The Truth... When Its Not Nice

Music Room
42

Only to say that, fundamentally, as a moral issue, this is something where every consumer of art has to make his or her own decision. This might be absolutist (‘I don’t listen to music produced by anyone with any moral doubt in their past’) or on a case-by-case basis.

Personally, I try to separate the art from the artist as much as I can. There was a piece by Gesualdo on the radio yesterday but I didn’t tune to another station. Another person might have done differently, and I would respect it. Perhaps I’m lucky in that I’m not a fan of many of the usual characters that crop up in these debates.

The point about historical ages of consent is an interesting one. I don’t know of any off the top of my head, but I’m sure there have been composers who legally married someone of an age that would, in 2022 and in many jurisdictions, be classified as paedophilic. Historically, more than one King of England married a person who would be, to us, a young schoolgirl, and it can be difficult to shrug this off as ‘autre temps, autre moeurs’, yet we (more or less) do.

Mark

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43

That’s very fair. Do any site users see this radically differently?

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44

Wether or not Lori Maddox was legally allowed to have sex in Japan, Sweden or anywhere else Jimmy Page was 28 and Bowie about the same I’d like to see most people’s reaction if their 13/14 year old daughter brought a 28 year old man home and declared they where in a sexual relationship.

Whilst it’s reprehensible and morally wrong it pails into significance when held up against Gary Glitter or that beast Ian Watkins so you are correct it’s about personal choice and how you see the world.

It will be very interesting to see how the Law Suit against St Bob Dylan goes that will really put the cat amongst the Pigeons as the woman J.C was 12 when she says that Dylan had sex with her.

Finally all of these things have nothing to do with and are a million miles away from Alannis Morisette angrily singing about an unfaithful boyfriend .

45

Hi Bobthebuilder,

I think we all take your points on scale.

On the other hand, many will not put Page and Bowie together as you do, most obviously because there seems little doubt about most of the facts in one case but not in the other - I am not a lawyer and have not delved exhaustively into the case and this is in any case not the place to get into details, but my understanding is that there is strong evidence Bowie literally could not have been at the right place. A search starting with Wikipedia and the like also suggests that young Mr. Zimmerman may opt for a similar defence, with footage from DA Pennebaker as evidence.

I also saw your comment that you are so sickened that you can’t listen to anyone who has been accused. How about those who went to court and were seen to be Not Guilty? We are all sure that there are many guilty people who have not been found guilty, but do you actually assume that every allegation ever made is true, irrespective of the outcome in court?

In any event, all of this, and the details of the many appalling things done by some musicians over the decades and centuries, may be taking us away from the original question. Imagine for a moment that you were 100% certain that the allegations by Maddox and JC were 100% true - what would you do differently, if anything and why?

I (and I think Ebor) would not stop playing Led Zeppelin, Dylan, Bowie and Beck, for all the same reasons that we have not stopped playing Wagner or watching plays by violent criminals from Marlowe and Jean Genet to Jim McNeil. We might make rather different decisions about whether to buy tickets or downloads in future though.

To me, it is often morally OK to separate singer and song, in the same way that we do with examples that work the other way round, like Joan Baez singing The Lily Of The West. I’d accept that Morrisette is indeed not an ideal example, because being very cross is not morally equivalent to being very wicked, but it was what I was playing at the time…

Having said all that, we are all I think agreeing that this is a serious question, and accept that other people will reach very different conclusions from our own.

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46

You are picking at my choice of words when I say accused I do not mean of course people who have later irrefutably been found to be not guilty that would make me a bit unhinged. We could of course argue law and court cases until the cows come home but to be clear did I think Micheal Jackson innocent because he bought himself a not guilty verdict no I do not.

But to answer your question even though it does nothing to further the discussion really because it deals with just two individuals who did or didn’t sleep with a child actress but my answer even though I listen to neither artist is no I would not stop listening to them.

Have I stopped Listening to Micheal Jackson, Gary Glitter and R Kelly? Yes I have.

47

My reasons for not listening to Gary Glitter pre-date any of his convictions and are based solely on musical and aesthetic grounds.

Mark

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48

I am with you there!

Of course, a real hard-liner could take one look at what we know of (say) Robert Johnson’s life and cut out all music he touched/ tainted. That would be a rather bigger step than dropping Wagner, Clapton or Zeppelin.

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49

[quote=“NickofWimbledon, post:41, topic:22360, full:true”]
This issue covers most art and a lot of other history.

  1. The past is another country - and so are other countries. Romeo & Juliet were about Lori Maddox’s age when she first met Page IIRC. France set 15 as the age of consent in 2021, but it is still 13 in Japan. We can also note Wagner’s extreme (even by historical standards) anti-semitism, which is certainly not absent as an influence on his work. Examples abound.

I don’t want to defend in anyway Wagner’s abhorrent anti-Semitism, but I’m not so sure about that.

Michael Tanner in his book ‘Wagner’ makes some very good points on this topic.

For instance, although Wagner spoke and wrote endlessly about the meaning of the Ring, he did not ever mention an anti-Jewish sub-text either in public or privately to his wife, at least not according to Cosima’s fantastically detailed diaries. Cosima was, if anything, even more anti-Semitic than Wagner and is not shy about recording their anti-Semitic conversations, but there are none in relation to the Ring.

50

I would never listen to Gary Glitter either but personally I have morals that go beyond my own pleasure.

51

Thanks Morton - and completely fair. As I understand it, when the scholars highlight anti-semitism in Wagner’s music, they tend to focus on Parsifal, not The Ring Cycle.

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52

Yes, with Parsifal I think it is the character Klingsor who some people find suspect.

Unfortunately, it is not just Parsifal some people have problems with; they point to Mime and Alberich in the Ring and Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger as being Jewish stereotypes.
None of which rings true to me.

For instance Beckmesser is the Town Clerk, not a position open to a Jew in Medieval Nuremberg.

It is interesting that none of this was noticed by Wagner’s contemporaries, or later generations, including the Nazis who, you would think, would be quick to spot such things. It is only post war that this became an issue for some.

Again, this is not to excuse in any way Wagner’s own awful views.

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53

‘If people have a problem with Wagner that is their problem not his’ George Solti

Wagner can equally be defended by ending up not being racist to Jews in his later life as he engaged the son of a Rabbi to conduct his Parsifal. Parsifal is his baby and he entrusted this conductor to do justice to his music hardly the acts of an anti semite…? I think his earlier out negative opinions of Jews was more out of personal experience having dealt with them via music and he was a notorious for living on borrowed money, and most money lenders at that time were Jewish.

54

After reading his deeply nasty Das Judenthum in der Musik (which from memory, is silent on the matter of moneylending), it can be difficult to defend Wagner from claims that he wasn’t really that antisemitic, or to make much of the fact that he was often perfectly lovely to various individuals in later life.

Mark

55

It’s not just me then, I had this conversation in work about artists that have been convicted of abusing there position and they didn’t get why I would not accommodate anything they did any more.

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56

I couldn’t care less.

57

If we were all judged by the worst thing we’d done I doubt there would be many of us left on a forum like this. Ultimately though we all make our own choices on stuff like this and I’m not sure that the decisions we make bear scrutiny or even should. Moral decisions are very personal.

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58

There are worst things and worst things I doubt my worst act is as bad as Fred West’s for instance.

59

Fred West had a musical career?

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60

No he didn’t but apparently according to some being a musician excuses all sorts of criminal sexually deviant behaviour so perhaps he should have taken up the flute or something.

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61

I used to be a Gary Glitter fan when I was younger :thinking:

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