Writes my son John (at his blog post, "Should we stop listening to Michael Jackson?"), adding, "And yes, I am that guy!," linking to an Onion piece, "Man Always Gets Little Rush Out Of Telling People John Lennon Beat Wife."
And it's not just music. Don't forget "Red-blooded Caravaggio killed love rival in bungled castration attempt." So, burn this:
In case you're wondering, that painting is "Mary Magdalene Cannot Believe Martha Failed to Provide a Fork."
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106 comments:
Personally, I’m right there with your son’s opinion, but at the same time I think any reason is a valid reason to like/dislike a particular artist’s output, even if it’s emotional/irrational.
Miles didn’t revolutionize jazz. He killed it.
His Hate Whitey act appealed to egg heads and drove the mass audience away.
Jazz was a mass audience music form before Miles. He destroyed it.
I’ve played many sidemen from Miles’ bands. They are perplexed that, although hipsters adore them, the mass audience wants nothing to do with them. Each of them has a hipster star struck white woman attending to their every whim, however.
Miles’ crappy Hate Whitey act paved the way for rock and roll. Rock musicians actually care about entertaining their audience.
Of course Wagner is the poster boy for this topic. The reality is most Europeans were anti-Semitic, and there’s no point to rejecting their art, unless the art itself is anti-Semitic.
Can we at least tear down statues of Michael Jackson?
A fair question but I would answer that it is not appropriate or correct to silence such artists. Their work stands on its own, as do their private actions and behaviors. And where does this lead, no human is perfect and most have done something illegal or, minimally, regrettable. We might have to ban them all at some future point.
"does nothing to stop those kinds of crimes from happening in the future" Probably true, but are you sure? Artists care a lot about their work, and posterity.
Shitting on John Lennon is fun, and no one does it better than a Daily Mail headline:
A cruel, greedy, selfish monster: A peace-loving visionary? No, argues a blistering book. John Lennon was a nasty piece of work who epitomised our age of self-obsession
A better reason to stop listening to Michael Jackson music is that most of it was overrated junk that wasn't half as interesting without Jackson's electrifying performances in front of them. But if you must, just pirate it. Therefore you get your musical pleasure and you don't have to worry about enriching anyone's estate.
I don't care what anyone says - the Beatles sucked, particularly after their trip to India or wherever it was.
Picasso was a horrible person. So was Beethoven. Hitler found Wagner inspirational
What would be left if our artists had to pass personality tests?
Cuckoo clocks and muzak.
Fillide Melandroni: Caravaggio’s crooked-fingered courtesan
Although she was born in Siena, Fillide had been in Rome since she was a youngster. When she was barely in her teens, she was put to work as a prostitute by her mother. The traces of her that can be found in the archives and the court records show that she was frequently in trouble with the authorities, and not simply for prostitution.
By all accounts, Fillide was a girl with attitude. Take the incident in December 1600 when she suspected that the relationship between her pimp, Ranuccio Tommasoni, and another of his ‘girls’, Prudenza Zacchia, was more than simply transactional. Fillide was furious. Jealousy, nose out of joint or merely looking for an excuse to cause a stramash, whatever her motivation, Fillide wasn’t going to stand for it.
Given the times and the reliance for her livelihood on her pimp, it wasn’t the bloke Fillide went after. No chance. Off to Prudenza’s house she stormed (along with one of her pals should back up be required), ready to unleash her wild temper on her rival but her plan was thwarted when Prudenza wasn’t home. Not that that stopped her kicking off. She gave Prudenza’s mother a good beating in her place.
Next stop, Ranuccio’s place. Sure enough, Prudenza was there. And once she spotted her, Fillide didn’t hold back.
There is a brilliant account of the whole affair in Andrew Graham-Dixon’s Caravaggio, A Life Sacred and Profane. According to witness testimony in the court records, Fillide screamed at Prudenza and pulled out a knife.
