Love the music, ditch the artist?
Reckoning with musicians’ #MeToo allegations.
Anyone who considers themselves a fan of popular music has maybe found themselves in a similar scenario to one I’ve encountered many times over the past year and a half. That’s roughly the amount of time since the Harvey Weinstein allegations and the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements opened the floodgates to new misconduct allegations against public figures and resurfaced damning allegations that had previously been on record.
Repeatedly, I’ve been confronted with disturbing accusations about artists and their alleged violence against their accusers. Some of these musicians are among my all-time favorites, like David Bowie, whose association with underage groupies was mythologized decades ago and has recently been more critically re-examined. The list of accused artists includes names whose songs meant a great deal to me in the past, or soundtracked some of my most cherished musical memories, like the indie bands I loved in college – Real Estate, Das Racist and more – who have had members accused of sexual assault.
Other implicated bands or artists have music that’s held up as the best of their genres and is so widely played that even if I wanted to completely escape their influence, I couldn’t. Think Michael Jackson, accused of molesting underage boys, or The Beatles, with John Lennon’s self-described domestic abuse, or Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, with both bands having plenty of ill-advised lyrics and histories of reportedly bad behavior in their legacy.
I’m speaking as a music listener raised on these rock ’n’ roll greats, but my experiences extend to any XXXTentacion fan who connected to the rapper’s raw-emotion lyrics while feeling horrified about the domestic violence charges against him, as well as to Ryan Adams’ devout followers who have made the singer-songwriter a cult favorite, who was faced with The New York Times’ recent damning story about his alleged misconduct – and especially to R. Kelly’s loyal fandom, left to reckon with the horrifying alleged crimes by an artist who has made some of R&B’s most enduring tracks.
So how do we decide when to turn someone’s music off, and where do we go from there? I’m not here to tell anyone that they’re a monster for not turning off a Chris Brown song when it comes on the radio, or that every song with a lyric that aged poorly should be banned. But I’ve learned to be a more conscientious music fan because I believe that listeners’ choices can make an impact.
It’s about empathy
The question of whether fans can separate the art from the artist is nothing new. Why do I necessarily need to stop listening to a musician’s songs at all if I’m able to appreciate the art while condemning the artists’ actions?
For me, it’s a matter of empathy – that I believe accusers’ stories about these harmful (almost exclusively) men in music. And if I believe that Ryan Adams’ accusers are telling the truth, and I still make the conscious decision to stream his music or buy a concert ticket, I see that as a selfish act, signifying that I value these women’s stories less than I do a pleasurable listening experience or a night out for myself.
After reading many victims’ stories, I’ve realized that separating the alleged abusers from their art becomes complicated because in many cases, their music gave them the platform and resources to commit their alleged crimes.
In the cases of Adams and R. Kelly, both men allegedly dangled promises of mentorship in front of teenagers interested in music careers, which, if true, were just a bait-and-switch to involve them in underage sexual relationships.
The new Michael Jackson documentary “Leaving Neverland” alleges the singer used his wealth and fame to gain the trust of families of the accusers, which he exploited to allegedly commit sexual crimes. And a common refrain among the participants in “Surviving R. Kelly,” the Lifetime documentary outlining the singer’s alleged misconduct that likely contributed to his arrest, was how powerful the network was around him at protecting him from scrutiny and disempowering his accusers.
For me, there’s no way I can consume music made by alleged abusers and not feel like I’m part of the problem, like I’m just another listener choosing to ignore the reports against the artist and continuing to pay them money and attention, while upholding the power structure that contributes to these crimes happening in the first place. Whether that means choosing not to stream an R. Kelly song or including a footnote of Michael Jackson allegations when I write about his undeniably beloved catalog, these actions take a conscious effort, and I’m working to get better at being more conscientious.
Leaving behind a musician doesn’t mean letting go of your memories
I’m still grateful for the musical education I received from the rock greats whose behavior, glamorized at the time, has rightfully been re-contextualized in recent years as potentially abusive. I don’t feel guilty about the times in my life that I enjoyed a song, having no way of knowing that a decade later, the artist would be outed as an alleged criminal.
And yet, fans’ deep emotional attachment to these artists complicates how they respond to these stories. On social media in the hours after the Ryan Adams story broke, people wrote about how his music got them through serious illnesses and other trials in their lives. Kelly’s music has been a staple of graduations, weddings and other joyful events his entire career. And how many scores of artists were inspired to make music by Michael Jackson?
Instead of feeling ashamed about the meaningful moments in my life that I wish I could retroactively change the soundtrack to, all I can do is try, moving forward, to engage with music that doesn’t elevate these artists further.
Musical canons can be reconsidered
Particularly when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll, canceling the classic artists with misconduct allegations in their pasts may seem like canceling an entire genre.
But, while I can’t change the fact that the same 1960s greats who potentially committed atrocious acts against women also made some of rock’s most influential music, I’ve been inspired by the ongoing conversation about re-emphasizing the works of female artists in the popular music canon.
Rather than declaring that half a generation of rock stars are canceled and unlistenable, why not shift the attention to the great women who should be just as celebrated as their male peers?
That was the thought behind NPR’s groundbreaking “Turning the Tables” series, which began in 2017 and continued through 2018, which argued that female artists have generally been seen as less influential in their respective genres, and that a correction is needed that places classic works by women more centrally in music history.
The series emphasized classic works by Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morrissette, Shania Twain and Lauryn Hill, all artists that I’d listened to, sure, but not as much as I had the same few male rock stars with allegedly violent pasts. Diving into their lesser-known works, I felt like an idiot for having deprived myself of the greatness of these women for so long and for not doing enough in the past to challenge what kind of artists I’ve always considered the greats – i.e., mostly white men.