I was hoping it was one of the newer members of the band, but nope, he joined in the 80s.
Him and fans try to play it off as a joke, but it definitely means something when you keep making the same kinds of jokes and not changing after the first time people tell you it’s terrible
YMMV. There is no universal answer to this question. None of us separate the artist entirely from the work and thus our enjoyment of it. I think of it in video game terms. Every artist has a power bar. They can get hit a couple of times and can still be tolerated when they’re in the yellow. But once we’re in the red zone and the character starts getting translucent or is flashing I’m out. This is all very subjective though.
Marylin Manson went red for me and I scrubbed the songs I liked from my playlists. Michael Jackson also. But I continue to listen to The Smiths/Morrissey in spite of Morrissey’s politics. I still enjoy Pink Floyd although Walters and Gilmore are profoundly unlikable characters and Walter’s politics rub me the wrong way a lot of the time.
In the age of streaming, there isn’t a lot of money going to the artist. You’re not really supporting them financially if you enjoy their music in spite of any a-holery, moral or criminal, they may have committed. If you get something out of it, continue to do so. If it feels yucky then I’m gonna guess one more hit is putting the character in the red. And if you paid for the music/album, the “damage” is already done.
I’m glad I was never a big fan of Kanye’s œuvre so I don’t have to wrestle with this question about him. I think he would have done enough to drain his power bar thrice over and thus it’s game over for me. I wish he had more well meaning people around him who could help him to protect himself from himself.
When you said video game you brought to mind a broader context for me. We often associate “a name” (musician, CEO, comedian, etc.) with a brand. But when you truly think of the number of people and entire industry involved in producing said art, it becomes a somewhat different question. Not necessarily easier to answer, and I really like your health bar analogy. I think to some extent it depends on what you personally are getting out of your interaction with the product.
Always a fascinating philosophical question to ponder.
Sometimes it can be difficult to separate the art from the artist, particularly when the artist in question is especially vile.
Just pirate their music. Don’t stream it, don’t go to their concerts, don’t buy and wear their merch. As long as you’re not financially contributing to them then I don’t think there’s any issue.
It also, like CaptainPedantic said, matters what they’re singing about. If the artist has shitty views but doesn’t present them in their music that’s one thing but there’s no ethical way to listen to something called Heil Hitler.
Sometimes it can be difficult to separate the art from the artist, particularly when the artist in question is especially vile.
I often bring up Death of the Artist, but with books and music I have an especially hard time. Authors, in particular, struggle to keep their works views and politics out of their books; the same is true with musicians, perhaps to a lesser extent.
It does make me worry about the subconscious influences of listening or reading them.
I think that if “death of the artist” was applicable to any piece of art, then the art would therefore be the equivalent of AI art.
Art by it’s very nature is influenced by someone’s views and beliefs.
The only possible exception is that some artists may drastically change their views later and even denounce previous work.
Edit: I also think it’s worth pointing out that you can like the way someone represents/expresses their viewpoints even if you disagree with said viewpoints, you just have to be aware of the viewpoints presence and potential effects.
I agree; I do think, especially with fiction and reading for leisure, that it’s easy to forget about the author’s beliefs. And often they’re expressed subtly, and… well, when I first read Ender’s Game, I had no idea who OSC was, much less his religious and political beliefs.
Reading Ayn Rand is easy: her writing is unapologetically blatant; it’s like reading those Christian comics where all of the Evil Characters are drawn so over-the-top that there’s no question. But I know my political beliefs today were influenced by my reading as a youth, and I know that I had no idea I was ingesting and being influenced by it at the time.
I think there’s a Dunning-Kruger effect for propaganda, as there is with torture. Many people believe they could withstand torture, or concerted brainwashing, or recognize and be uninfluenced by propaganda, whereas almost nobody can.
You can still stream it; just use a modded app like YouTube Music ReVanced to block ads and the artist’s record label won’t get a penny from you.
(Unless of course Google pays royalties by view count rather than ad revenue. Not entirely sure how that works. Just wanted to point out that YTM ReVanced is a thing)
In my mind, as long as you’re not listening to a horrific song (like Kanye’s Heil Hitler), and as long as they’re not seeing a penny from you listening to them, then I don’t think it’s a huge issue. You’re getting something from them while screwing them out of some money.
like Kanye’s Heil Hitler
Wait, what??? I thought this was a joke, so I just looked it up. I have no words…
You and me both.
I don’t think so. You’re always going to remember. You can be good at pushing it down. But it’s always going to be in the back of your mind. Just depends how skilled you are at ignoring that part of your mind really.
The earthworm considers the hawk to be vile.
The hawk is a terrible digger and crawler. The hawk can’t appreciate composted vegetable scraps. Those big flappy wings and dangling claws, so ugly.
My point is, the world is large and you are small. So be humble, you are probably wrong about everything.
Well there is enjoying an artists music and there is supporting an artist and defending them. But you have to decide when to cut off an, “abusive relationship”. I can hold a person and artist in separate spaces. A love a lot of music, literature, art that was created by terrible people but try and avoid giving those people my attention and money. Also don’t get caught up in tabloid crap, someone’s mistakes caught on camera or tweeted and they later regret is not the same as a horrible person repeatedly hurting others. Media is paid by anger.
The bigger problem with Rowling is how she rubs it in everyone’s face that any money going towards her is spent on hate speech/groups.
Yup. It’s very easy indeed.
Pirate the fuck out of their stuff, enjoy, repeat.
The artist is smarter than you.
I listen to Die Antwoord still and read the poetry of Anne Sexton. The former is because I think some of the accusations against them are exaggerated, and part of their whole act IS being jerks. The latter is because what she did was clearly in the throes of her severe bipolar disorder which was long before they had any good medications.
Okay Die Antwood is interesting to me. I listen to a lot of obscure indie bands from South Africa. I have a few South African compilation CD’s. One track on one of those CD’s was Be Kind to Animals by Max Normal. I had some coworker reccommend Die Antwood because I said I liked South African music. I was reading about Die Antwood only to realize they’re the same artist. I couldn’t believe some obscure track on some 2001 compilation CD turned out to be by one of the biggest South African artists. Yeah the dude is a real asshole from what I’ve read.
Apparently South Africans are NOT fans of the band despite their success. I think what Tokkie claims about them sounds made up, apparently he’s an addict and trying to extort them is their take on it. It just doesn’t sound truthful at all.
Yeah I can’t imagine South Africans appreciating Ninja daying racism is a thing of the past or whatever he said. What was Tokkie claiming exactly? I remember someone claiming they were harassed by Ninja, is that what you’re refrencing? I remember reading about it it but don’t remember the exact specifics. Disclaimer, I am not South African so I don’t claim to speak for them.
Tokkie claims he was sexually and physically abused by them and made into a slave. None of the sources seem very well sourced, it’s just based on a video he made, and they state that he’s an addict and trying to extort them for drug money. Capetown child welfare workers went to their house to see if their daughter Sixteen is ok, and apparently had no problems with them. I take abuse seriously but what he’s saying seems super farfetched and made up. I don’t think they’re great people exactly, but their characters are obviously an act and they’re middle aged parents under it all.
