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.
Yes. It's a basic skill you need to learn before you can even attempt to change our hellworld.
Alright which one of you is still listening to Lostprophets?
Yeah there's definitely a line there for me.
I don't care if they are an asshole. They're just people at the end of the day.
But I can't listen to lost prophets or Gary glitter.
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.
Nope.
Eric Clapton is an anti-VAX conspiracy theorist and a racist. Van Morrison is anti-VAX conspiracy theorist and a racist. John Lennon is a serial abuser drug addict, beat women and abandoned his own son. Steven Tyler from Aerosmith is a pedophile. Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot chili peppers is a pedophile.
Etc.
Anytime I learned something horrible about someone famous, I write them off completely.
Wait, Anthony Kiedis!? That's news to me.
It was to me too, had to go looking - guessing this from Wikipedia is what it was:
Kiedis acknowledges in his autobiography Scar Tissue that he had sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl when he was 23, before and after learning of her age, in the 1980s. This inspired him to write the song "Catholic School Girls Rule".
Originally I thought I could, but no. Because when I listen to the music, I'm giving that artist money, attention, and power.
That results in giving them a bigger platform to spew their bigoted opinions/actions is counterintuitive to my goals. I would rather not.
Yes, always.
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.
Yeah, just do a little piracy
Yes. You listen to music without knowing anything about who wrote it and you feel something. That feeling has nothing to do with the composer or performer. Now if you find out the composer/performer is a "bad" person, I would recommend not giving them any money that could contribute to them spreading their "bad stuff". I'd still enjoy the music because your enjoyment isn't furthering their bad agenda.
If it makes sense to consider the artist's actions and morality, it makes just as much sense to consider that of the producers et. al.
That leaves us with virtually no content tho.
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.
Yeah I can. Gonna get a bit hippie on you here but it really comes down to how the art make you feel and not the artist. One personal example is jeepers creepers for me. I love that movie but victor salva is a POS that deserves to be castrated. Now another question you should ask yourself is the actual companies behind the media could be evil too, overworking their employees, underpaying them, etc..., are you going to stop watching it? A good example of this is the anime industry or some record producers
To an extent I can, like Axl is a complicated one given his mental health issues. Nothing excuses his behaviour but he seems to have grown as a person and managed to somewhat control his shittier side.
But there's definitely a line. I can't really enjoy rammstein or die antwoord anymore
What happened with Rammstein and Die Antwoord?
Turns out Lindemann is quite rapey, and Die Antwoord had this whole (alleged) sex slavery thing with an Australian rapper.
Seems often they're not just making up their lyrics after all but singing from experience
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 mean, theres 3 categories for giving them a pass on their transgressions (as a fan, not legally or morally speaking) IMO.
This is great. It's not perfect, but it's great. It feels like an impossible task but it feels more possible with a structure like this.