‘Ah, you slag, you baggage, there you are! Whore, I’m going to scar you everywhere.’
https://helenmtaylor.com/2017/01/31/fillide-melandroni/
"Mary Magdalene Cannot Believe Martha Failed to Provide a Fork."
All is not lost. I see there is a comb on the table.
Louis Armstrong revolutionized jazz. He was reviled by hipsters as an Uncle Tom for being a joyful entertainer who employed the theatrical methods of vaudeville and minstrelsy.
There's no shortage of great artwork that was produced by less than ideal human beings. I think seperating the art from the artist is pretty easy because you can like a song without any knowledge of who the artist really was as a person. As long as you understand who the artist was, the only thing unethical or immoral about enjoying the art of a bad person is if your enjoyment is abetting suffering of their victims somehow.
In the case of Michael Jackson, the only people who are benefitting from his music is the heirs to his estate. I don't know if that causes any additional suffering to his victims or not. The victims may have or could end up benefitting financially in the form of law suit payouts I guess.
A better question: What is a Jew whistling Wagner for?
It’s amazing how spellbound white hipsters are by that Hate Whitey act from black artists.
So, burn this:
If they could, they would.
The goal is the destruction of history so that everything is eternally born anew each day. Doing so ensures that the people advocating the destruction can maintain power by whipping up the mob against constant new threats.
And it's just stupid. Like last week's hate-fest on John Wayne for some '70s Playboy interview. Just stupid.
Gesualdo....killed bith his wife and her lover, with a bonus of post-mortem mutilation. But his contribution to late Renaissance mannerist madrigals keeps him in most survey of music history anthologies.
"Silencing music by a dead person who committed crimes does nothing to stop those kinds of crimes from happening in the future."
Sounds a bit absolutist to me.
What if you had to argue that playing the music of a dead person who committed crimes actually encourages future copycat criminals?
I've heard that Charles Manson, before he became an infamous murderer, created music that some people — Neil Young, the Beach Boys — felt had critical merit. John Wayne Gacy was an artist whose work has been collected. So was a painter named Hitler. Can we be sure that exhibiting and celebrating their work now would be risk-free? Might it encourage copycat criminals?
Perhaps all artists should automatically receive mental health check ups. It's The Law! Frustrated artists and otherwise.
Is it still okay to listen to the Jackson 5, or Michael before he started raping kids?
Would you go back in time and castrate baby Michael?
I know someone who truly loved Michael Jacksons songs. They brought her a lot of joy, and it's a shame that the experience is tainted now. Maybe some day we can look back on all his raping and laugh.
Michael Jackson was tried and acquitted.
I thought he was guilty, but the jury thought he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
So be it. Case closed.
When I lived in Woodstock, musicians would start their “The U.S. is an awful, exploitive, unfair society” bit.
I’d stop them and say: “No, the world of the arts is awful, exploitive and unfair.”
My church musician gig and my job skills, thank God, kept from from sinking down to the bottom of the shithole is that is business of the arts.
Lionel Shriver put it very well. Why do we throw away the best of a person because of their worst?
The reason not to listen to Jackson is that he isn’t any good.
I am listening to Beethoven, and he was sometimes rude.
"An’ here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice"
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.
Shake-Speare Sonnet 121 -> sounds like someone on the wrong end of "metoo"
The English separated the art from the artist 400 years ago, banishing the true author to history's dustbin. Too bad, it's a helluva story.
I don’t usually agree with ST, but he is right about M8les Davis. He and the bop killed jazz as mainstream. The same way Boulez and the serialists killed classical as mainstream.
Is it right to benefit from the medical knowledge gained from the grisly, nightmarish research that went on at Unit 731?
Nah, let's not. I love Caravaggio, but then I'm a sucker for the chiaroscuro style.
I always thought that Michael Jackson was a hideous weirdo, and that his music sucked, but there is also the case of Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613 CE) who murdered his unfaithful life and her lover.
For those who believe in Hell, Gesualdo may be in it, but the best part of him lives on in his exquisite music.
