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How do you feel if you hate their lives but love their music?


johnnyguitar

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Who do we love despite themselves? and who can't we bear to listen to because we think they are such pillocks our sneaking regard for their music is swamped by our rejection of their personalities?

I once quite liked a Robbie Williams song :blush: ...but I could only bear to singalong if I told myself it had really been written by Guy Chambers :headphones: :angel:

I have real problems with Ted Nugent....what do I do?

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All I know is that Billie Jean will be an awesome song forever. Sometimes, in order to enjoy it, I have to pretend that Michael Jackson disappeared from the public eye around 1989 and some child-molesting freak stole his name and image. But it's not the same guy, gosh darn it!

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I don't care. However they choose to live their life is none of my business. Also, I couldn't give a rats if they have the personality of a wet dishcloth or addictions to certain substances, all I care about is the music!

Isn't this the attitude that led to the pogroms...?

'All that evil requires to prosper is for good men to do nothing'....or something (Edmund Burke I think) :googly: :laughing:

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perhaps, but on the flip side, as long as they're not doing anything (a la Gary Glitter) to hurt anyone else, I don't see where it's my business to care about their personal lives.

My work is appreciated by many, many people who don't give a hoot about what I do in my personal life...

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I don't care. However they choose to live their life is none of my business. Also, I couldn't give a rats if they have the personality of a wet dishcloth or addictions to certain substances, all I care about is the music!

:headphones: :D

I'm not unsympathetic to your point of view; I have often turned a blind eye to all sorts of "personality disorders" / dubious political or ethical views,or whatever in order to enjoy great music.(in many cases, its the flaws, complexities and contradictions of an artists character that enables them to create "good art"??)I'm sure we all have selective "blind-spots". It's a necessary antidote to universal blandness.

But doesn't it alter your perspective on somebody's work, if, for example, they are exposed as paedophiles or "downloaders of child-porn", come out as "white supremacists" or whatever? Some things are harder to overlook than others...

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Who do we love despite themselves? and who can't we bear to listen to because we think they are such pillocks our sneaking regard for their music is swamped by our rejection of their personalities?

A perfect example is Slim Shadys latest,When i'm gone.He blames his fans for keepin' him away from his daughter

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I don't like Gary Glitter if that's what you're getting at.

I do agree that some things are harder to overlook than others. Pete Townshend was caught up in child porn a few years ago wasn't he? While I agree that this is absolutely dispicable behaviour, it doesn't make me not like The Who. It makes me certainly question Pete Townshend as a person, changes my opinion of him, but not his music. The Who are one of my favourite bands.

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I think it might make a difference if rank hypocrisy is involved, or there is a massive deficit between "public image" and "private behaviour". If you're up front about being a total Miles Hunt, then your misdemeanours are more forgiveable. However there is what I call "The Max Bygraves Syndrome"

As a child I became familiar with Max through his appearances as a guest on "Blankety-Blank" or "Celebrity Squares", he always seemed a cheeky chirpy chappy, a loveable all-round family entertainer, etc.; the grandpa you wished you had.

One day a few years back a friend of mine mentioned that her mother had worked at Ronnie Scotts Jazz Emporium back in the 1950s and had "a few tales to tell".

Apparently, Max - a club "regular"- regularly left the club in the company of "ladies of the night", whom he would frequently give "a right battering" (not a jocular euphemism; I mean he would deliberately occasion bodily harm upon them, against their will), following his "paid-for pleasure".

After gaining this insight, suffice to say that I now hear "You Need Hands " from a very different perspective.

Now....imagine if it were Thom Yorke instead of Max Bygraves, who liked beating the living crap out of "cheap sluts" ....or that Bono Vox liked nothing better than to snort a barrowload of Colombian Nasal Vim straight off Peaches Geldof's ass.... or that Chris Martin's idea of fun were to go careering round Hampstead in his 4x4 threatening to skittle school-kids and pensioners off the pavements, while inviting drivers of smaller (more environmentally friendly) vehicles to "swivel on this!".

These scenarios are fictitious, of course (some more far-fetched than others: I mean...Bono..cocaine off a groupie's butt, as if...) I just used them to illustrate my point, which was......Bother! I forgot what my point was... :blush:

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Sometimes people can be a bit irrational when they let their personal objections to an individual cloud their judgement of that person's "art".

I know that Polly Harvey alienated some of her female "fan-base", when she admiited (...wait for it....) "I wouldn't really describe myself as a feminist" :crazy:

Others boycotted her when she admitted in a magazine interview (when questioned,for some reason, as to her views on fox-hunting, ) that, whilst not pro-hunting, she had no great sympathy for foxes: having grown up on a Dorset farm, foxes had frequently visited murderous carnage upon her own pet chickens. :crazy: :crazy:

So, despite being the most talented, creative and "edgy" female singer / musician of the decade, and having done no harm to anybody at all, she was losing support left, right and centre. :stars:

To this day, a friend of mine will not give the time of day to Siouxsie and The Banshees (whose substantial "oeuvre" harbours a myriad delights) on the grounds that at the height of the punk-rock explosion, Siouxsie (about 17 at the time)wore a swastika armband. Now I'll gladly nail my colours to the mast right now and declare myself an anti-racist and anti-fascist, but...heck, we all make mistakes, particularly where our fashion sense is concerned... but no, apparently Siouxsie is beyond redemption.

Personally, despite being a massive fan of (UK ska band) The Specials, I went right off singer Terry Hall on discovering that he's a Man United fan. Thankfully, pretty much everything he did since The Specials has been a pile of Tom Tit, so it hasn't been too tricky disregarding his "work".

As for your predicament, johnny...Well I'm no great Robbie Williams fan myself, but I don't find it that hard to admit that he's a good-enough singer and an excellent performer (saw him at Leeds Festival a few years ago: he was unexpectedly outstanding) Ok, so he's a bit of a tosser, but he's not exactly toxic, is he? So what's your problem? Is it that you're a purist? ;)

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Is it just me, or do you always take a dig at everything I say?

Anyhoo, I am musing on the lifestyle of one of my favourite artistes, John Martyn, who writes beautiful songs full of references to loving his wife and kids (Over the Hill etc.) but who is actually a one-legged, alcoholic lothario with dozens of illegitimate children uncared for all over the globe and a string of failed relationships...he does, however, have a voice like honey dribbling over hot rocks and plays a beautiful guitar.....I guess he's a romantic, troubled troubador whose inspiration comes from 'living the life'.

I don't really know what I'm on about actually, so I'll shut up.

:)

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... at first, Smith played guitar with both bands...

That's not quite right. Robert Smith founded The Cure, but he only ever played with The Banshees to help them out when they were "between guitarists". He was neither an "original Banshee" nor ever a permanent fixture in the band, and as far as I recall The Cure pre-dated any of his fleeting involvements with The Banshees.

What is it you don't like about Mr Smith anyway, Edna? I'm intrigued ....(Do you have some "showbiz-insider" insight??!)

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You´re right, fitter, Smith was playing with the Banshees as a kind of favour... I guess it must be cause I remember when The Cure and The Banshees would tour together and share Smith...or when we´d try to have him coming to play live but he was busy with Siouxsie and had to change the schedules...

I didn´t like him, Robert Smith... I found him ugly and non-interesting... until I took the time to listen to his music, as my husband is a Cure fan.

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