I'm just confused by those that say they " Don't support pedophiles" when it comes down to artists such as R.Kelly and Michael Jackson. How are you supporting pedophilia by listening to their art? Is anyone else confused by this? I openly admit to being a fan of R.Kelly and Michael Jackson's music and I don't see why so many people say they won't listen to either one of their of music simply based off their legal troubles. More so R.Kelly.

Thoughts?

U serious?

Obviously

I agree!

I never liked MJ's music that much but I'm fan of R.Kelly's music
He's sooo talented he arranges, writes and produces all his music! I could give two shits about his personal life so of course I'm going to still buy his music and I think it's sooo stupid when people stop being a fan of an artist because of their personal problems! It's like we're at the outside looking in. we don't know what they're going through! and the media always,always,always fabricate everything. So yea lol!....

- Many many artists have done their dirt that they never lawfully paid for so I understand what you are saying; many of these people were that way because they were deeply troubled

- But at the same time I just can't buy R. Kelly's music; I don't feel as as right listening to it as I had in the past and he surely won't get a dime of mine; maybe after he pays his debt to society I will feel differently

- I think people are extra pissed about R. Kelly because they really feel as if he did it and he got away with it; maybe people can't listen to R. Kelly w/o thiking of him pissing on some girl or that whole incident w/ Aaliyah

- Somtimes its just hard to seperate an artist and their life
[Edited 6/18/09 9:53am]

midiscover said:

COULDN'T give. If you COULD give two shits, you would.

And here's the deal about the personal problems vs the music and artist. Every rock singer, every song writer, every musician has always said, and will continue to say, "I never talk a lot because I say it in my music." Prince has done this, and he's proved it by not talking to the media a lot, recording personal songs like "Hello", "She's Always In My Hair", "Nothing Compares 2 U", "Money Don't Matter 2nite", "The Cross", "The Beautiful Ones", etc etc; those songs covering misc personal topics like religion, politics, and love/relationships of the moment. Janet has often said that her albums always reflect what's going on in her life at the moment. janet. and The Velvet Rope are two prime examples of this (love, depression). MJ has slyly, and not so slyly, addressed personal issues in his life ("Scream", "They Don't Care About Us", "D.S.", "Stranger In Moscow", "Leave Me Alone").

So, having said that, if an artist IS being personal in his music, and expressing him/herself in their music, then if you're a fan of their music, you become a fan of THEM, and their live. You invest not just your money, but your time, brain power, energy, etc into the artist. When that person does something that doesn't sit well with you, then you become upset about it in some way. "Supporting a pedophile" can be argued by supporting the music from an alleged pedophile, giving him your fiscal support, and time by listening to his music. Does the opposite argument hold that we shouldn't care if he/she is molesting children, as long as he puts out good music? Americans are the first to boycott a restaurant chain that displays "Global Warming is Baloney" on their marquee. The first to boycott a country girl group because of only one part of a bigger statement about the President in a time of war, telling them to "shut up and sing", and also teaching their children to hate, "Say 'we hate you'."

But the question then becomes, should we EXPECT the artist to change just because of OUR take on the things in their lives? The Dixie Chicks didn't. They stood by their beliefs that were opposite to the pending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Bush's lies. MJ remained defiant after numerous charges against him, dangling his child over a balcony, etc etc. So where is the line of support we should offer an artist?

No one boycotted Prince have his much publicized engagement and marriage to Mayte Garcia. I loved that he was married, I love the Prince of that time period, the publicity he garnered, the magazine covers he was on, the songs he produced. But then by 1999, he was divorced, with "Mayte doing her own thing, and me doing mine, and we're cool." Did anyone get in a fuss about that? Or did we just roll our eyes and say, "Oh, that's just Prince the playboy."? Did anyone stop listening to Madonna after her controversial adoption of David? Or her repeated sexual/religious stunts? Of course not.

Face it, as fans, Prince or not, we're invested to some degree in the acts we are fans of. We are more invested in Prince than others perhaps. We KNOW a lot about Prince, despite him saying we don't know a lot. Endless band members and friends have all had the same stories about him. We also know about him from his music. That's not propaganda control, that is fact. Where there's smoke there's fire. We know enough about Prince to know when he's being a dickhead, and when he's not, when he's attacking fans in his music and the press, and when he's not. Therein lies the question of whether we can look past his douchery and JUST focus on the music. It's romantic to say it's ALL about the music, but the reality is that it's about SO much more than that. Because Prince, and us, have made it that way.

