Accountability in Music • Page 915

The people on Indiecast made a great point that basically the only way you can really be cancelled is to be cancelled by your fans. While I know if they tried again, BN would have a lot of people that wouldn’t care, I do feel like their fan base does have a lot of people who do.

 

Chris Brown just won a grammy

 

The world is just a trash pile and we are swimming in it.

 

It’s hard to separate the artist from the art when they’re so interwoven. I can’t listen to Jesse Lacey talk about how shitty he is and how much he hates himself in Brand New’s music when he actually was shitty and did have reason to hate himself. Just like I can’t play R Kelly’s love songs when they were written about children

 

Exactly where I’m at. Especially when one of your biggest songs is about being sexually coerced.

 

I totally get that, and I think it's a personal line for anyone. That's why I talk about it as work that needs to be done. If you want to separate the art and the artist, you need to really examine the artist and their actions, weigh those against the art itself, and make a determination whether the art is something you can continue to take meaning from knowing what you do about the artist. And it's a process, not just something that happens once, but something that needs to be examined repeatedly.

I think this is what a lot of people are trying to do when they bring up allegations against artists in their threads here when discussion of the music starts back up again. Making sure that those who are continuing to interact with the art are doing so with a full view to who the artist is.

 

I also think the case of BN is a really interesting one for this scene given the timing. It's impossible to prove, but had JL's abuses come to light a year or even 6 months earlier, before they dropped SF - an album widely celebrated at the time of its release and felt like "our band" (at the time) finally getting their (mainstream/critical) flowers - when they were all but defunct and had been so for an extended period, I do think things could have gone much differently. I think a lot more people would have continued to quietly enjoy their past work, comfortable in their nostalgia, and there would still be people on both sides, but these conversations wouldn't be so heatedly polarized.

But the way things actually happened, coming to light when BN had made a sudden not just reappearance but resurgence, hitting heights (in publicity and popularity) they hadn't before, I think it caused people to react strongly in opposite ways, with some people vociferously claiming "no, I like this and nothing you say or JL did can take that away from me" and others recoiling, vehement in their position that JL is a monster and they can't support him or his band.

There were obviously a lot of other factors in the socio-political climate - Me Too, Trump, social media - that played a part, but the spotlight shining so brightly on the band at the time, and people's personal connection to BN being their band, for better or for worse, played a huge role. (And that's not to mention the actions, or inaction, of the other band members in the shadow of all of this.)

And this may just be my own faux-intellectual rationalization, but I do think that's why seemingly a lot more people can still listen to legacy acts and discuss the music separate from the horrible acts of the artists, because in many cases they don't have that personal connection to the artist that intensifies the reaction.

 

Yeah, I think this part hasn't really been said before and I agree. IMO reducing Brand New to just "a band people liked in high school" like people have done here feels a bit disingenuous. They have that Radiohead-style indie rock/experimental rock cred that no other band which originated from the scene had, and no band since has either. The main reason Brand New still has a strong defense squad is because of how much critical acclaim and artistic prestige their music received. The people I know who listen to Brand New hate pop punk/emo and see them as just another artsy indie rock band.

Like, Taking Back Sunday is a band that people liked in high school. Or, Bowling for Soup and Good Charlotte. And if the frontmen of those bands were caught with teenagers, I think them and their fanbase would be erased uncontroversially. They wouldn't have a strong movement of defenders because their music is seen as expendable. But Brand New are different, because they make Mature Art adored by the indie tastemakers which is not disposable. I think that dynamic informs a lot of their fanbase's behavior. You don't see legions of Saves the Day or Anti-Flag fans insisting that those singers did nothing wrong.

