Albums you own or used to own from artists that turned out to be awful people.

Another one which I used to love is the debut from Crystal Castles. Always suspected Ethan was awful but not to that degree. I’m still conflicted about it because some of their songs are really good.

several rock n roll artists liked underage girls a bit too much: Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis...

You might remember Chuck did prison time for having sex with a 14 year old and then for videotaping women in bathrooms in his restaurant. Seems people forget how much of a creep he was...
there’s an interesting NPR article about it:
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/07/15/422964981/the-cruel-truth-about-rock-and-roll

I hate that I can reconcile drawing the line for some artists and not others. I guess it really depends on how much I liked them before I learned their stories, and that's a bullshit excuse.

I've never given a damn about R. Kelly. When people flip over Ignition (Remix), I roll my damn eyes.

But Bowie or Marvin Gaye or John Lennon or Jimmy Page? I fucking hate myself that I still freely listen to them all.

re: Jerry Lee Lewis

This story about the death of his wife got waaaaay buried over the years, because I only learned about it a few months ago. He probably got away with an actual murder.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/the-strange-and-mysterious-death-of-mrs-jerry-lee-lewis-19840301

What did Bowie do?

https://jezebel.com/what-should-we-say-about-david-bowie-and-lori-maddox-1754533894

What the fuck? how is that story not more famous?

I’ve never liked John Lennon myself, even as a kid most of the Lennon songs felt icky to me, his whole hippie schtick ‘all you need is love’ mantra never fooled me.

Jimmy Page also conflicts me because what he was doing was terrible, pretty much raping and abusing an underage girl. But I like LZ music too much.

Wait what did Bowie and Gaye do? I’m not sure I want to know... this thread was a bad idea

http://nypost.com/2015/05/03/marvin-gayes-wife-revealed-how-he-tortured-her/

I’ve never liked John Lennon myself, even as a kid most of the Lennon songs felt icky to me, his whole hippie schtick ‘all you need is love’ mantra never fooled me.

That his better songs are generally his more abrasive is no coincidence.

Phil Spector, definitely. He's universally hailed as one of the greatest producers of all time, but he actually killed someone! Plus he has a large history of being an abusive prick who pulls out a gun when women refuse his advances

But I still really like everything on Back to Mono? Idk, maybe it's mitigated by the fact that he was just the guy twiddling knobs in the background and never the star of the show like Ronnie Spector

Actually not everything on it - forgot about "he hit me," that ones inexcusable

lol

thread idea is kind of silly but lets run with it

whats more interesting is how many ppl refuse to believe that the artists they listen to did do contentiously awful/bad things

eg michael jackson and like probably over 50% of artists/musicians (if were counting sleeping with groupies and doing drugs)

Yeah was going to mention Spector. There are songs like John Lennon’s Imagine which would have been huge with or without him and in the case of Let It Be he actually worsened the songs imho.

Not sure if the Ronettes would have been as huge without his touch though, he also wrote ‘be my baby’ iirc and that one’s their biggest hit.

i remember reading in an interview (possibly playboy?) that bowie gave mccartney or lennon head or something at like age 12 which would make either of the other two older than 16

also laurel canyon scene in the 60s/70s was filled with dirty rumours

(X-post)

What? Sounds crazy.

Sounds like bullshit to me.

of course it is ffs

Anyhow, I'm sure the correct answer to the thread title is "pretty much the majority of them"

i remember reading in an interview (possibly playboy?) that bowie gave mccartney or lennon head or something at like age 12 which would make either of the other two older than 16

I understand ILM is not the New York Times, but maybe we need a bit more substantiation before making highly inflammable accusations that name names, based on an interview you "remember reading."

okay prince of wales

Any reason for 12 year old Brixton schoolboy, David Jones, to be hanging about in Liverpool in the late 50s?

He maybe waiting for his man.

Waiting for his nan, more like.

My cousn’s good friend’s sister’s aunt said she read somewhere that all the Bowie stuff happened in Hamburg. So it’s settled.

I have two triple vinyl albums by Swans which set me back a fair whack and which I used to enjoy a lot and even still put on on occasion. but each time I do, i just can't separate the music from the man following the assault accusations against Michael Gira. As people have said upthread, there's a hypocrisy at work here, since I'll happily listen to music by a whole swathe of terrible people

i love his records dearly but i have no doubt at all that john martyn was a deeply horrible man

led zeppelin

I'm still listening to Gary Glitter, to be honest, though the Glitter Band albums were much better.