Mstrustme said:

Hmmm ok I can respect that
So did you stop listening to Phil Spector's productions because he's a murderer?

and what is it did R.Kelly get away with?

How many people w/ the pedophile argument against MJ or Kelly have Chuck Berry stuff? Plently, I'll bet.

I like a lot of old stuff which means I may discover and artist or their product (songs, movies, books) w/o knowing anything about their private life. If I find out something bad about their lives, does it affect my enjoyment of their work? Honestly no.

The thing is, people's private lives are just that, private. I think the general public/fans put themselves thru these changes because they want to believe stars are perfect and live in a vacuum or something. They want someone to look up to. The can't get over the fact that NOBODY IS PERFECT and if we turned the camera around, could you bare the scrunity you're giving someone else? In short, much of this is hypocrisy at it's finest.

I think this is a VERY American thing, all this focus on stars and their lives as if it really affects your life. The intensity of how these people are followed and scruntized is insane. People can justify it by saying "they're famous, so we have a right to know everything abbout them" but that dog don't hunt for me. People need to learn to live and let live.

ernestsewell said:

brooksie said:

THANK YOU!
I was just about to bring that up

Should I stop listening to James Brown because he was a wife beater?
Should I stop listening to Miles Davis because he was a druggie?



I just don't see why we should judge someones art based on what we the consumers think they do in their personal life is immoral

It's stupid.

brooksie said:

trueiopian said:

Here's the difference. Phil wasn't killing folks back in the day of producing incredible walls of sound.

R. Kelly was on video, ALLEGEDLY, and continually got in trouble w/ the law, and made music. That wasn't rock n' roll rebellion, that was just him being creepy and pervy while putting out albums, which usually only include songs about fucking. His music is banal, vapid, and ultimately irrelevant in the bigger scheme of music. I mean, who is influenced by HIS style?

I personally lost a lot of interest in MJ because of the 2nd round of molestation charges. And his music showed his angst against the whole process, and it turned negative, and he lost a LOT of inspiration and originality in his music. He started to lose it during HIStory's new disk, but Invincible really showed his ultimate disinterest in anything original and creative anymore. I'd be glad if he never released anything again. Only because I don't believe in him enough to think he'd release anything remotely interesting for the public. Dangerous was his last great album, and that was 1992/3-ish? Since then he's had two new albums, one of which was part of a compilation. He's had numerous rehashes of the same songs over and over either on CD or DVD. The #1's, the greatest hits (which was basically disk 1 of HIStory sold separately from the new disk of music). He even rehashed Thriller TWICE since it's first release. There was a remastered set of four solo albums (Off the Wall through Dangerous) back in 2001 or so), plus the 25th anniversary rerelease with the HORRIBLE remakes by Akon and will.i.am and Fergie. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE. And let's not forget The Ultimate Collection with only a few rare gems on there (demos, outtakes, and the never released on CD "You Can't Win" extended version).

trueiopian said:

Personally, I see it both ways, it really depends though.

ernestsewell said:

ernestsewell said:

The reason why he puts songs out about fucking is because it's apart of his persona It's easy for Mike to stop singing about the little children of the world but there would'nt be anything left for R. Kelly to sing about if he stopped singing about love. That's what made him.

ernestsewell said:

Disagree. His influence can be heard everywhere in R&B and in countless amount of R&B artist
so irrelevant? never. He influenced Usher, Trey Songz, J Holiday, NeYo, Jamie Foxx etc.

The UK tabloids take a high handed self-righteous attitude towards stars "caught" doing wrong, but by what means did they get this info? Most times, ethically suspect. IOW, much of the info you're getting and judging these people by were gotten in shady (sometimes illegal) ways.

trueiopian said:

Let's be fair about this. Half of the musicians out there are/were druggies. A lot of the experimental sounds from the 60's and 70's were because of drugs. I don't do drugs, and I don't condone it, but I can't change it. It's the "victimless crime" argument in some ways.

A wife beater? Well yeah, bad stuff. But ask yourself, how invested are in James Brown's music and his person? Are you just a fan of the music, and are totally disinterested in his music? It's probably a pass then if you are about the music.