 

I get what y'all are getting at, and don't necessarily think you're wrong, but I couldn't help but laugh at the way it was phrased. I know it's not productive to go into that though

 

As someone who dropped their music for like 6 months after the allegations arose with the exception of the new album as that one felt 'separated' from what had gone on in the past at the time....I can say one of the things I realized when I started not hitting next song on my ipod and listening again was I still connected with the lyrics on a personal level and what they meant to me at certain stages of my life, rather than hearing anything Lacey was saying as something he was saying about himself. Like, the TDAG songs were the first ones I started letting myself listen to again because that was the album that got me through my depression and break up I was going through when I first heard it, and I realized that hearing the songs were bringing me right back to my feelings and my emotions at the time, rather than hearing them as JL's feelings and emotions of whatever he was trying to get across at the time from his own guilty soul. IDK I'm wording that right or not lol

But yeah I agree with @Elder Lightning , I think one of the reasons why THIS one stuck for a lot of people and was so much harder for a lot of people to get around and get back to listening to the music even privately is the combo of the circumstances+the standing of the band in the scene. For better or worse, they seemed to be considered the apex of the scene, even though clearly other bands from the scene and tangently connected to the scene hit it way bigger than they ever did in terms of mainstream popularity. I think that was hard for a lot of people to swallow when it turned out they too were taking advantage of teen girls back when they were also writing songs about teenage relationships.

This is my own little person theory being added on here, just thinking out loud based on elder's post... but there was a level of...embarrassment?...back in the day around emo/pop punk bands because of all the screaming and melodramatic lyrics over failed teen love and etc etc, and then there was a lot of...again, embarrassment?...or maybe just being "too cool" for bands from the scene that got huge like FOB, or too cool for the pale creepy goth dude with long black here screaming I'm not okay nad etc....and BN had been one of those bands that had that one 'embarrassing' album whose subsequent ones felt more 'mature', if not just outright great rock music that explored other themes besides the 'i broke up with my gf' genre, and a lot of people who wanted the scene and their taste in music to be more well regarded, and BN was one of, if not THE band that people pointed to for a while there in the late 2000s/early 2010s as like "Okay yeah the first album is immature, but did you hear the step they took on the next one? WHat about their 3rd album? critically acclaimned, Rolling Stone or whoever calling them America's radiohead, etc"...like that was a lot of people from that scene's "see? these bands are actually writing really good music and thoughtful lyrics" band, and then Science Fiction was sort of the vindication of that for those folks. And like Elder said, having this drop like 4 or 5 months after those people finally felt vindicated about it....I think it just drove a lot of them nuts.

 

Good Charlotte isn't the best example to use

 

I really think it's a contributing factor in some regard that BN always did the "we're mysterious as fuck" schtick. I feel like that attracts a certain type of fanbase (it DEFINITELY contributes to the pseudo-intellectualism that people go through to defend them)

 

to bounce off of what @Elder Lightning said, i think the circumstances were especially exacerbated by a) the fact that a follow-up to Daisy was repeatedly teased and delayed for 8 years (adding to that sense of ownership surrounding SF, i.e. "we just got this, you can't take it away from us"), and b) the expansion of #MeToo into the sphere of music. iirc, the allegations first broke because someone on Facebook said something along the lines of "okay, now that we're revealing how shitty all of these men in the music industry are, when's someone gonna bring up Jesse Lacey from Brand New?". had the movement not taken off, i wonder how much attention any allegations would've received (let alone that someone would even feel empowered enough to bring their story to light)

 

this is besides the point a bit but it really is baffling to me how many of their diehard fans seem to think that this is a time where the band "deserves" to come back or that they were victims of cancel culture or something as if the band itself did not telegraph for like two years straight that they were, by their own choice, choosing to end things and go away. who cancelled this band besides the band itself?

 

I think this is absolutely worth bringing up. They didn't "face accountability", they went through their regularly scheduled plan

 

That's 100% my dynamic with Brand New, yeah, and why I personally haven't revisited anything by them on purpose since then.

