Instances where you can't separate the art from the artist. vs. instances where you can.

I feel like the Reynolds/Press book "The Sex Revolts" gets into this territory a little bit altho it is primarily concerned w/ lyrical conduct/nattartor posing as opposed to IRL horrible behavior

*narrator

https://medium.com/@leahcallahansings/if-indie-rock-had-been-called-trust-fund-rock-i-never-would-have-been-fooled-into-thinking-b20694bfe045

that looks really good, thanks

No worries, pom! I've just been trying to help keep discussion itt on the road as much as I'm able. And yeah, after the rash of revelations in recent years, I just expect at this point to be disappointed by all public figures in one way or another.

Just to clarify, Sund4r (and others), if I'm reading a manifesto written by some Julius Evola-worshipping trve black metal dude and it contains explicitly antisemitic passages, as a general rule I'm not going to argue that it's hard for me to separate the author from his screed just because I only know (of) the former through the latter. In an artistic context (including a literary one), it's trickier insofar as the artwork is endowed with a life of its own and may thus speak for itself without necessarily pointing back to its 'creator' in the way a signed open letter published in a magazine does. Yet this does not preclude the possibility, for the artist, to embed overt political slogans into their work in order to deliberately muddy the waters.

I usually give artists the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge (more readily than most listeners, I think) that hateful lyrical material can often be attributed to an edgy theatrical persona. But if you're a notorious neo-nazi activist in your day-to-day life, chances are that you're including white supremacist discursive elements in your lyrics because you want your art to stand for your ideological beliefs. Granted, art is such that, even the most explicitly political lyrics are partly transformed by their deployment in an aesthetic context, but that only works up to a point since the artist may self-consciously choose to minimize the aesthetic dimension of their art for the sake of political sloganeering, thus aggressively testing the boundaries of what we conventionally deem to be the realm of 'art'. In such instances, it is the artist who does everything within their power to ensure that the artwork will not be separated from their ideology, in which case, yes, it becomes more difficult (albeit never impossible!) to simply say 'here is the work, on the one hand, and there is the artist, on the other'.

So if I'm listening to Burzum's 'Dunkelheit' (lyrics), it's fairly easy for me to disregard everything I know about the man's politics because neither the music nor the words need that context to make sense – the song can easily stand on its own, as an instance of Dark Neo-Romanticism or whatever. Conversely (and I've used this example in the past), when Peste Noire is literally covering the Action française's chant on an album that features lead singer Famine intoning 'Sieg heil' in addition to praise directed at 'the French race', I certainly don't feel the need to separate the art from the artist, and neither does he, apparently! The message, then, is tantamount to: 'I fucking dare you to distinguish between this music and the values we openly espouse as non-artistic, political agents!' There's no winning in such a scenario if you're exclusively committed to aesthetic autonomy (and I am almost all the time).

I think for me any expression of hate towards a particular group of people is one instance where I would most decidedly get off the bus with a given artist. I don't even care how much they 'mean' it: if they're putting it out in the world, others will rally around it.

Tbc if I'm listening to a metal record and I realize, through garbled shrieks, that explicit white supremacist bullshit is being disseminated, I don't feel the need to double-check whether the band really is made up of 14 worders or not. But if you're raging at Jesus and his followers (also counts as hateful lyrical material, lest we forget), it's safe to assume we're in the presence of a hammy act.

One last thing. When I speak of the importance of giving artists the benefit of the doubt, I'm thinking of cases such as the (now totally stale) controversy surrounding the lyrics to Slayer's 'Angel of Death', which basically boils down to: 'they wrote a song from the perspective of a nazi, ergo they are nazis themselves'.

uhh doesn't sound like u wanna give Crass' "Reality Asylum" the benefit of the doubt there in yr previous post.

one barometer I use with this stuff is the useful punching up vs. punching down distinction. I have lots of time for "fuck Christianity" sentiments, but p much zero tolerance for e.g. anti-semitic "jokes" or sexism in my music.

see also: hell yes to Sun City Girls "Kill The Klansmen"

now that I think abt it, SCG are a good example of an artist where I choose to separate their sometimes pretty explicit anti-semitism from their often amazing music

Nico pretty much gets a pass doesn't she

I’m obv. cool with confrontational political lyrics that are in tune with my own beliefs. I do tend to find such songs kind of hollow, though.

Haven't read through the thread, but great idea. I was talking about this constantly with various friends around the time Chuck Berry died.

Generally--generally--I'm still okay with the art when I find out the person who made it did (or said, or thought) x, y, or z. When it comes down to cases there are exceptions, with many factors involved...time has a lot to do with it; the farther you recede into the past, the less likely I am to be bothered.

the Avi Buffalo story was gutting.

that's a good example of an act where the lyrics were enjoyably morose and cutting, and as someone with a self-loathing streak a mile wide, there's some identification at work (gulp), but then you learn something of the author's character and it colors them differently forever, as with Brand New. (who, tbh, I still listen to, but only the latter-day albums - the really emo stuff is unbearable for me now)

Yeah I didn't particularly associate Avi Buffalo with self-loathing but I agree that it's the identification thing that's a big factor in whether I can separate art and artist or not. The other thing that makes a difference is that it was against a bandmate.

Time is of course the other big thing, both in terms whether the offence/offensiveness occurred contemporaneously with the art, and just the distance at which you're seeing it. I'm surely more relaxed about enjoying Gauguin's paintings than I would be if he was born 100 years later.