Of course, being Italians, I'm sure his in-laws are still pissed.
By the way, I enjoyed the rare (intentional) Althouse joke.
Farmer
I agree shitting on Lennon is a fine pastime, but mainly because he was such a conceited, sententious shit. It's not nearly as much fun shitting on Ringo.
I've heard that Charles Manson, before he became an infamous murderer....
Common misconception. Manson did not murder anyone...,
Still cannot understand how MJ got a hundred times the publicity and love from the Big Blacks that Muhammad Ali got (after death).
MJ was a talented freak. Ali was a champion for his people in more ways than one
I've always believed in separating art from artist [not that I actually consider MJ to be an artist] and the athlete from his/her sport. Having watched Yentl the other day for about the fourth time [Mandy Patinkin is so gorgeous in that movie and he gets naked, too!] and realized that I still appreciate Streisand's unique voice though I abhor her politics. Robert de Niro is splendid in Raging Bull. There seems to be, in fact, a correlation between artistic talent and being an asshole, though I've not seen a controlled study. ;-)
Beethoven was deaf, ugly, sick, and short, and probably smelled bad, but he was also the faithful vessel of sublime genius.
He was meddlesome and probably hurt as much as helped his no-account nephew, but I don't care:
He wrote the Piano Sonata Opus 109.
While I agree in general that if you throw out all the art by bad people (people who did bad things) then there is no art left because everyone does bad things. I do make an exception for Michael Jackson, however, and change the channel if he comes on the air. Just too weird.
This is the basic flaw in so much of SJW activism: no one can pass their purity tests. For example, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves--ooooh, bad man. But he also got Virginia to pass a law banning the import of more slaves. He tried and failed to get the manumission law overturned--you see in his day it was ILLEGAL to free slaves except on your death (which is what George Washington did). Jefferson could not free his slaves.
Bamiyan and Taliban.
NS
The models for the woke.
If the exclusivity period for coyrights was the same as the period for patents, nearly all of his work would be in the public domain now. Anyone could sell the albums with no names on them. With a picture of kittens on the cover. You could stil listen to the music, while denying the artist the money and the opportunity to be recognized as a brand.
I have deliberately avoided reading any of the new articles re MJ. If you want to accuse someone of rape by name, do it while they're alive and can defend themselves, not 10 years after their death. These radio stations are run by a bunch of assholes. Should alive and dead rock stars who slept with 14 year-old girls also get banned? If not, why not? Serves them right for the requests that are inevitably going to come next.
I've heard that Charles Manson, before he became an infamous murderer....
Common misconception. Manson did not murder anyone.
Manson was convicted on seven counts of first degree murder. It is accurate to call him a murderer.
I think MJ feels different because people saw him with young boys all the time, felt uncomfortable about it and then pushed it aside because he was a good artist. So they knew, but didn't want to know. It's different than learning things later. So different from Cosby, Led Zeppelin, Caravaggio.
Those women are wearing the Italian flag. That's kind of funny. Margherita pizza!
"I've heard that Charles Manson, before he became an infamous murderer...."
Common misconception. Manson did not murder anyone.
Manson was convicted on seven counts of first degree murder. It is accurate to call him a murderer.
Yep, my bad. I should known better, have seen enough First 48 where the guy sitting out in the car is as guilty as the guy inside pulling the trigger..
Phidippus notes, re Beethoven: He wrote the Piano Sonata Opus 109.
And the best violin concerto--EVER!
I was going to see the Beheading of St. John the Baptist this summer, but maybe now I'll have to cancel my vacation.
With all due respect to Mom, I suggest John is manufacturing a mountain out of rain puddle, here. If some 'music stations/providers want to signal their sincere beliefs or imagined virtues re pop music, who are we to say they should not - see 'Wedding Cake' 'Democrat Congress' etc, etc. And if you own a Caravaggio, do whatever the hell you want with it, yes? We are entitled to express our personal and reasonable attitudes, tacit or explicit., unless john wants to add this passing event to the already suspect list of 'thought crimes'. Some people don't like Jackson's music because he's a sick child molester, some don't like it because it's over-the-hill and deadly pedestrian. Personally, I'm guilty on both counts.