(if were counting sleeping with groupies and doing drugs)

― i n f i n i t y (∞), Sunday, 12 November 2017 18:11 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you are such a fucking moron that you'd literally place these two things on a parallel?

It's been interesting trying to quantify how greatly the reports of Jesse Lacey's (of the band Brand New) misbehavior has affected my ability to enjoy his music. The results have been ...intermittent

how does Lou Reed fit into all this

Like a sack of rancid shit. He's up there with Lennon re violence towards women.

hey i had this name first xp

I had already bought a ticket to see Ariel Pink before the reports about the first show on the tour where he straddled his partner Charles on stage emerged. I knew he had made a lot of regressive comments in the press, and to some extent misogyny is written into the music anyway. But the stories about that show gave me some pause. I still ended up going, and while I was glad there was no physical abuse, real or feigned, taking place on stage, I also found it kind of a lackluster affair. He'd been more engaging at earlier shows where his behavior was more narcissistic (stage diving, drinking a lot, insulting the audience through a veil of echo on his microphone). I sort of WANT that from him. The dynamic of attraction and repulsion to what he does is part of what makes it compelling.

I was thinking about this too after seeing Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie a couple of weeks ago. At the show Buckingham talked a lot about a "karmic circle" that reunited him and McVie and thanked the audience for sharing in it, more than once. But the moment that seemed more truthful was when McVie mentioned sending her song ideas to him, with Buckingham basically altering them totally. He was vaguely defensive in his response before roaring that, as he does, "I had my way." This is all performance too (it was a very good performance!), but Buckingham was clearly playing on a publicly aired history of abusive, or at least aggressive, behavior.

For a more direct answer to the thread question: I actually did sell my handful of Flaming Lips albums some time after Erykah Badu complained that they'd exploited her nude images in a video, and Wayne Coyne responded with total flippancy. I can't remember if this was the main reason now, but over time the "niceness" of stuff like Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots had grown to seem disingenuous.

michael gira

a low cloud in this thread :p

I think you have to assume that just about all mid-70s rock stars were having sex with underage groupies and were therefore committing statutory rape

JFC, I'd totally missed that there was a sequel to Mystikal's story

http://www.xxlmag.com/video/2017/09/mystikal-indicted-grand-jury-charges-rape-kidnapping/

I think you have to assume that just about all mid-70s rock stars were having sex with underage groupies and were therefore committing statutory rape

Yes, and before the mid-70s too.

This thread is quite timely. 70s punk band Crisis are playing reunion gigs at the moment. At the time they were around they were hard left, but the various members went on to bands like Death in June, Sol Invictus and Above the Ruins, the last one were a full on Nazi band on compilations with Skrewdriver. I'm not sure who is actually in the current line up but I don't think I can in good conscience go and see them. I do listen to some of the artists in this thread and other completely reprehensible people who made music I like but I usually justify this by just illegally downloading it so I'm not financially supporting them. This often feels like a cop out though.

One of the rationalizations I've read from numerous people is that if you're listening to, say, James Brown, he's not openly singing about punching women and that makes it easier to commit to the separation of art from artist. In R. Kelly's case, every time he mentions sex, you know he's talking about a 15 year old.

Here's a more obscure one: I used to have an album by the '90s Chicago post-punk band Trenchmouth, probably best known for having a pre-SNL Fred Armisen on drums. A few years ago one of their guitarists, then a college professor, turned out to be a pedophile. I recommend not reading any details of the case beyond what is contained in that article.

For me the big one that fits the bill here is Warren Zevon. After reading I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, the bio written by his ex wife, I️ find it hard to listen to his music anymore. He was such a horrible, mean, irredeemable prick. Close to evil as a drunk, and nearly as bad when he got sober.

wonder if his #1 fan Dave Letterman knew about all that

(if were counting sleeping with groupies and doing drugs)

― i n f i n i t y (∞), Sunday, 12 November 2017 18:11 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you are such a fucking moron that you'd literally place these two things on a parallel?

― imago, Sunday, November 12, 2017 12:22 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i only allow your comments because you suck my socks' dicks fella

Oh shit, I just remembered that Greg Graffin (Bad Religion) got busted after jerking it in video chatrooms for teenage girls over a period of years. Google tells me that was in 2005. Didn't think it was that long ago.

