Musicians' ideologies vs the buyer's

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

This came up in the Emperor thread: do ideology/religion/political stance of a musician affect your opinion towards the music - do you refuse to enjoy music played by people you disagree with?

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Cases in point: Public Enemy, Dead Kennedys, Bob Marley, Mr. Mister, Burzum, U2, P Diddy, Rage Against The Machine, Crass, Tori Amos, NWA.

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

No, not at all. This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but sometimes I like listening to music just BECAUSE it has ideological stances that I disagree with. Say, I love Charles Bronson just because they're so didactic about Straight Edge (which seems absurd beyond comprehension, to me) w/ song titles like "I Wish They'd Legalise Drugs So You Can Hurry Up and Fucking Die."

(Also, how amazing is the EL-P record!)

― Ollee, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

And what would the proper response be: if you don't agree with the artist, do you refuse to buy their albums, and download/copy/steal them instead? Or would that make you a hypocrite? Second hand shops would be an alternative too.

More questions on this: does listening to christian music make you a christian? Does enjoying a Van Gogh painting mean you advocate cutting ears off? One would think not, but people do tend to boycott bands for other than musical reasons, why? Guilt? Satisfaction? Decreasing their cognitive dissonance?

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Depends on the ideology and the group's sincerity. In some way, this goes back to "intent", so you can probably predict a lot of the answers. Personally, I can accept pretty much anything that doesn't advocate going out and killing people.

I will say that having learned of the backgrounds of some of those Norwegian musicians, it's a bit of a factor when I hear the music. It's the same thing when I hear those Beach Boys tunes cowritten by Charles Manson. But I still listen, so I guess it's not completely prohibitting.

― dleone, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Personally, I can accept pretty much anything that doesn't advocate going out and killing people. This is a defendable standpoint. However, the sales figures of, say, Ice Cube suggest that millions of people do not have such high standards. How can this be explained?

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

It's the same thing when I hear those Beach Boys tunes cowritten by Charles Manson.

you what?

― fields of salmon, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

No not at all. One of my favorite bands is Joy Division whose lead singer happened to be a Thatcherite, a postion that I find to be antithetical to my liberal beliefs. Generally speaking an artist's political position is of no consequence unless that person is spewing racist, anti-semitic and sexist ideas that are intrinsic to the music i.e. oi music.

― MICHELINE, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

do you refuse to enjoy music played by people you disagree with?

No, with the one exception being Christian pop and rock. This isn't just because there is no good Christian pop or rock or because I have any major disagreements with Christianity, it's that the lyrics tend to annoy me. Some death metal lyrics would bother me too, but obviously that isn't much of a problem.

if you don't agree with the artist, do you refuse to buy their albums, and download/copy/steal them instead?

Download or copy; stealing is a bad idea I think.

Or would that make you a hypocrite?

No, you would only be a hypocrite if it was your belief that people shouldn't listen to the music. Your quarrel is with the beliefs of the band, so unless you hold similar beliefs yourself you're fine.

― John Dahlem, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

and what if he or she is?

― ejad, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Generally speaking an artist's political position is of no consequence unless that person is spewing racist, anti-semitic and sexist ideas that are intrinsic to the music i.e. oi music.

So you draw the line with Wagner? And with Nation Of Islam-affiliated artists (anti-semitic & racist)? And what about the sexism in metal, hardcore, country and hiphop? How much is sexism intrinsic to an album like, say, Doggystyle?

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

you what?

Seriously! "Never Learn Not to Love", credited to Dennis Wilson, and featured on 20/20 was in fact co-authored by Charles Manson. Dennis and Manson were pals at the time. At the moment, I can't remember what other songs they did.

― dleone, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Interesting question.

Thinking about it ... oh God! I have to admit that I've started becoming an ideology tourist!

Having become bored with the varieties of strange music from around the world; and sated with electronic experimentalism; I've recently started becoming interested in bands with alien ideologies as the final frontier of exoticism. Fascist bands? Satanist bands? Surely they still sound weird and unusual enough to titilate my jaded palette. And even if they don't, the very fact of their alien ideology adds something. Sure, this may sound like badly played, juvenile rock music, but it's *neo-nazi* badly played, juvenile rock music - which still carries a prison sentence in some countries. Or, that's not just cheesy lounge music, but *porn* cheesy lounge music.

But recognising this interest in myself, I'm not sure I feel happy about it. Is it wrong? In one sense, ironic detachment keeps me safe from the ideology. I'm not going to listen to black metal, and go look for black metal friends, and generally start to fall into the black metal lifestyle anymore than listening to Fun-da-Mental is going to turn me into a muslim.

And what also saves me is that evil music is generally banal. But what if, one day, I discover that some of this stuff really is brilliant, beautiful or truly exotic and unlike anything else? When I cease to become aware of the meaning because I just love the tune?

― phil, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Good question, Siegbran. I think in the case of Wagner the music is so beautiful and historically significant that it transcends the musician's intentions. Again what matters most is the music. This is true even for artists who have political views in sync with mine. Case in point is Le Tigre who I can't stand even though their views are similar to mine.

― MICHELINE, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Unlike oi racism,anti-semitism and sexism are not intrinsic to country and hip-hop. There's a lot progressive country and rap music.