Maybe if I discovered Avi Buffalo's music in 2070 rather than now I could appreciate it.

When I was a teenager, I strongly identified with the bands I looked up to, an attitude that progressively mutated into partial identification with the persona(s) being projected by the music itself. Fwiw I've never wanted to meet my favourite artists, since it's their art I care about in the first place.

once i was walking near my old apartment in brooklyn and bob dylan jumped out of the shadows and yelled "boo!," startling me and causing me to fall backwards and suffer a concussion. still like his music but you know

This seems to be tied so much to vocals. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they wouldn't listen to a Phil Spector production because he left a gun lying around so that a houseguest carelessly tripped and fell onto it murdered someone, yet his sonic fingerprint is all over Be My Baby etc. The guy's an absolute monster, yet people are worrying more about Thurston Moore because they feel like he was their friend or something.

I feel like an this point I've read at least a book's worth of post about people rationale for listening listening to Burzum or not. remember being pretty blown away when I got curious and was like THIS is what people tie themselves in knots about?

Do you like black metal at all?

I avoid Phil Spector stuff (fortunately it’s pretty easy).

xpost not that much here and there something sticks

I will say Burzum's Nazism is kind of brilliant marketing because it tends to obscure the fact he's a sociopath and murderer

not a monster on the scale of Thurston Moore but still

Brand New. (who, tbh, I still listen to, but only the latter-day albums - the really emo stuff is unbearable for me now)

― get a mop and a bucket for this Well Argued Prose (Simon H.), Saturday, September 26, 2020 6:13 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

what really ruined the whole thing for me was relistening to “jesus”

xp lol

Vikernes no longer describes himself as a nazi, he's just an Odinist now. Phew, crisis averted!

Anyway, I've also said this elsewhere but: I would never purchase Burzum merch, let alone wear any. And while I do still listen to his stuff (including his later albums, which mostly suck), I neither buy nor stream anything by him.

i mean obv jesse lacey’s actions ruined the whole thing for me, but that successfully destroyed the idea i’d be able to return to their music, even the songs i loved the most (“1996”) with any kind of distance

I'm not sure I would be still be mad at Moore for cheating on Gordon even if I were their friend.

I find De Sade interesting because after all the conversations about whether to ban his work had finished, this thread's conversation never really came up. Everyone knows going in that he's a monster and that seems to be fairly consistent with his work.

I would have thought Charles Manson would be similar but I don't know if his music was violent. Of course he is nearer to us in time and some people who should seem to know better had a weird idolization of him.

if I was listening to someone's record and they were outside murdering someone, I'd let the album play until the murder was complete, to give them the chance to stop murdering

now, what about musicians who have actually killed people with their music

I mean, 'Enter Sandman' was repurposed as a torture device at Guantanamo Bay.

I'm not sure I would be still be mad at Moore for cheating on Gordon even if I were their friend.

I think it works the opposite way, no? If you’re someone’s friend, you have something invested in working through the fact that they may have been a jerk, and continuing the (actual) relationship.

If your only relationship with an artist is their music, and you get a negative association whenever you think about listening to it (for whatever reason at all), it’s easy to just put on something else.

When a friend bores me, I put on something else.

But why would an artist's infidelity and breakup give you a negative association if your only relationship with them is with their music? To feel that way, you'd have to have something invested in them as people, even if the relationship is just in your head (which it p much definitely would be).

re: brand new i also found it impossible to go back to them after everything came out about jesse's actions. when there's so much lyrical self-loathing in his work but you find out he's actually done monstrous things that really completely changes the context

i still wouldn't have wanted to go back after those revelations even if that wasn't part of their music but it does just make it feel worse to hear again if that makes any sense

Manson's music sucks ass just private press hippie garbage

But why would an artist's infidelity and breakup give you a negative association if your only relationship with them is with their music?

Old Lunch and others have given some reasons!

Beyond that, I don’t think the reasons really matter. IMO, no one needs to justify listening to Chuck Berry or Phil Spector or whoever (well, I dunno about Charles Manson...); but, also, no one needs to justify saying “Ehhhhh...” when it comes to an artist who once licked a donut, or said something they didn’t like in an interview once, etc.

I feel like an this point I've read at least a book's worth of post about people rationale for listening listening to Burzum or not. remember being pretty blown away when I got curious and was like THIS is what people tie themselves in knots about?

This x1000. Even judged by the standards of black metal, Burzum music is...not good.

Any, uh, Lostprophets (ex-)fans here? I've never heard their music and I sure as hell won't be checking it out now (in part because I don't care for nu metal/emo to begin with), but I do wonder how the fanbase reacted upon finding out.

Even judged by the standards of black metal

Hey, at least you're not camouflaging your bias.

Old Lunch and others have given some reasons!

They are all reasons that involve some kind of projected investment in the artist as a person.

which is fair enough but I think it's equally fair in that case for me to make a comparison of how I imagine I'd feel if I had an actual personal connection to the artist.

I never really got into Burzum's music either but I do love a lot of the music on Transilvanian Hunger, which has some deplorable lyrical messages.

Fenriz and Nocturno Culto have since issued an official apology, which helps (a bit).

Yeah, probably also that the lyrics are screamed unintelligibly in a language I don't speak

That too. Betcha BM lyrics would be significantly less edgy on average if clean singing were the norm.

For all I know, they're actually singing the words to "Don't Stop Believin'" and just writing some shit in the printed 'lyrics'.

I believe it.