Accountability in Music • Page 1012

I just checked my closest date as well, looks like it's a relatively small venue, they still have full price standard tickets available for about $100 and you can get verified resale tickets for $40, so that supports your thought that scalpers overbought

 

I agree, but dragging Randy into it just brought out that dog in me

I used to feel this way and it's worth remembering in some instances, but I do not believe that trauma, sexual or otherwise, tends to transform people into self-identifying Nazis

 

yeah I agree it’s important to remember but at the end of the day, you are what you do. Any one who acts out does so out of a trauma response. It’s not an excuse

 

I think anyone giving Kanye a pass at this point for anything is probably not a great person either. Nazi stuff, sexual assault lawsuits, saying what r Kelly did was okay by law in certain states, saying to free him, Cosby, and Diddy, etc. etc. the list goes on.

He’s one of the worst people out there, I’m upset every time I see a headline due to the amount of money I’ve paid in my life to see his shows, shoes, merch, etc. etc.

 

okay and i think you’re wrong :)

 

Of course you do, cus you’re probably jamming the Hitler song if I had to bet money

 

explain

 

Noooo please don’t

 

idk go read the myth of normal by gabor mate and figure it out for yourself

 

You continue to be a bottom of the barrel poster I see

 

that was a serious response. go read this book on trauma that i recently read and found enlightening and then decide whether or not it’s cool to pigpile on people that obviously have some degree of a mental illness. i’m not advocating for listening to their music, see my first post in here today, but i am advocating for thinking about why criminals / problematic people are doing these things. saying i’m a bottom of the barrel poster is a low blow for no reason.

 

I agree - albe’s said some dumb stuff in the past (imo) but that was harsh

 

that's fine

 

was just thinking today about how many hours I've spent listening to his music in my life. I can usually at least be thankful for the music having gotten me through something and impacted me positively, but I actually wish I never discovered it at this point. shit sucks

 

I don't mean to pick on you Aaron but like...why not? We know that all sorts of mental health issues can manifest in all sorts of different ways, even if it's not how they "tend" to manifest. Trauma, among other mental health issues, can contribute to a breakdown in identity which then becomes unstable and - notably in Kanye's case - malleable, susceptible to manipulation (personally I think the descent to nazism started with Rick Rubin on Yeezus).

I understand the urge to make sure people understand that mental health issues do not deterministically *turn* you into a nazi or an abuser or a bad person. But at the same time, I don't think it makes any sense to deny that they can play a part in such a transformation. We know that serious mental health issues can cause people to do and say plenty of things that they wouldn't otherwise, so why should this become a non-factor once a certain line is crossed?

Again, none of this means that we should accept Kanye, or buy his merch, or listen to his music, or say nice things about him, or anything like that. But I sometimes think in attempting to defend people who don't experience radical shifts in identity due to mental illness, we can very easily end up harming those who do by denying that experience is even possible.

 

All of this is true and that's why I chose the words "tend to." I guess I assume posters in here know me enough to know a lot of my thoughts on Kanye and bipolar disorder along with my intentions.

I would never deny that mental health can't play a part in transformation of identity. I think we've had the discussion in this thread specifically enough times to know that, yes, he has obvious mental health issues that have likely contributed to his actions, but also that many other share those diagnoses and don't go down those same avenues. These two things can both be true, and I don't think that's particularly new information for anyone in this thread. I only meant that I really truly doubt that his trauma, which (to be fair) I am completely speculating about as he is a total stranger to me, did not single-handedly lead to him putting out songs with titles like "Heil Hitler"

 

I guess I just don't understand why it's worth remembering in some instances and not this one, then? The post you were responding to just said it was worth remembering, not that it single-handedly did anything. I'm not trying to be a smartass but I feel pretty strongly about this

 

We can't control the way we react to art, and we certainly can't control the trajectory of artists after we've already found meaning in their art. Kanye is a case where I actually feel like I sort of understand most of the turns his career has taken (understanding being different than condoning), as someone who was a deep, entrenched fan for so much of 2005-2015. Is there a reason to wish I'd never connected to TCD or Yeezus? I don't think so. Part of his appeal was built on his grappling with his imperfections and his (appearance of) understanding how at least some of his personal imperfections were connected to larger societal issues. We just watched as he actively followed his darker impulses and eventually turned away from the level of introspection and thoughtfulness we perceived in his art. That's largely his fault, not his audience's (though there have certainly been swaths of enablers who stood with him past what I personally saw as points of no return).