Miles Davis was a hilariously awful person Even he agrees, read his Autobiography. Coke addict, Heroin user, Boozer, wife beater, racist, and egomaniac.
It makes me like his music even more.
Funniest part of Miles' Autobiography is when he came within an inch of punching Merv Griffin for saying "Stupid Shit".
What if we found out that John Lennon was a child molester and George Gershwin was a Commie, would it make any difference? No.
To me, this just reinforces my idea that you should not look too closely at who writes/plays the music, creates the art, or writes the novels. After all, what does it matter? If Bacon had written all of Shakespeare's plays would it make Hamlet less great? If we found out that a black guy had actually written all of Irving Berlin's tunes, would we care?
Miles Davis was also full of shit. He attacked Louie Armstrong for "clowning for white Folks" - But Miles Davis could NOT clown, even if he'd wanted to. He slowed Jazz down because he wasn't particularly great at playing fast. Everything he did was to benefit himself. The Explanations came later.
Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
Does that invalidate the ideas of natural rights and equality at creation?
"And yes, I am that guy!," linking to an Onion piece, "Man Always Gets Little Rush Out Of Telling People John Lennon Beat Wife."
Generally, I hold to the proposition that art speaks for itself, that the artist and his biography are irrelevant to aesthetics. However, John Lennon was more of a corrupter of music than a revolutionary, especially after he took up with Yoko Ono.
Someone, maybe it will be me, should write a new version of that old temptation story using the Lennon/Ono duo in place of Faustus/Mephistopheles.
It’s amazing how those who advocate free speech argue otherwise when speech is codified in art.
AOC seems to have violated campaign finance laws.
I guess that means the GND can’t be discussed in polite company.
What a crazy painting. Is "Mary" the one with the hot tamales.
Unlike Amy, Mary did not have a comb to use as a fork.
Lenord Bernstein liked underage boys. Does that mean we can dislike "West Side Story" for more than the music?
I've always regarded John Lennon as your typical wanky, flat-chested, Left-wing loser Brit, who could sing a little. As a human being he was a walking disaster area, and probably couldn't beat up a fruit fly.
But I like "Hard days Night" and "Help".
I like Hitler - the artist.
I was going to write that I like Polanski's film's despite his being a child rapist. But then I realized, I don't really like ANY of his films. What a relief!
Yeah, this is starting to sound like a corrupted version of Christian philosophy. The typical response to "Why do good people go to hell?" is "What good people?" A basic tenet of Christianity is we are all sinners, no matter how hard we try, and we need the grace of God. The (appropriate) Christian response to this is to love everyone. The SJW response is to hate everyone except themselves, who are self-righteously "clean."
If my music selection was limited to people who I thought were "pure," I probably would not listen to music. I listen to wife beaters, womanizers, rapists, child molesters, communists, drunks and drug addicts (lots of those), murderers, persons intolerant of my religion, persons intolerant of my political views, and general assholes. It does help that I don't really care about the personal lives or views of my entertainers. Life is too short to go around judging everything.
I thought Miles killed jazz when he went electric.
Meh, we already had plenty of electric.
According to his Bio, Miles went electric because he thought Jazz was already dead in the late 60s. BTW, there's a while bunch of peeps who LOVE his electric early 70s stuff. Not me, although I like parts. I think its the typical music snob reaction. Y'know if most people hate something an artist does, then a small group will react by saying that's the greatest thing artist X ever did.
"Should we stop listening to Michael Jackson?"
Can you stop listening to someone you never listened to?
But that John Wayne really should be deplatformed.
Right?
tim maguire said...
All is not lost. I see there is a comb on the table.
Thread winner.
Manson was convicted on seven counts of first degree murder. It is accurate to call him a murderer.
