Accountability in Music • Page 338

So stop listening to the 1975 if it’s a sticking point for you. sometimes I don’t really know what people want out of situations like this.

 

I would assume people want him to stop doing it? I don’t listen to The 1975, but if it were an artist I did listen to, I probably would.

 

Matty tends to be an idiot and puts his foot in his mouth a LOT, but to his credit he does seem receptive to learning/apologizing/etc. He seems like he’d be receptive if he genuinely didn’t know and someone explained the situation to him. But I could be clowning myself with that assumption.

 

Okay so here's where I'm at these days

You wanna listen to Pinegrove or Brand New or Chris Brown or Kanye, well go ahead. Not endorsing it but ultimately nothing I can do.

However, if you're interjecting yourself into a discussion about their problematic behavior with "who cares Imma listen anyway" or being an apologist for that behavior or belittling things like sexual assault or hyping up a white supremacist in order to defend the artists or your right to listen guilt free, well then you're being shitty and expect to be criticized when doing said shitty behavior.

 

This is devolving rapidly. Not that the initial post was anything worth responding to. Matty promoting problematic bands is a bad look. I don’t think anyone who knows about the allegations is happy that he’s promoting those bands. You can call him out and also still listen. Or you could not care that he posts it, still agree that Jesse sucks, and not feel bad about listening. Weird convo

edit: listen to 1975 that is. I’ve already talked about how I feel re: still listening to BN or Pinegrove

 

also imma put matty in my new move, the cancel clutch

 

I guess the best way to sum it up for me is that while I do care about the possibility someone with a platform like Matty’s is knowingly promoting an abuser, it’s a hypothetical I can’t prove unless I talk to him. Meanwhile, actual abusers flourish in the scene and it feels like a better use of my time, personally, to work on that. If we had a 2 page conversation in this thread every time a man in a band did something vaguely disappointing, this thread would have roughly one billion posts.

 

This is a very good point and was very well said.

 

There’s just been so many times on this site where something that some people would consider problematic would get brought up in an artists thread, and a few people will discuss it, but most will just skip over it and continue on with the previous conversation.

This situation with Matty is being used as an example because it was being talked about in both this thread, and the 1975 thread. And people are just skipping over it and continuing other conversations.

So yes, I can see why people would be upset about that. There’s been times where a member of a band that is loved much less on this site will do or say something, and so many people will just go straight to writing them off or shitting on them. It’s no secret that The 1975 are very loved on this site. So here’s a situation where the singer *could* be doing something problematic, and those same people are skipping over it and continuing other conversations. So it can come off as people on this site playing favorites or letting some things slide for their favorite bands.

But that’s also where the problem lies with this sort of conversation. Some people don’t see Matty posting those screen shots as problematic, but some do.

 

It hasnt been skipped over. And what is to be said exactly that hasnt been already?

 

I also don't buy the "he's beloved by this website so nothing will happen" attitude. this website cancelled the fuck out of Jesse Lacey immediately. i just don't get what the desired outcome is of this conversation.

 

When I’m saying something is being skipped over or ignored, I’m talking about a few people will address the issue and talk about it, even ask questions. But then that conversation quickly dies because other people will ignore it and keep talking about that artists new album, or their upcoming tour.

 

There’s barely anything to say really. There’s a difference between being friends with an abuser, taking them out on tour, or just posting a screenshot of a song you like (that you might not even necessarily know the back story of)

 

exactly what i was about to say. what needs to even be discussed here? yes it's a bad look, and disappointing if he knows the backstory on the bands, that's been determined. there's really nothing else to discuss here.

 

It’s a weird look that the people continuing to have an issue with people in this thread not calling out Matty (which is also not true) are not active members of this thread and seemingly waited for this moment to “gotcha” everyone

 

There’s no way in hell Matty knows the intricacies of the Pinegrove situation, ESPECIALLY given how well ESH was able to use Pitchfork as a PR tool to run image rehab for him right before his big comeback. There definitely are not a ton of people outside of this site that know the full story there.

The Brand New thing is a lot harder for me to believe though. But idk, maybe he doesn’t know about that either. I guess it’s possible, however improbable it may seem. Still really sucks he’s posting about them and is absolutely not a good look at all.

 

Because like I said, so many people on this site are quick to comment on it when it’s other artists, for doing something as little as what Matty did. And here’s a case where it is Matty, but only a few were addressing it.

 

I would be in the bunch to say Matty probably doesn’t know about the pine grove situation, but it’s just stupid to say that there’s “no way in hell” he knows.

 

i think there's a vast, vast difference between going on tour with an abuser and using their popularity to further your own, and just, posting a screenshot of a song youre listening to.

 

it really feels like the music version of the "oh you believe in equality yet your t-shirt was made in a poor country...."

i think people overestimate the amount of people who follow non-music related band news. aside from people I've told about jesse lacey, no one I know, diehard fans and all, know about what he did, because people generally don't follow that stuff. the pool of people who not only care about pinegrove is very small, the pool of people who care about them and have read the p4k article is much smaller, and the pool of people who also know that there is more to the story than what pitchfork wrote probably doesn't extend far beyond this specific thread. I really can't imagine that matty even has enough time in his day to lurk obscure twitter threads and random internet threads to make sure the artists he listens to aren't problematic, especially for something as mundane as a single insta story pannel, of which matty posts dozens a day.

 

Literally the only reason anyone on here knows the truth is because someone on this very site had actual personal knowledge of the situation, and was able to find tweets that got no coverage whatsoever that brought up additional allegations beyond what ESH admitted to. Is Matty a user on Chorus? I feel like Jason would know about that lol.

 

If you wanna call people hypocrites (which is a weird desire, but does seem to be where this started), shouldn't that be something you address with the singular people and not make blanket statements about an entire thread? I don't know who said fuck Buck Meek, I don't even know who that band is, but does that person also listen The 1975 and so their "hypocrisy" is of importance? Have they seen this? All this weird vagueness doesn't do anyone any good, and I don't think everyone needs to comment on every single thing someone does. I saw the Pinegrove thing and was like "yeah, that sucks" and I saw literally every single other music blog on the entire internet post about the band's new song and thought "yeah, that sucks" ... but I don't know what to do about it but I do know that people attacking others here because of it feels extremely counter-productive.

 

@matty

 

I agree, but I guess the argument being made is that it’s equally probable that buck meek knows as little as Matty about the ESH situation, but because buck meek happens to be touring with him rather than posting a picture of a track, our response has to be different? I don’t really have a side here btw, and I think that this debate will not end up anywhere good in the long run haha

 

The 1975’s Matty Healy Thinks ’Cancel Culture’ Is Going Too Far

"Matty Healy believes that something needs to be done about “cancel culture.” Speaking about “keyboard warriors,” Healy said, “There has to be rules with this kind of sh*t, you know what I mean? […] It feels like 90 percent of the time, cancel culture itself is far worse than the moral indiscretions of those that have been accused of something. What pisses me off is the removal of context.”"