It can sometimes be hard to separate the artist from their art. Are there any artists who were bad people but whose work you still enjoy?
Feel free to answer if you’re in the opposite scenario: an artist who you love personally but don’t enjoy their artwork.
Feel free to respond more than just music artists!
Billy Corgan.
The music of Smashing Pumpkins got me through some very dark times as a teenager, but finding out he hates me because I’m gay snapped that personal connection. I’m usually able to separate the art from the artist and still enjoy good stuff made by bad people, but I’m not able to enjoy them anymore. The connection was too personal and the betrayal was too great.
Smashing Pumpkins in the 90s were so good, but yeah fuck Billy Corgan.
Billy attempted to sell an Alesis SR-16 that was used in his band for $30k. It’s a $100 drum machine. He was selling it himself. No charity or anything; he just tried to hyper-inflate a very common drum machine that is still produced because he thought he added that value to it by owning it. That was pretty weird.
I mean, in the sense of music history it is worth more than any other random one you can find on the street. But maybe somewhere around $500 - $1000 if it was signed by the band.
JK Rowling 😔
I really enjoyed Ender’s Game, but even while reading you can tell there’s some weird racist shit going on in Orson Card’s head.
I missed it, but I was in my early teens when I read it. What did you spot?
It’s been a while so I don’t remember anything concrete, but I remember characters being described with a strange amount of detail in racial or ethnic features, like height or nose shape. I don’t think he ever explicitly describes any race as superior to others, but some of the passages felt like it was going to devolve into some weird analysis of skull dimpling or something.
Yeah he donates a lot of money to anti-lgbt (or “homophobia-adjacent”) “special interest groups”.
So that means a hard no for me paying for anything he gets royalties for.
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I searched it up a bit, and apparently Card is pretty vehemently homophobic. Which really sucks and is really strange. It sucks because i do enjoy his books, and they were honestly part of what got me into sci-fi. It’s really strange though since the moral of pretty much every single book of his is understanding, empathy, and compassion.
Kanye had some real bangers early in his career. I still listen to them and have them in my playlist.
At a certain point, I acquired some CDs and just ripped the songs. If I’m in a Dropout mood, I’ve got the option to listen without him getting a cent. And I found the CDs secondhand too.
Johnny Craig, the former lead singer for the band Dance Gavin Dance. Dude has repeatedly fucked up and ripped off fans, but damn did he have a great singing voice.
And for the opposite, T-Pain and Post Malone. Both of them just seem like the coolest, and most chill people but their studio music is just not for me.
Yeah, Johnny Craig definitely has an history of messed up stuff. It makes me glad I prefer Kurt Travis’ vocals.
Marilyn Manson - he had a slow slide from alcoholism to lecher creep to serial abuser. he spent 2009-2011 doing the worst shit to women that you can imagine.
Brand New - turns out that Jesse was a groomer of underage girls.
Arcade Fire - Win Butler is a sex pest.
Smashing Pumpkins - not at all in the same category as the others, but goddamn does Billy Corgan suck. he was always known as a first-class egotist, but he just kept being an asshole long after his prime had become a distant memory. then the weird shit started: crackpot conspiracy theories on Myspace, palling around with Alex Jones on Infowars, dropping alt-right buzzwords in interviews. the latest album is an extended allegory on cancel culture. worse, it’s mostly unlistenable.
palling around with Alex Jones on Infowars, dropping alt-right buzzwords in interviews
That saddens and actually kinda shocks me.
I would have expressed ZERO surprise to news of him going so far to the LEFT that he ended up miles beyond hippie dippie new agey and founded his own Heaven’s Gate cult (The central belief of the which was that followers could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings by rejecting their human nature, and they would ascend to heaven)…but this is…honestly weirding me out.
Wasn’t he going so far into eastern spirituality that he was recording himself reading the entirety of the Bhagavad Gita at one point or something?
I love Tom Cruise. The man is an amazing, committed actor. He doesn’t need flashy CGI or visual effects and he does insane stunts for our entertainment. Too bad he’s a fucking nutjob.
Except his movies use a lot of flashy CGI and visual effects. Sure, he does his own stunts, but there isn’t any less CGI in his movies than any other.
JK Rowling
Joss Whedon
I am a huge fan of black metal so often I have to filter out the ones with white supremacists members. But one I can’t help myself going back to is Burzum. What he brought to the atmospherical BM scene is huge and I hate that I love his early records so much…
Yeah I love black metal but it has some problematic people. “The Somberlain” by Dissection is a great album but I genuinely can’t enjoy it because of the person behind it…
I know what you mean. Personnally I prefer Storm of the Light’s Bane, but I feel less bad about listening to Dissection cause the guy’s dead so not like he gets any money from me lol
Oh goddamnit, are dissection fuckwads too? I absolutely love their stuff and it took me a good while to stop listening to burzum after I found out he was a shitbag u. u
Basically, Jon Nödtveidt, the lead guitarist/singer, was convicted for the killing of a gay algerian man. Two years after his release from prison he killed himself in a satanic ritual.
John Lennon was pure asshole. He abused his first wife, who he only married because his manager didn’t want one of these new starts to father and illegitimate child. And that child, he tormented and ignored. Second wife, second child, both wanted and given everything.
Not saying he’s a saint, but isn’t an alternative interpretation that he was young, inexperienced, and had a bad relationship, then grew up, learned some things, and had a better relationship later? Julian Lennon was on Bill Maher’s podcast recently and described a reconciliation between him and his dad right before he died.
Again, not trying to excuse all his bad behavior in his first marriage, but I also don’t think that a failed relationship is enough evidence to judge a whole life by, especially one that was under extraordinary pressure.
He himself admitted he was an abuser of people in his life. Both male and female. Sure, people see that as him atoning for those past abuses. But it is clear he wasn’t this nice person people think of when they think of his anti-war and peace stance in life.
Iirc, while Beatles management did encourage Lennon and Cynthia Powell to get married, they were instructed to keep the marriage and child private for a
period of time. They were trying to lean into the “boy band” desirability, and they must have figured a married father isn’t someone young women feel comfortable pining over. Of course, Cynthia and Julian didn’t stay a secret forever though.
Idk if its authors count as artists, but I’m a fan of the US Constitution. A lot of its authors were slave holders though, so nearly the worst a person can be.
This is probably a controversial one. As someone who studied modern political history, the U.S. Constitution is - taken completely subjective for its time, authors, situation, etc. - an amazing piece of human achievement. It’s a shame that so many people view it was some static command from the past, rather than the living document that it’s authors intended it to be.
Joss Whedon
why?
Graham Lineham was controversial for years before he was ‘cancelled’. A prime example of a talented writer who needed a PR team to keep him away from the general public.
Father Ted, Black Books, IT Crowd. These are all gems that I always enjoy rewatching.
Die Antwoord
Go on…
About what?
Good talk. Great convo. Well done.
Twas a verbal match for the centuries. My children shall know of this day.
Die Antwoord is the answer.