Actually nine convictions, but he never actually killed anyone; it's a legal fiction to call him a murderer.
"Typically, a legal fiction allows the court to ignore a fact [didn't actually murder anyone] that would prevent it from exercising its jurisdiction by simply assuming that the fact is different."
I dare anyone to do the moonwalk in public.
Fernandistein said... "Typically, a legal fiction allows the court to ignore a fact [didn't actually murder anyone] that would prevent it from exercising its jurisdiction by simply assuming that the fact is different."
**************
Un huh....except he was convicted for first-degree murder because he ordered/encouraged others to commit murder, and they did. There's no fiction in that.
Nor is there any fiction in conspiring to murder, also an offense under the CA penal code.
"Legal fiction" is in the domain of civil and common law, and does not apply to the criminal code, which is usually quite precise, either in statutory wording or as defined in case law.
In criminal cases such as this one, with dead bodies and perps all around, courts don't need "reasons" to find jurisdiction.
I dare anyone to do the moonwalk in public.
Astronaut David Scott will take that dare!
Is anyone else who saw "Pirates" sad that Charlie Manson killed the wrong person?
Phil Spector actually murdered a woman, and there has never been a backlash against his music....,..R. Kelly is universally condemned. He's the most guilty celebrity ever in the sense that no other celebrities are speaking up for him........I think Michael Jackson was guilty, but there were extenuating circumstances. He was probably as much a victim as a victimizer. Say this much for him: he abused his victims in a kinder, gentler way than his father abused him......One of the founders of Zionism was inspired to do so whilst listening to Wagner. There are lots of unintended consequences in art. Bach and Chopin were no slouches when it came to anti-semitism, but, so far as I know, Hitler wasn't particularly a fan of their music. Most of Wagner's disrepute comes from the fact that Hitler was a fanboy. I wish Hitler had loved Schubert and Miles Davis. Their music sucks..
@Althouse, are you aware that you and Caravaggio may have something in common? There is anecdotal evidence that he suffered from anosmia, probably from grinding his own paints.
To insist on banning such art, you have to either have a very high opinion of yourself or one so low that this is your only way of showing your virtue.
Let he who is without sin do the first finger painting, or macaroni art, depending on your skill level. I always preferred the taste of the glue to the pasta, but they don't go well together.
Is this like a reverse cake baking?
Just as long as they keep their censuring paws off of Le Pétomane. He was French, you know.
If this standard gains strength, how will it affect Islam?
And BTW, wasn't there some Democrat politicians in some southern state recently suspected of debauchery. What ever happened to that story? And I still have to ask: "what is Fast and Furious?"
In the Philippines, in the late 70s, every little roadside sari-sari booth was blasting Michael Jackson music every day all day. My thought then was, "Why are Filipinos so enamored with the worst that American culture has to offer?"
FullMoon... murder by proxy is part of the law. Look it up idiot.
Case closed because a jury said so.. Just like OJ in 1995, always believe a jury?
Does this mean people who dressed in blackface to be Michael Jackson for Halloween should be doubly damned?
Who is trying to "silence" or "throw out" Michael Jackson's music? A person choosing not to listen to something hardly amounts to silencing or throwing out, much less is it some punitive or oppressive action. We all have free will, and we all have the right to not associate with something or someone.
If you feel defiled hearing the singing of someone you believe to be a sexual abuser of children, you have no obligation to continue listening.
And, by the way, if "artists" know that they will be disappeared down the memory hole as a non-person if they molest children, then it just might deter them from molesting the children in the first place.
Public scorn and ostracization have long been powerful deterrents to wrongdoing. So, yes it very well could stop these kind of crimes from happening.
I never "got" Michael Jackson's greatness.
what about "Halls Of Fame"?
artists/athletes excluded due to past?
Re caravaggio theres an interesting tale that leslie silbert (the daughter of earl, the Watergate prosecutor) and author of the intelligence about Marlowes spying adventures has been working on for years.