― MICHELINE, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Consumer stupidity is intrinsic to music

― dave q, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

In one sense, ironic detachment keeps me safe from the ideology.

Doesn't this automatically mean that you'll never be able to enjoy the music to its full extent?

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Again what matters most is the music.
Music is merely organized sounds. So how can that matter most?

― cuba libre (nathalie), Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Isn't the question: can the music really effect some people negatively and if so, should you, although or perhaps impervious, partake of it yourself, just on principle? Denying yourself bad things is good, I think. And the Crypts are in Oklahoma-- absurd.

― Jarren, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd listen to stuff about eating babies if the tunes were good.

― Nick Southall, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Of course music fucking matters or otherwise this wouldn't be called I Love Music. Sheesh some people!

― MICHELINE, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I think you misread what's between the lines: Music is nothing without the meaning (of musician or society) attached to it. So for me its less about the music, and more intention. Oops. Your comment struck a chord until you used that line.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, didn't mean to rub you in the wrong way.

― MICHELINE, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

If anything, nazi/objectionable ideologies force me to engage the music more directly, since there's no way I could possibly be involved in the community surrounding the music.

― Kris, Monday, 3 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

If anything, nazi/objectionable ideologies force me to engage the music more directly, since there's no way I could possibly be involved in the community surrounding the music.

Doesn't most music in general come out of environments you wouldn't want to be involved in?

― Siegbran Hetteson, Tuesday, 4 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

No.

― Sean, Tuesday, 4 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Doesn't most music in general come out of environments you wouldn't want to be involved in?

I don't understand this question. I wasn't talking about environments anyway -- there are nazis and hippies in college and there are nazis and hippies in the forest. I could theoretically be a hippie, but I couldn't be a nazi (not white enough), just like I couldn't be Tunisian. I'm probably more apt to keep an open mind about music played by people who hate me because 1) I like to learn the language of my enemies and 2) I don't feel like I am being recruited or manipulated in some way; there is less suspicion of intent involved and almost no personal context other than sheer reaction to the music. Nazis in Norway or Poland may as well be on Mars for all I care.

― Kris, Tuesday, 4 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Example: I'll happily bob my head to "Straight Outta Compton", while I couldn't be and wouldn't want to be involved in the scene it originated from. Keeping too much distance from the origins of the music, refusing to try to find out what's going on in the mind of the artist and trying to get a feeling of the background of the music etc, somewhat diminishes the ability to enjoy the music.

One could safely distance oneself with "oh, those silly nazis" or "oh, those wacky militant blacks" but with such an attitude the full meaning of the music (within its cultural context) will never really become clear. It's the price of staying on the sidelines

Mind you Kris, I'm not accusing you of this, but this is a phenomenon I see quite often (even with myself) - people don't take the views they oppose seriously enough to understand them.

― Siegbran Hetteson, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmmmn. My only real line is that I will not give money to people whose views (or actions) are basically impossible for me to rationalize in any way. This has nothing to do with music really. I can acknowledge, for example, that the Burzum guy has recorded some pretty stunning music. That said I find his views unapologetically grotesque and I find the idea of listening to his tracks at home and pretending they were simply a collection of gorgeously organized sounds really really impossible. But Emperor/Darkthrone/Satyricon/Enslaved's ideologies (at least what I know about them) bother me a little less (possibly because I don't know their whole story--if I did I might be tempted to get rid of their stuff haha). That said I tend to try not to give them my money directly, buying used instead of new. To me Burzum's music on the other hand seems inseparable from his ideology (partly because his idiocy has such a high profile).

― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I find the idea of listening to his tracks at home and pretending they were simply a collection of gorgeously organized sounds really really impossible.

I can see why that would be impossible for the post-1994 orchestral/folk music he made following his 'conversion' to Odinism, him joining the Norsk Hedensk Front and writing his Vargsmal book etc, but does that include the 1991-1994 recordings (ie, Burzum's metal years)?

In a sense this might not matter, because indeed if you buy the older albums now, the money goes to the Varg Vikernes of today, not the younger non-nazi Vikernes that wrote them

Everything would be a lot easier if Burzums music was full of really obvious political slogans - while he's very vocally fascist in his books and interviews, even the two orchestral albums are all about ancient sagas, nature, 'darkness' and mysticism, nothing political at all. If you wouldn't have known about Vikernes' views beforehand, you wouldn't know it from the music.

Personally, I tend to draw the line when the music becomes an obvious political verhicle and is incapable of standing on its own. When the intent is clearly to push the artists' political views. Which is why I won't buy Absurd or Skrewdriver albums (extreme right), or Dead Kennedys albums (extreme left), or Mr. Mister/Stryper/Mortification albums (Christian).

― Siegbran Hetteson, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I hadn't realized that "Take These Broken Wings" was Christian rock until this very minute. Jeez am I stupid.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

That 2pac song which samples it isn't as good as the foxy brown one which does.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

drawing the line at Stryper becuz they're CHRISTIANS is v.finicky given how much goodness you are missing in every other dimension of their work

― mark s, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

You mean the comedy factor, dressing up in yellow and black and playing half-assed rock 'n roll tunes while throwing bibles into the audience?

― Siegbran Hetteson, Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.