I think it's silly to pretend that, if you still have a personal connection to a piece of art made by someone since revealed to be a piece of shit, that makes you a piece of shit. (Navigate that responsibly, with tact, without being an asshole... but yeah.) But, in the case of Brand New, Jesse's blunt emotional rawness was such a key ingredient for me, and now all of that is wrapped up in what we know about his predatory behavior. And, I typically don't wanna think about grooming and shit when listening to alternative rock!

 

i think i'm also at a point where those songs that did mean a lot to me (TDAG was especially poignant during 2015-2016 when i was having the worst year of my life) served their purpose then and don't really feel necessary for me anymore. my 30 year-old self is in a much more emotionally-stable place than my 20 year-old self, and i just don't feel compelled to reach for songs like that the way i used to (and if i did, i wouldn't reach for ones written by someone who slept with multiple minors)

 

I think that also plays a role as to why Brand New's defense squad is so rabid. Science Fiction and the planned 2018 retirement tour were supposed to be a grand victory lap to conclude their legacy. And the fact that it ended very prematurely, out of anyone's control, doing more damage than benefit to the band's image – when it felt like they were the only band of their ilk with a good image – is why their fans are so bitter and resentful. They never got to see the 2018 tour and what seemed like the destined universe where Brand New's legacy only continued to grow further after their split. And perhaps they think this reunion would give them closure over something that was taken from them abruptly, and be a step forward to rebuilding that legacy.

We'll nitpick about whether or not Jesse actually "did the work" to better himself, but to the fans, the specifics don't matter. All that has to happen is that it *looks* like he did the work so they can spin it into a narrative of redemption to try and elevate their image back. They're basically running a free PR spin campaign that celebrities would pay millions for lawyers to enact.

 

Right...and the funniest/saddest/most ironic part about it is...just speculation from me based on the bits and pieces we've heard over the years, comments made at shows, the stories and accusations themselves and the timeline, etc...all that "mysterious" shit seemed to really just be that there was turmoil in the band about what he was doing and it got to the point by Daisy that they seemed unwilling to record a new album with him after that nd just kept touring for the $$$. Like it doesn't seem like it was any mysterious marketing/we're just too cool for media type shit at all lol

 

And the worst part is the mystery is likely largely because of him needing therapy and being how he chose to handle his actions.

 

oh wow, i didn't actually know that those rumors existed. if it's true that there was turmoil about his actions and the band still continues to work with him, that's really fucking cowardly

 

Appreciate your take. As someone who was/is slightly older in this scene (I turned 20 about 5 months after Deja Entendu came out which sounds insanely young now but just in the context of that scene), I didn't often connect with the early BN albums at least lyrically just because I never went through an "I'm angry at women/breakups" phase. That's not to shit on people who DID go through those experiences or say they are less then, just that I had a bit of distance from this stuff emotionally and liked it more for the vocal delivery, objective lyrical analysis and musicality. Devil and God and Daisy were more of "young man struggling to grow up/fight off demons" which was more relatable and, perhaps, why so many people were hit by these allegations. Similar to Arcade Fire in a way, I just kinda felt duped listening to lyrics about someone struggle/trying to get better all while sexting and doing live cam sessions with underage girls (yes I know "Allegedly"). I have no problem if other people want to listen to Brand New or see them, but for me it's just been a bit hard to revisit and I imagine a lot of other people feel a similar way.

 

“good image” is wishful thinking. they were an enigmatic band at best. stuff was rumbled about with derrick leaving and potential in band drama for years. who thought this was a squeaky clean band at all?

 

Through nearly 1000 pages of posts on this thread this is basically all it boils down to for me

 

You'd have to be super obsessed with following band drama to know the ins and outs of Derrick leaving, which most music fans are not.

For "good image", I'm talking about how they always did the right thing in terms of musical development. They were citing The Jesus Lizard and Built to Spill while their peers were making super commercial pop punk. They received glowing reviews from Pitchfork, which was historically very hostile to anything remotely associated with emo. There was this idea that Brand New made music for mature adults while the Warped Tour bands made immature music for teenagers, so therefore they were less likely to commit sexual misconduct.