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.
Generally I don’t have a hard time separating the art from the artist. And it’s probably bad and selfish, but if I had to stop listening to David Bowie, Eric Clapton, and John Lennon, I’d be so depressed. The world is deeply shitty, so I’m hanging on to whatever happiness I can find. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What thoses artists did ?
Eric Clapton is super racist, John Lennon abandoned his kid.
But what about Bowie? Why his name being dragged through the mud
I had to look this up, didn’t know about Bowie. He had underage groupies, at least as young as 15 (Lori Mattix). Apparently she remembers that time fondly, but today we would rightly call it coercion and pedophilia. She was treated kindly, probably given all the drugs she “wanted”, but that’s still a child.
There’s a counter argument about how later in life, he refused a kissing scene between him and Jennifer Connelly during Labyrinthe, and that shows he understands the age gap is wrong.
I don’t regularly listen to David Bowie. I can sometimes separate the art from artist, but I’m now gonna have trouble knowing he was having sex with (raping) a 15 year old girl.
For real I feel like Bowie is a poster star of trying to do his best to do good in the world with his wealth and fame
Yes I do this very easily. I listen to music and don’t spend any time at all learning about the artists.
deleted by creator
Yeah there’s definitely a line there for me.
I don’t care if they are an asshole. They’re just people at the end of the day.
But I can’t listen to lost prophets or Gary glitter.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
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.
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.
Already didn’t like Steven Tyler, but that’s news to me.
Guess he’ll never change my mind now.
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?”
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.
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.
No. I also learned to not be a fan of anyone. I dislike people in general.
Yes. It’s fine.
Yeah, just do a little piracy
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
There is so much music now, once I found out an artist doesn’t align with my values it’s easy to drop them.
Billy Corgan is that guy for me. He comes off as a total asshole in every interview I’ve listened to him give.
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.
I think it’s crucial…
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.