70s punk band Crisis are playing reunion gigs at the moment. At the time they were around they were hard left, but the various members went on to bands like Death in June, Sol Invictus and Above the Ruins, the last one were a full on Nazi band on compilations with Skrewdriver. I'm not sure who is actually in the current line up but I don't think I can in good conscience go and see them.

This line-up of Crisis has just one original member, Tony Wakeford who used to be in the NF and went on to play in DIJ, Sol Invictus and Above the Ruins. Not a very nice man and most of his musical output is pretty sub-par as well. I As for DIJ, I'm still a big fan of their earlier material but haven't listened to his later stuff in years.

Amanda Hess weighs in: "How the Myth of the Artistic Genius Excuses the Abuse of Women. To some, assessing an artist’s work in light of his biography is blasphemous. But it’s time to do away with the idea that they’re separate."

What a shame ... Trenchmouth was a way better band than lost prophets

for almost the same length of time as 'bait lj' has been around tbh

it's always with <3 from mookie though (i think)

Three counter examples :

Josh homme kicking olivieri out the band for physically abusing nick's girlfriend.

― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, November 13, 2017 1:27 PM (three weeks ago)

cf. Josh Homme kicking a photographer in the face :(

Jeezus that vid. Just an unprovoked blow to the head while she's photographing.

The kick, cutting himself, flipping off the crowd, yelling "fuck Muse"...scary behavior

eh, comparatively speaking, the other stuff is typical dumbass rockstar posturing. is he usually above that sort of behavior?

No but all of it put together...

yeah this harshed my mellow for sure, was OFTM

His between-song patter at Wembley a few weeks back was pretty damned weird. I know he fucked his leg and his arm before the tour, he was limping offstage at the end of the gig, I wonder if he's on lots of pain meds? Not excusing his shitty, shitty behaviour at the KROQ thing, of course.

Ryan Adams to the list.

Reading that Ellen Sander article about Led Zeppelin fucked me up.

I'm not a critic so I can afford to engage with music at the expense of the cultural discourse that surrounds it (and which I tend to find exhausting). Musicians' lives don't matter all that much to me, barring an exception or two.

I own all 21 of Bill Cosby's stand-up albums.

I can’t see all of this positive Porno for Pyros press without bringing to mind what a predatory, manipulative c*nt Perry Farrell is/was, by many accounts. I’ve ditched the Jane’s albums I liked.

This thread title erases those of us who actually seek out albums by artists after we learn that they are awful people.

is there a guide somewhere that says which black metal musicians are fascist/white nationalists

there's no public database because people don't want to make an official nsbm directory

I have seen various lists come and go in the past they're hard to find now and would be outdated and incomplete. encyclopaedia metallum will say if a band has obvious nazi lyrical themes but you have to look the bands up

(I mostly find it too hard work to bother and I don't trust most metal fans not to downplay or deny the extent of this shit esp when bands aren't card carrying national socialists but have links with those who are or like to play around with the themes and imagery in plausible deniable ways)

a considerate answer, thank you!

Checked with a friend who knows about these things, he says

Usually checking Metal Archives will give you some good clues, if not explicitly saying. Common Red flags are nationalism, paganism, history - especially when they’re together. Also check the members other bands and the record labels for more clues.

Or Google ‘x-band nsbm’!

Multiple threads on the topic here: https://www.reddit.com/r/rabm/

I was bummed out that nobody made a list of nazi black metal shitheads for Discogs so I’m giving it a whirl. Prepared for flammage.

I just recently got caught up on the Michael Milosh (Rhye) allegations, ugh

I just recently got caught up on the Michael Milosh (Rhye) allegations, ugh

― jaymc

Yeah, that was one where I got rid of his albums immediately after reading the whole thing.

By no means complete, but this list has some useful info at least:
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/HelloInquisitor/black-metal-bands-and-their-politics/

that looks like a good resource

shame that so many of the less sketchy artists have some level of past sketchiness but repudating it later on is better than the alternative

on a less serious note how about artists i love who aren't necessarily "terrible people" but who are now revealing themselves to be soft on royalism?

don't worry i'm sure i'll get over it eventually

Tossed my Rhye record in the garbage after reading about him. Fuck that guy.

on a less serious note how about artists i love who aren't necessarily "terrible people" but who are now revealing themselves to be soft on royalism?

don't worry i'm sure i'll get over it eventually