It's been a while:
https://m.facebook.com/pages/category/Book/Killing-Caravaggio-by-Leslie-Silbert-144768405613455/
Which is worse, a Michael Jackson accused of possible child abuse, or a genre like rap that advocates cop killing and abuse of women?
Un huh....except he was convicted for first-degree murder because he ordered/encouraged others to commit murder, and they did. There's no fiction in that.
He never actually cut anyone's throat or shot anyone in the face or bludgeoned them with a club or strangled anyone to death or kicked their guts out: it speaks to his psychology. Was he squeamish? Cowardly? Wanted to watch?
And "legal fiction" is a very accurate term to describe convicting someone of murder knowing that they never actually murdered anyone.
Interesting topic. Boring comments. Can we talk about Charlie Manson some more?
Did you realize Jews don't like Wagner? I didn't until i heard about it for the 10,000th time. And i don't even listen to Wagner. But anyway, Jews don't like him.
Every internet discussion of Wagner goes like this:
1) Hey i just saw a Wagner opera.
2) did you know he was an antisemite?
3) But I like him anyway
4) Blah, blah, like forever.
"Hey I just saw a Wagner opera" is almost as good a line as "you from around here?"
I googled nicest rock stars and the answer is Stevie Ray Vaughn.
bagoh20 said: "If this standard gains strength, how will it affect Islam?"
It won't. There is no art or creativity in Islam.
Now, recognizing Islam for what it is, and acting accordingly, that would be interesting to watch. Unfortunately, it appears that the slow-motion suicide of Western Civilization has some time yet to run before anything like that happens.
Tough action for my grandchildren, alas.
The way things are going, we may never see Northam moonwalk.
"P.Y.T." will be the first to go from radio rotation.
Poulenc, Copland, Handel, and Tchaikovsky took the bone up the ass (and Schubert is suspect), but we can't toss their music just because they were pervs. I say we should just march on and enjoy what they left behind.
uh...no, wait!
- Krumhorn
Why stop there? What about the siblings of those who commit such crimes? Isn’t there a genetic connection?
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Rock stars have been doing bad things ever since Chuck Berry & Jerry Lee Lewis, and even though it hurt their careers, we never stopped listening to them. The only question is how bad are we going to allow it to become before we do.
On a related note, here's a song you never hear on oldies radio (or sports programs) any more: Rock and Roll Pt. 2 by Gary Glitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sjGBXckGB4
The still-living Mr. Glitter is a convicted pedophile (in England), and his familiar tune (which was a world-wide top 10 hit in 1972, and went on to become an iconic sports-rally chant) has all but disappeared from radio and TV.
There is a difference between breaking up with your girlfriend and killing her and/or other people.
If your son doesn't understand that he's an intellectual and aesthetic moron. At best. And so are you for socializing him to be a mindless yet self-indulgent sociopath.
The patnetic thing is, you people aren't neutral to it.
You get off on it, from the safety of your upper-class sheltered lives.
"Mary Magdalene Cannot Believe Martha Failed to Provide a Fork."
That right there is a priceless!
If there is some justice now to be applied at this juncture to Michael Jackson, why not let it be that every time you hear his music or see his images, your mind is filled not only with the Brilliance of his talent but also the knowledge or suspicion of his Wicked Deeds? If every time you think of him his name is a reproach, and you think of him often, how is that but Justice? If that were to lead organically to a neglect of his work because of the association's, that would be one thing. Shutting it off programmatically in this way due to what I can't describe as other then a cultural spasm seems, for lack of a better descriptor, fascist.
rcocean said...
According to his Bio, Miles went electric because he thought Jazz was already dead in the late 60s. BTW, there's a while bunch of peeps who LOVE his electric early 70s stuff. Not me, although I like parts. I think its the typical music snob reaction. Y'know if most people hate something an artist does, then a small group will react by saying that's the greatest thing artist X ever did.
3/7/19, 4:16 PM
Love love love Bitches Brew, Pangaea, Agharta...if that's a crime, let me be guilty.
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