Do you have to like the artist/musician if you like the music?

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buckie

Well-Known Radge
Joined
Apr 26, 2008
or to put it another way can you detest and artist/musician/composers character but still love their music?


I was watching Stephen Fry on Wagner last night which was an interesting programme, Wagner is Fry's all time favourite composer but as a Jew he has problems with Wagners rabid anti-semitism, aryan philosiphies and adoptation and musical association with Hitler.

However despite this Fry still loves Wagner and describes his music as a thing of beauty.


Best personal example of this I can think of is The Who, they have always been one of my favourite bands and Pete Towsend was probably my favourite songwriter but after his flirtation with child pornography i find it very difficult to listen to them anymore and I find it hard to put that to one side.
 
Best to keep both sides of their persona seperate.

If the person is actively doing something like gassing jews or supporting/propagating it in some way then it's hard to ignore.

However, you're better not knowing your heros because they'll probably never be what you want them to be.

Yep, we're still waiting on Townsend's book. But, we're still waiting to hear any evidence about it. It just stinks in all directions to me.

I quite like and respect what Phil Spektor created and did for music but from all accounts he's completely mental & a murderer. I dissasociate these seperate phases of his life.

Not sure I've answered your question.

You can probably learn a lot from the opposition.
 
Interesting question, I've had the same dilemma with Sizzla of reggae / dancehall fame. Incredible, irresistable music (for me anyway) but banned from the UK for extreme homophobia (which he has since denounced iirc).
 
Michael Jackson = fecking weirdo but.....he was the king of pop and i love all his songs :smug:
 
Used to think Oasis were very good but never liked Liam, I think if I met him and he behaved in his normal way he'd get kicked all over the place.
 
The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Amazingly talented songwriter with something like 15 albums. But the guy is a fucking crackpot.

If you've ever watched the documentary Dig! you'll know. If you aint then you have to see it to belive what he is like.

Cracking band though.
 
emphatically not. i've never understood it. i still know people who insist that Bono is not the enemy of all that is decent, simply because they like the unforgettable fire.

never understood it. myself I tend to assume the default position that pop stars and footballers are arses until they demonstrate otherwise.
 
As someone who has been a music lover since childhood, I have always taken the view that I care not one jot about what an artist/performer is like as a person, or what they are alleged to have done according to the media. I am only interested in what they do in a recording studio, and what they do on a stage.
 
egb_hibs said:
emphatically not. i've never understood it. i still know people who insist that Bono is not the enemy of all that is decent, simply because they like the unforgettable fire.

never understood it. myself I tend to assume the default position that pop stars and footballers are arses until they demonstrate otherwise.
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thats an unusually simplistic point for you. I think it goes much deeper than that. Without wanting to sound pompous or over reacting the fact that Pete Townsend seems to have had interest in child porn devastated me. The Who were one of my favourite bands grown up and as a sulky teenager I believed Townsends lyrics meant something to me and their was a connection with my life. Every time I felt down about life or a bird or whatever I always put on Quadropenia and it made me feel like they understood. Sitting alone in my bedroom with the curtains drawn and the door locked Pete Towsens lyrics seemed to eruditely articulate how I felt and id imagine that of millions of other teenagers too, I was not alone and it was comforting to know what i felt was real and others felt it too. Looking back now of course I know that i was an average teenager who was cocooned from the realities of life and had a very comfortable exsitence but to look back on those memories that felt so real and to think the man who spoke to me and told me I was "one" was someone who admitted to looking at child porn on a regular basis, well it makes me feel cheated. It maked me feel that my memories are tarnished and it makes those songs that meant so much until recently and could still put a shiver down my spine, well it makes those songs sound meaningless and hollow.
 
I'm not really into lyrics Buckie, it's all about the tune for me. Thats not 100% the case, but in most pop songs they could be reading from the telephone directory for all the difference it makes to me.

That said, I can get your point; I trust you'd agree on footballers though. :worthy
 
I like Pete Doherty himself and his music. I think he is a very vulnerable and sensitive person that is quickly shamed by the media making up untrue stories about him just so the journalists have something to put on their editor's desk in the morning.

Back to the thread topic, my favourite ever band is Metallica, and they have been for years. Saying that, I think their drummer, Lars Ulrich, is an arrogant and selfish man. The rest of them are awesome though.

I like Oasis too, but Im not a huge fan of Liam Ghallagher. Noel seems better though.

So to answer your question, then no, I believe you do not have to like the artist just to like their music.
 
Wee Delting said:
I like Pete Doherty himself and his music. I think he is a very vulnerable and sensitive person that is quickly shamed by the media making up untrue stories about him just so the journalists have something to put on their editor's desk in the morning.

Back to the thread topic, my favourite ever band is Metallica, and they have been for years. Saying that, I think their drummer, Lars Ulrich, is an arrogant and selfish man. The rest of them are awesome though.

I like Oasis too, but Im not a huge fan of Liam Ghallagher. Noel seems better though.

So to answer your question, then no, I believe you do not have to like the artist just to like their music.
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I agree with you about Lars Ulrich, I was at the Metallica concert in Belfast Oddysey a few weeks back and at the end of the show the band came out and leaned in the crowd and shook hands and and hugged audience members, not lars though, he stood back drinking beer and spitting it into the audience.
 
I was at the gig in Glasgow last year, he was alright then, he threw his drumsticks out to the crowd. But what you've just said makes me think he's getting worse. He's clearly only in it for the money, but if it weren't for the fans, I wonder if he'd be so fcucking smug. I think he feels he's in James (Hetfield)'s shadow. No one could ever replace the mighty Het!
 
I'm in the dark as to what Pete Towsend actually did. The polis didn't charge him with anything so maybe his story had some truth to it. Someone like g*ry gl*tt*r who was caught and convicted is a whole other matter. I liked Mike Leander's sound so listen to the glitter band if I want a fix of that big drum sound.

On the other hand I don't like PeDo (Pete Docherty) but strangely enough find his music compulsively dull - anyone that age who wants to make such old fashioned music gives me the creeps. I met Damon Albarn once and he was a complete knob-(student)-end but funnily enough I already hated his music and his middle class piss-take/appropriation of a working class image.
 
snoots said:
I'm in the dark as to what Pete Towsend actually did. The polis didn't charge him with anything so maybe his story had some truth to it. Someone like g*ry gl*tt*r who was caught and convicted is a whole other matter. I liked Mike Leander's sound so listen to the glitter band if I want a fix of that big drum sound.

On the other hand I don't like PeDo (Pete Docherty) but strangely enough find his music compulsively dull - anyone that age who wants to make such old fashioned music gives me the creeps. I met Damon Albarn once and he was a complete knob-(student)-end but funnily enough I already hated his music and his middle class piss-take/appropriation of a working class image.
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I think he did get charged and then cautioned but its naive of you to think his explanation was sufficient.

If I seen you going into a barbers shop I would assume only one thing, that you were getting a haircut

If a man goes onto child porn websites (even a "researching" musician) I assume only one thing, that he's a nonce
 
The man going into the barber shop might be getting something for the weekend.

As I say I'm honestly in the dark as to the outcome of PT's case.
 
snoots said:
The man going into the barber shop might be getting something for the weekend.

As I say I'm honestly in the dark as to the outcome of PT's case.
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Im pretty sure he admitted viewing child porn on the internet and thats enough for me.
 
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