I don't think it's the fault of someone who connected with the insightful commentary of a Woody Allen film that Woody Allen is the person he is. I don't think Johnny Greenwood (and the rest of Radiohead)'s failures to recognize the genocide in Palestine speak to how much someone might love Kid A or King of Lost Limbs. I think it's healthy to recognize where an artist we adore's values conflict with our own, at whatever level*, and I think it's healthy to appreciate someone's art as one thing and their personhood and personal values as something that is more their own than it is ours, whatever that might mean. This isn't an argument for "separating the art from the artist" (which can often be used as an excuse to uncritically continue feeling good about liking an artist as a symbol more than a person), but more a recognition that art does transcend the artist, because once the artist puts it into the world, it isn't just theirs anymore. The work is free to be interpreted and understood independently of the artist (and the legacy of the work and artist just naturally get complicated by time and further revelations about the person, even if they aren't necessarily bad revelations). That gets complicated by artists whose egregious personal flaws bleed into the art (Woody Allen, Jesse Lacey, Kanye West), but part of the understanding of how art works is understanding that we don't know the person who created the art, and our attachment is ultimately to the work, not the artist. Even when an artist's output seems to consistently reinforce what we want out of their values, we could learn anything at any time about the person who created the art that conflicts with our own ideology, or makes us wish we never identified with someone who could create something that we, as our own personal selves, identified so fully with. I don't think it's a binary thing, I think it's fluid and for people to determine how they want to grapple with as they encounter those challenges.

Ultimately I want the space for anyone to be able to chart a healthy and positive path forward (however unlikely I feel it is for Kanye or any public figure whose narcissism/ties to capitalist production of that scale of pop artistry seem an obstacle towards "accountability" or that path forward). Ultimately, this is an "accountability" thread, and isn't the ultimate idea that any one person has the capacity to recognize and atone for/correct their personal failings? Again, that doesn't mean Jesse Lacey should be able to tour again, or that Kanye should be allowed to post his Hitler album on Spotify, but this thread isn't going to solve all those issues, it's more for us to navigate as the ones who actually post here and grapple with these things when the artists mostly don't, and I wouldn't want it to be a place where paths forward for anyone are condemned as beyond possibility any more than I would want it to be a place where people come to defend "separating the art from the artist" for someone like Lacey/Kanye/etc. I'm not sure how much sense that all makes, just feeling out some thoughts.

*(I mean, Bruce Springsteen is probably in the top 3 most important artists in my personal life, and I find his contemporary iconography of podcasts with Obama and $4000 tickets completely incongruous with the thesis of his art, and I think a lot of discourse around someone like Chappell Roan, as minor or relatively innocuous as it is, comes from people having preconceived ideas of what the artist's work means to them vs. who the artist themselves are, or what they are able to/want to articulate)

 

The JG portion of the above made me think, as a tangent and to be clear definitely not as a criticism of anyone in here, I do think the difference in reaction to being an open nazi versus an open zionist, even in particularly conscious circles like ours, is a symptom of holocaust essentialism

 

Is your issue simply with me using the phrase "in some instances?" Because as far as I can tell, we are in agreement. Everyone in this thread is aware of Kanye's mental health issues. I just feel like the conversations we have regarding the correlation between mental health and behavior should probably look a little different different when we discuss a problematic tweet vs. self-identifying as a Nazi and promoting anti-Semitism for two and a half years.

If you want me to say his mental health always bears remembering, that's fine and I don't entirely disagree. It just seems like we disagree on how much these issues can and should be blamed for his current politics.

 

I suppose so, I don't have an issue with you - you're right we mostly agree. I just know people who have, in the throes of severe mental issues, done and said things they would never otherwise, and start feeling iffy when conversations approach the idea that there are certain things that are so bad they could only ever be done because the person is a bad person. not at all accusing you of doing so, just thought the logic could lead there

 

Maybe if we just ignore his antics, we'll all be better off when it comes to Kanye. His career in 2025 is at more or less the same level as other shitheads like Tom Macdonald and it's not really possible for me to follow that guy less; I'm at a point where I'm just going to assume Kanye did something abhorrently awful or racist every time he's in the news. Can we just give him the attention if he doesn't next time?

 

I actually spend a lot of time thinking about this. Some people are just gonna think you’re a bad person and some are going to give you the pass and try to move forward. But responsibility still has to be taken (which I’m not saying you aren’t saying) either way. It’s a stressful balancing act as people on either side of the equation

 

Too many people are contorting themselves to rationalize Kanye's behavior here. His antisemitic remarks are racist—stop deflecting by blaming mental health or just proudly admit you're defending him and share his views.

 

That’s not what’s happening here at all, Mr. Can’t Wait for Brand New to Tour.