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

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

Noir Desir is probably the most glaring example.

Bertrand Cantat managed to have a top ten single in France last month despite having been convicted of murdering his girlfriend and, post-prison, by most accounts, driving his wife to kill herself.

Wow, I was just thinking about starting a post like this:
- 2017 Billy Corgan makes it pretty impossible for me to revisit Gish/Siamese Dream no matter how much I used to love those albums
- That whole fracas with the War on Drugs made Mark Kozalek seem like such an asshole, that I no longer have any inclination to listen to Sun Kill Moon/Red House Painters
- Even though they kicked that Ducktails guy out of the band, I still feel a little conflicted about listening to the first few Real Estate albums

That whole fracas with the War on Drugs made Mark Kozalek seem like such an asshole

far from the worst of Koz iirc

Koz is kind of a sleep around whore or used to be, and a bit of a jerk personally, but I've never once heard of him being abusive

"how does Lou Reed fit into all this

― clouds (peanutbuttereverysingleday), Sunday, November 12, 2017 8:49 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

it's really hard to square this with the fact that he was then married to laurie anderson for years and years. LIke, did they ever discuss this? he must have been remorseful? I dunno.

Each new Vybz Kartel skeeves me out a little more, even as it's often anodyne dancehall (though it's frequently really good.) I can accept that he's an awful person while being vital to the genre, but that there's some whole shadow system allowing him to record from prison and monetizing it seems darker still.

(xp) He was abusive to his first rife, I doubt he was proud of himself over it.

Wife not rife!

x-p
with lou reed you should not forget that he had electroshock therapy as a teenager. probably that did not help.

somehow i find this thread - which reminds me of a pillory - quite partial.

usually the reality is much more complex than the accusations and wrongdoings which find it into the press.

i agree with ShariVari the most striking example is definitely Bertrand Cantat. i cannot listen to noir désir anymore, i was never a fan though.

Cantat's first album as Détroit, with Pascal Humbert, features several thinly-veiled references to Marie Trintignant (whom he murdered), especially on 'Ange de désolation'. The results are far more disturbing than anything by Varg Vikernes.

As a general rule, though, I have no trouble dissociating the music from the musician. There are a few exceptions, such as openly fascist lyrics in a language I can understand (Peste Noire is the worst offender).

I used to own a Ted Nugent album.

Richard Wagner

- 2017 Billy Corgan makes it pretty impossible for me to revisit Gish/Siamese Dream no matter how much I used to love those albums

What is this in reference to? He's an insufferable egomaniac and conspiracy theorist, sure, but that's a pretty low bar imo.

and he seems to have rehabilitated somewhat of late

- 2017 Billy Corgan makes it pretty impossible for me to revisit Gish/Siamese Dream no matter how much I used to love those albums

What is this in reference to? He's an insufferable egomaniac and conspiracy theorist, sure, but that's a pretty low bar imo.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, November 13, 2017 10:56 AM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Once he appeared on that Alex Jones show, I think I was off the bus for good. I know that doesn't make him a Harvey Weinstein level creep, but I still find in nearly impossible to enjoy to the early SP albums without 2017 Billy Corgan ruining the experience for me. It reminds me of that thread from a while back that posed questions like "What if Billy Corgan shot himself in 1992 and Kurt Cobain lived to appear on Infowars in 2017?"

trying to think what women might fall into this category, but no, i can only think of shitbag men. dozens of them.

moe tucker maybe, but that's hardly even on the same scale of awfulness

no.

people are giving lou reed way too much of a pass. the dude beat his first wife

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/oct/13/lou-reed-new-biography-domestic-violence-abuse-women

nico

trying to think what women might fall into this category, but no, i can only think of shitbag men. dozens of them.

― plp will eat itself (NickB), Monday, November 13, 2017 11:22 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not music, but Marion Zimmer Bradley books are going to be hard to read

Also by virtually all accounts acted terribly towards, oh, everyone, for, oh, a lifetime xxp - he just wasn't a good person

Marion Zimmer Bradley is a very good example, ugh

Nico another v good example - I haven't listened to anything by her in forever but there's stuff I absolutely love, & I never really associate what I'm playing with the piece of shit who committed an irl hate crime

trying to think what women might fall into this category,

Brigette Bardot, possibly.

Claudine Longet probably murdered Spider Sabich.

Still listen to both, though.

what if these people repent/regret their awful deeds?

like bowie used to be a fascist but i assume by the time of his death he no longer was one

claudine's records are cool. spider probably had it coming. as long as she didn't murder beloved sweater-wearer andy williams, we're good.

i can't listen to john martyn records after reading what beverley wrote about him. ugh.

Bowie was a dress up fascist on coke for like five minutes
Lori Lightning thing is way more troubling tbh

Miles Davis beat women but Moka’s concern is his alleged “racism”?

wasnt dressing up part of everything he did tho

xp

nico

― Karl Malone, Monday, November 13, 2017 4:31 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Warum brichst du mir mein herz ;_;

ja, das ist wahr

you didn't know about nico? i only learned about her terrible opinions a year or two ago. hell, my awakening to the sad truth is probably documented on an ilx thread (probably me posting "aw dammit, nico. fuck!" or something similar)

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.

― JRN, Sunday, November 12, 2017 7:54 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jesus fucking christ, I hadn't heard of this...

we are supposed to list albums. allow me to get this back on track: Greatest Hits and i think we can all agree, 20th Century Masters

I'm assuming you are getting at her anti-semitism. It totally sucks, yeah. Though she also had a fondness for Andreas Baader? It's difficult to figure it out.

I think more than ever I've had to admit to myself that I'm awfully arbitrary about where I draw the line, and when I am suddenly ok crossing it at times. Burzum is a complete no go for me now (not hard: his music sucks), but I've no trouble listening to the church burning, murdering black metal I love. Fascist/racist BM however is a no go again. I still listen to (early) Swans, even though Gira turns out to be a terrible man. If anything, this and #metoo has shown me I'm inconsequential as fuck.

Have to say though, there is a difference - for me - between music and film. I cannot stomach seeing Spacey in anything anymore, I wouldn't enjoy it because he's *in my face* all the time, he's on screen. With music (or paintings) it's murkier, less in your face. But again, I realise how arbitrary it all is, and how morally I draw the line at one person where I don't with another. And it sucks but it's good to realise and try and figure out why this is the case.

that was an xp to KM

yeah ok sorry sufjan, jeez...

wasn't rreally aware of this myself but ugh...

Nico was described by some friends and colleagues as racist. Her friend Danny Fields, the American journalist who helped her sign to Elektra Records, described her as "Nazi-esque", saying: "Every once in a while there'd be something about Jews and I'd be, 'But Nico, I'm Jewish,' and she was like 'Yes, yes, I don't mean you.' She had a definite Nordic Aryan streak, [the belief] that she was physically, spiritually and creatively superior", a view she appears to have continued to maintain throughout her later years. According to Fields, Nico once attacked a mixed-race woman in a restaurant with a smashed wineglass, saying "I hate black people". During a performance in Berlin, the audience rioted after Nico performed the German national anthem "Deutschlandlied", including a verse omitted since 1945 for its nationalist associations.[23] However, Nico dedicated this performance to militant Andreas Baader, leader of the anti-fascist Red Army Faction.[24]

Ron Asheton, Siouxsie, Lemmy, Jeff Hanneman : wore/collected nazi parafernalia?