Can you separate the artist as a person from the music?
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 depends on the person, what they’ve done, if they’ve been convicted and individual tolerance.
Many people shrug when they learn that John Lennon was an abusive asshole who used to beat his wife. Many more wilfully let Chris Brown back into the industry after how badly he beat the shit out of Rihanna. Even artists like Michael Jackson and R Kelly managed to avoid child molestation accusations for years, and likewise more people rushed to cancel 6ix9ine for snitching on the Nine Trey Gangsters than they did when he was convicted of doing inappropriate sexual things to a 13 year old girl and somehow only landing probation.
Then you have truly bad cases like Ian Watkins, former leader singer of LostProphets. The band had effectively been disavowed from the moment of his arrest.
So many musicians and other artists are not only complete assholes, but also complete morons. But, I don’t listen to their music for their antics or their intelligence, I listen for the music.
I still listen to Johnny Craig and the Lost Prophets even though I know how horrible they are in real life. Because to me, the music is about the feeling that it elicits in me, not about the creator. I don’t care who made a thing, I care about the thing.
Edit: that said, I’ve not purchased music by those two, and instead pirated it.
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)_/¯
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.
Just today I wanted to show a friend UnDeadwood, a western horror one shot by the critical role crew, and learned they’ve removed ALL content with Brian W. Foster because he turned out to be an abusive piece of shit. I understand it on a certain level, but at the same time that’s an INSANE amount of actually amazing content just gone because one dude turned out to be a piece of shit.
Unless you’re around your more sanctimonious friends, then you can but you’ll never hear the end of it, and they won’t apologize when, after deriding you for hours, it turns out Bob Dylan wasn’t even in the same country at the time he was accused of committing those improprieties.
This is the first band that came to mind when I saw this thread. Even though I liked their music when it came out, I would feel gross listening to it now.
Same. I listen to a few bands that have had a member accused of sexual assault and of emotional abuse.
But Lostprophets are beyond tainted because Watkins is one of the most deranged convicted paedos in British legal history. It’s impossible for me to separate his music from his utterly sick crimes. Gary Glitter is up there too.
If I like the song then I don’t care who the artist is but if I really don’t like the artist and feel so strongly about it that I want to make a statement then I simply don’t listen to them.
I mean, theres 3 categories for giving them a pass on their transgressions (as a fan, not legally or morally speaking) IMO.
The art/performance was just so far beyond good that you cant deny the cultural significance. E.g Michael Jackson, Elvis, Tupac.
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.
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.
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