Saves The Day Band • Page 76

Is separating the art from the artist different to you when it's a solo artist vs a band vs a movie and actor?

If it were the drummer and they got rid of him and replaced him, would you have a problem? Is it because Chris is the singer and it's his lyrics? Do you discount all the work all the other members put in and now it's tainted forever?

I think about these things a lot. A lot of the things people like are tainted now and probably a lot more than we realize, but we just don't know about them all.

 

I think that's a big part of it - how much of a connection you had to the band/artist prior to finding out they're shitty people. It's not that simple to unwind 20 years of positive experience and emotions growing up. That shit is engrained deep. On paper, it makes sense. If something horrible came out about Bowling For Soup, I wouldn't need to think twice about skipping over them on spotify radio. I've never listened to them in my life besides that goddamn 1985 song.

 

I think it’s definitely harder to separate art from the artist with Saves the Day considering the nature of the lyrics, especially their most popular albums and the fact that Chris is the only original member/face of the band. If it had been any other member of the band I’d definitely be listening to them to this day.

 

I think separating art from artist can be messy. But when the sex pest is the main singer and songwriter it’s very easy to write them off. Not to take away from what other members contributed, but the singer/songwriter is very much the focal point of the vast majority of bands. This may hurt “innocent” band members, but that’s part of being a part of a group, some actions by one can effect the others. Assuming the other members speak out against the problem, I think they’re more than free to pursue other projects without carrying any burden from the prior problem they weren’t involved in. In the case of Brand New, Jesse could not be replaced and the songs were very much his thing with some exceptions later on where Vin wrote some. In this case though the deafening silence from the rest of the band on it even after their fans went insane and harassed the hell out of the victims makes me desire never to hear another project with them. With something like All Time Low, their across board defense of their allegations results in me hoping they all fuck off forever.

But as for if these things ruin their content I think it’s even messier. Like, how long have you been a fan of them, does their allegations change the context of any of their art, and so on. You can only go by what you know at the time of experiencing the content in whatever form it may be. So should you still take in that content? That’ll vary from person to person based on the severity of the allegation and their prior experience with the art.

then there’s stuff like Harry Potter and JK where she is basically continually doubling down on rhetoric that is essentially that of her villains with a couple words swapped out. “You’re not a real woman if you aren’t born that way.” “You’re not a real wizard if you aren’t born that way (as in pure blood).” Like it’s absurd that she doesn’t understand the morals of her own books. So I can still enjoy those stories and movies, especially since I already own them. I try to avoid buying new stuff as she is seemingly connected to all of it financially.

and on movies, even if the lead star is the sex pest, there are hundreds to thousands of people involved in crafting that movie from start to finish. That just complicated things further.

It’s a huge mess to me. The general take I have is to believe victims and stop or greatly reduce any financial support on my end. Depending on what occurred I have to reevaluate how I feel about their past art I have enjoyed and decide what to do with it with various results.

 

I mean, that's all preference. Chris being the primary songwriter definitely has something to do with it. I can't listen to Mark Kozelek anymore, whether it's SKM or Red House Painters. And those songs mean a ton to me. I'm sorry. but yeah, it would be different if it were a less prominent member and the situation was handled appropriately but unfortunately, that's not the case and now Chris has dragged other members' work down with him.

For me, I would say it's similar with film and television. It's much harder to overlook Woody Allen writing and directing a film promoting his thoughts or feelings than it is watching Kevin Spacey play a villain in Seven.

 

Yeah, that's completely understandable. None of this was criticism about the way you view it. I'm just always curious how people react to things like this.

Like if I found out Justin from Motion City Soundtrack did something or was a horrible person I think that would be one of the biggest gut punches for me. I wouldn't be able to listen to anything that remotely reminds me of them.

 

Likewise, I didn't mean for my post to sound aggressive, it's just a tough question to answer with a lot of grey area. I have my viewpoint, but that's obviously going to vary from person to person.

 

The later albums were still legit in terms of the nerdy musician stuff like the dissonant but still poppy jazz chord progressions, but the songs themselves as a whole started having less substance to them. For me, the last two releases were more about finding the music nerd easter eggs rather than feeling emotionally connection to the songs.

Daybreak was huge to me at the time it came out cause of mental health issues in my life, but now it seems contrived and inauthentic.