But as I stated above, we're well beyond the point of being fans of JUST the music with Prince. We're fans of HIM, his lifestyle, his clothing, his cars, his homes, his studio, his music, his shoes, his hair, his glasses, his rings, his grin, his ass, his guitars, his band members, his flip flops, his piano, his driveway, his roller skates, etc etc. I listed those things, because those are some of the things we take note of when we see him. Half the conversations about Prince on Tavis Smiley's show was his shoes and his suit, and how smart he looked in glasses. The other half, at most, was about chemical trails and Dick Gregory. If we just cared about his music, we could have not cared much about the interview overall.

Did anyone notice James's rings? His hair? His clothes (except for that cape thing he used to do)? His boots? Where he recorded his songs? Anyone from his band? (Let's face it, half the folks never knew who Maceo Parker was before Prince snagged him and started chanting his name; others might have known who he was of course).

It's all relative to our interest levels.

trueiopian said:

Proved my point right there.

trueiopian said:

The thing is, many people will apply these standards to ONE star and not another. If star X did wrong, but *I* like them....it's all good. If star Y did wrong and *YOU* like them, shut 'em down. I usually have this convo about movie people...many times Roman Polanski. People seem to have a problem w/ him, yet not w/ Woody Allen.

If you're gonna play this game, apply it to all wrongdoers, right?

You asked about JB and Miles, but those are the people we know did dirt, but what of the ones we don't know about? Most stars are pretty screwed up people, so maybe we should not listen to anything because these faults are hardly uncommon.

ernestsewell said:

Tho I'm here, I'm actually not much of a Prince fan. I'm rather "meh" on him. His personal life interests me ZERO. I dig the NON Prince part of the Org cuz the posters are great, but as for Prince himself....nope.

ernestsewell said:

The only time I ever really cared about MJ was his interview back in 2003 and his song "Do You Remember The Time?" other than that I never been a MJ fan. Although he has been accused of child molestation, which I think is nasty, but I never really thought he did such a thing. If the circumstances were different and I was a fan and MJ really did it, I probably wouldn't look at him the same way. Still, if Prince was in MJ's shoes (which will never happen of course) I would probably be disgusted, but does that mean I'm gonna stop listening to his music? Probably, mainly because his music reflects who he is and for him to contradict, that it would be.....

trueiopian said:

- And therein lies part of my problem, if I truly analyzed the personal lives of many of my personal favorites we'd see many have done some serious dirt and I'd have to stop listening to most of them but I have to draw the line somewhere

- Haven't stopped listening to Phil's productions but isn't he about to or is currently serving his time? R. Kelly allegedly pissed (and other things) on an underage girl
[Edited 6/18/09 11:27am]

trueiopian said:

Because even hering their voice makes me think about their faults...Chris Brown....I just dont even want to hear him speak anymore.....R Kelly USED TO be good....his last 3 albums he been slippin hard.

ernestsewell said:

But many see taking drugs and a spousal abuse as immoral acts just as many may say for R.Kelly fooling around with a teen. So I wouldn't say one is OK than the other.

ernestsewell said:

Those are two different things.
those are things an artist displays (clothing,cars,hair) for our admiration but I don't think Prince or anyone for that matter would want to be judged by what they do behind closed doors.

ernestsewell said:

LOL!

But honestly he did influence a lot of people
and I think Jamie has a decent voice

trueiopian said:

I totally hear your argument...I WANTED to stop listening to MJ...cause I think the dude has some serious issues with his personal life. The molestation charges disgust me. But you know what? I still love Destiny, Triumph, Off the Wall and Thriller and listen to them pretty regularly. Not crazy over the later stuff...but I did like Butterflies from the last album...and other tracks after Thriller. Finally I came to the fact that MJs music is great and I still enjoy his songs regardless of what he's done in his personal life.

ernestsewell said:

Jamie Foxx? Bad example!

trueiopian said:

First of all, I don't think michael jackson is a pedophile at all or a child molester(no, those words are not interchangable). I do think R Kelly is and that he got away with it. However, R Kelly has some good music that I still listen to. I can seperate the music from the man. I think most people think R Kelly is guilty because he had a video tape of him doing it as well as marrying Aaliyah at 15. People seem to glorify Elvis and give him a pass even though he started dating priscilla when she was 14 and he was 24.
[Edited 6/18/09 11:10am]

edit
[Edited 6/18/09 11:13am]

In general, Americans are upset by what the media tells them 2 be upset about. Period.

brooksie said:

you are so right. Americans are so obessed with pop culture. It's breaking news when a hollywood couple breaks up but when a category 5 hurricane comes and we can't get our shit together *cough* Katrina *cough* no wonder, all the other countries are laughing at us.

Graycap23 said:

brooksie said: