Accountability in Music • Page 800

i got in the habit years ago of making narrative-driven audio mixtapes of my favorite songs (and audio clips from movies and TV shows to serve as interludes) for my own personal listening (which i would also share with friends from time to time). while i'm still proud of those projects, a number of them have artists i no longer wish to support due to their behavior. i can personally look back fondly at the time that some of those songs meant a lot to me and find value in the meaning i attached to them, but that's about it as far as engaging with those artists' work goes.

 

Sometimes when my depression is particularly bad. The songs I didn't love don't really work for me anymore though.

 

On the loud side of things, I've definitely had some stretches where I've listened to Young And In The Way and Enabler over the last year...both bands broke up because they were getting "cancelled", but it's hard to stop listening to music like them cold turkey when they both were incredibly influential in the musical progression my taste had in my 20s.

 

I don't recall the details anymore but I am pretty sure the anonymous Twitter accusation was actually proven to be false. I don't recall exactly though

 

i remember seeing that too, but didn't know if there was any more on that front.

 

Idk. Hearing the songs that I had a real emotional connection to makes me more uncomfortable than stuff that was easier to write off. It's like, you were not worth the emotion that this made me feel and that makes me feel gross. If that makes any sense.

 

Yeah the TOOL stuff is weird but wasn’t it multiple women?

 

There are certain artists where I was totally okay dropping them instantly and there were some where I wasn't.

 

there are some i've stopped listening to altogether because the allegations completely ruined their music for me. there are a few that on rare occasions, i will listen to, but i don't make it public.

bn is not one of those artists i will listen to, however. and every time i've heard them in recent memory it's because they were played on a college radio station that i switched off, or because it was on a pandora station playing in a store.

 

David Bowie being a pedophile ruined it for me. Hell, knowing that the majority of rock artists are creepy sex pests has ruined the genre for me. Barely any decent people in the whole scene. The worst part is that the majority of it will never get to the public.

 

still currently really fucking pissed about Phoebe, just soured on her and boygenius so quickly because of it

 

I don't think so? I thought it was one instance, bit I could definitely be wrong

 

Honestly, I've found that my personal rule for "problematic" artists that I love is that I'm totally fine listening to their music released before and up to the point where they were exposed, but have a hard time or don't engage at all with anything that came after. Not sure why that is exactly, I guess I associate that older stuff more with my personal connection with it and my fond memories of who I thought the artist was but that "magic" wears off on a moving forward basis? I can't really explain it

But yeah I obviously don't post about it or advertise them

 

Definitely agree with this. A lot of Ryan Adams' stuff helped me through some more severe periods of depression. Every now and then I get the urge to wear that "comfort blanket" again but it's once in a blue moon. And to another's point, I feel like not actively throwing money at a problematic artist is the important vantage point here.

 

I tend to have sort of the opposite thing where my enjoyment of - or at least desire to listen to - artists is impacted almost too much by relatively minor things? Like Big Thief with the Israel thing wasn’t like truly cancellable at least to me but it really annoyed me and I barely listened to that album for like 3 months afterwards. But it wasn’t out of principle at all, I didn’t think it was wrong in any way to listen to it. I don’t like this actually lol

 

For me it depends on the gravity of the situation, whether I listen to a band in the privacy of my home or just write them off altogether.

Bands with crappy views I'm more willing to look past, but I may still be more reluctant to pull their stuff out.

Like Aaron Lewis is a piece of shit, but I'll still check out a new Staind album.

 

When I've cut out bands I used to listen to because of issues with accountability or being involved in shit I don't condone, I've never gone back. I've thought about them and wondered what things might be like if handled differently, sure, who doesn't (BN, Pinegrove and the likes, bands I was all in on before certain events happened) but it's like, the world of music is so fucking vast and ever-expanding that I have had no trouble finding 'replacements' for bands I no longer feel comfortable listening to. It's put me on to bands and artists I probably wouldn't have given a chance otherwise. Not everyone has hard lines like that, everyone just does their own thing and I respect it a lot more than I used to because - and it's everywhere, not just here - it ends up like talking to the wall. You can educate people and source whatever you need to but at the end of the day, most people are just gonna do their own thing and handle it in their own way. I've made my peace with that.

 

It's such a confluence of things for me. The specifics of the situation, what the band meant/represented to me, and what the band talks about in their lyrics are three things that come to mind. Generally speaking, though, if somebody turns out to be terrible? I don't listen on streaming services nor do I talk about/promote them.

Brand New is an easy example for me. I loved their songs but... They didn't mean much to me beyond "oh, the songs are cool and catchy." The lyrics didn't resonate with a few exceptions and I saw them live like, 6-7 times between 2003 and whenever they broke-up. So when the mood strikes, I'll throw a record on the turntable or listen to my MP3s. I'm almost completely disconnected from the words and people behind it.

Counter-examples would be Anti-Flag and Beach Slang where they were a pretty big part of my life (i.e., owned every album, saw them every time they came to town and/or played a festival I was at) but what went down was atrocious and directly contradicted what the band represented to me... So I'm pretty sure I'll never listen to either band again. I just can't. There's no point for me.

On a less extreme tip: I struggle to listen to the Bosstones now too. And Dicky's stance on things of that sort were never represented in the music. But what they represented to me went beyond the lyrics and music. It was the friendship in the band, the ritual of seeing them every December with my best friend, etc. I know I could listen to them guilt-free, but for the moment, it just stings too much.

But I also think it's a very personal decision and hey, if people can still find joy in it? More power to you. Especially if it's music that you turn to for strength and inspiration. TBH, I envy people who have the strength to do that in a way... I'm just not there.

 

It just keeps getting worse.

 

Despicable oh my god

 

Fucking hell

 

Holy shit.

 

He can rot.

 

I have such an emotional connection to some songs it would be needlessly cruel to myself to cut out my listening to them entirely. There are some bands that have done shit so irredeemable that I can't listen anymore, but for the most part that feels impractical.

My principal is simply that I won't listen to any new releases from bands who have crossed a line, and won't buy any of their merch/go to any of their shows etc. A stray listen to an album once a year or a shuffle on a playlist isn't going to shift the needle very far in either direction.