Dude was actually all about drugs and ego and mindf*cking people the whole time, which as a recovering addict I shamefully can't say I haven't done in varying degrees in the past. I think him staying sober and doing the sober work (whether it's 12 steps or SMART or another alternative) and getting 100% honest with himself and assessing his life (and not faking it for the sake of art like on daybreak and 9) would be a way to get it together and then assess how to sort out the wreckage of his past and be a functioning adult. I hope he gets his shit together so he can still have purpose and add value to those close in his life, so be it if that means he never performs or releases music again.

Erik Sandin from NOFX was a huge scumbag and drug user in the 80s and early 90s and now he's been sober for decades and devotes much of his time to helping others overcome the same battles. I hope Chris finds the same peace and stability, whether or not he ever releases another song.

TLDR- used to look up to Chris as a person and a musician, now just acknowledge his guitar talents but don't listen nearly as much cause it gives me the creeps, and I hope he finds recovery.

 

I love the Trilogy records but In Reverie is absolutely better than them.

 

No one agreed with me when I said the same thing to shit on Anthony Kiedis and Joel Madden a few weeks ago, but I'm going to say it again.

If the Bowling for Soup singer was a sex perv, it would be no big loss because it's fucking Bowling for Soup, a terrible band who contributed nothing positive to the world.

I don't think that Saves the Day are that big a loss, either. Stay What You Are is an above-average album for its time period but nothing special.

Brand New are actually a big loss, because they made artistic accomplishments unlike any of the aforementioned bands. TDAG is among one of the highest-rated albums of all time on like every music rating website. It got an 8.5 Pitchfork Sunday review. Science Fiction got 8.3 and Best New Music from Pitchfork. There's no denying their objective importance.

Mark Kozelek, if you combine both Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, is an even greater loss for the music canon, even if I like Brand New more personally. The man has seven career bolded albums and 20 straight years of critical adoration until he kept trolling everyone with his awful post-Benji crap. The Sun Kil Moon stuff is more of a solo project so I can understand if it falls out of favor more, but to lump Red House Painters, a full-ass band, is just leaving a bigger hole in the canon.

Unlike most people on this site, I think pop punk and adjacent stuff is a largely terrible music genre. But even then, there's a spectrum of quality. You have irredeemable bands like Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Bowling for Soup etc. who would not be surprising if their singers are sex offenders. The other side is Brand New (who weren't pop punk past their bad first album, but are included in this anyway because they're adjacent), Rosenstock, The Wonder Years, The Menzingers, Jimmy Eat World, Joyce Manor who have actually earned critical favor and social capital among serious music listeners. STD is closer to that end, but not enough so for me to give a damn about them.

So yes, when an awful band is outed, from that point on, it's easy to use that to make fun of them and continue to pile on more hate that already justifiably existed for their terrible music. When it's a critically acclaimed darling whose music was always circlejerked for how beautiful and amazing it is, you don't want anyone to bring it up because then it turns the previously unassailable classic status of the music into a severely depreciated asset.

 

Ugh, this poster again. My god.

 

Holy shit, what a post hahahahahahaha. Someone save that in the hall of fame of worst Chorus posts ever, wow.

 

Bowling for Soup has some fucking jams, get outta here

 

Good god.

Not gonna dive into the mess that is the above post, but I appreciate the convo between @Aaron Mook and @Vase Full Of Rocks .

 

Rosenstock, who sold Cheap Girls records after the singer was outed as a rapist and blocked people who called him out
TWY that still pal around with JJR
The Menzingers, who took Culture Abuse out on tour and ignored DMs trying to reach out and educate them

great role models in that scene baby

 

Them being good people or not is wholly irrelevant. I'm talking about their stature among the serious music listener community. In a genre that is easily sneered at it, those acts are "one of the good ones."

 

THIS is irrelevant.

 

I’m not reading any of that stuff above, but I am definitely using the phrase “serious music listener community” on repeat going forward.

 

This bro definitely thinks pop music is for girls

 

Not true at all, I love pop music and think its best works deserve to be celebrated. Kate Bush, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Magdalena Bay, Grimes, Kylie Minogue, Björk and many others are elite.

 

OMG congrats you totally don't sound like a pompous asshole anymore.

Jk you still completely do.

 

K

 

There’s no way Kylie Minogue is still putting out anything good, let alone better than CRJ, Taylor, Muna, Haim… the list goes on and on and on. But whatever, I haven’t even been paying attention to what’s being talked about. But that pop post made me facepalm. Haha.

 

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