Yeah, but he seemed to skirt by criticism when alive, and just because he is dead doesn’t mean he is suddenly free from criticism. Lots of dead artists are soured some or reviled due to their past sins.
I am not really a down on Bowie, nor a big fan, but he did some rather inexcusable things that hasn’t seem to tarnish him at all 
I think the point was those defending abusers have a megaphone now, just as everything gets amplified.
It must be absolutely exhausting to be friends with someone like that. I can never blame people for ducking out of engagement with friends and family who go off the deep end. It’s hard enough keeping in touch with friends who are genuinely cool.
And Pat Boone isn’t even dead yet!
I don’t defend him - I just have had too many artists turn out to be mega assholes/scumbags etc. that I just no longer find it useful to care I suppose.
Bowie… overnight romps with a 13 year old.
Steven Tyler … kept a child … girlfriend that he had guardianship over until she grew up and dumped
her
Jerry Lee Lewis - child wife - they made a movie about him
Kevin Sorbo - raging asshole
Kevin Spacey - groomer or worse
Mel Gibson - complete asshole/antisemite
James Woods - unreal asshole
I could go on really - so damn many of them have exposed themselves (alive or dead) as horrible people I had to come to an epiphany that it didn’t make me a bad person to enjoy their stuff back in the day - I can still enjoy those works despite the person involved being horrible.
I don’t know much about Gary Glitter - sorry just never was in my orbit - but pretending that Clapton wasn’t a giant in the world of music for a long time because he’s dogshit is just wrong. That’s not defending him though.
I think it’s a better word than the one I used. I think I may have been more caught up in trying to ‘defend’ an objective reality than just acknowledge the garbage human that he is - and if you’ll permit me - I think the article was written to trigger that response.
I’m not trying to give him a pass - I feel it’s a bit unexplainable that the 1976 comments got a pass. I didn’t mean to come across that way - so I’ll meander off at this point without sticking my foot farther up my own arse.
I genuinely envy you, that you have that option.
Personally, I have no such choice but to care, at least on a general level.
Because glib societal permissiveness of abusive predatory assholes just because they happen to be ‘talented’ greatly impacts my ability to navigate this existence.
Clapton surely has awful political views. Personally, I think he is not all that smart. I do think he is a pretty great musician though. I’m not sure why people need to impugn every aspect of those they disagree with. A racist can’t just be a racist, he has to be talentless, ugly and smelly as well. I like Clapton’s music and Wagner’s too. Wouldn’t want to hang with them.
This. I don’t agree that Clapton was a terrible musician - while he might not meet modern taste (though I think much of his ‘Cream’ catalogue and some of his later stuff is quite good), he wasn’t as milquetoast as he’s been portrayed. Nor do I think a serious musician or musical historian would say so.
The problem comes from the ages old philosophical question - can you separate an artist from his art? It’s something I struggle with, and I think there are valid arguments in both directions. But I do feel that the post and the article have painted Clapton’s art with a brush meant for the artist… Whether that’s valid or not, I’m conflicted over; but at least part of me says it’s not.
That said, it’s sad to see a talented man (yes, talented) fall down the rabbit hole of hate, conspiracy, and shared hallucination. Shame on you, Eric.
He kinda was the least talented member of that trio. But only the second most 'orrible cunt in the band, but that’s mostly because Ginger Baker is a class unto himself. See: Beware of Mr Baker
It’s a story as old as time: garbage human happens to be good at music/sports/acting/whatever, people confuse talent with good character, garbage human is exposed as a garbage human, people can’t seem to discuss character without bringing unrelated issue of talent into the mix and, finally, garbage human gets to remain rich and famous.
Makes me sad to read all this. I’m fan of the music he made but not of the man he is. But I find I can love him and hate him at the same time.
Citation needed, because I’ve never seen anything written about Bowie regarding that.
It’s cool to disagree with Clapton’s ideas and even bash them, but to call him irrelevant or anything less than a major force in classic rock is just ridiculous. It strikes me as “cancel culture” at it’s most blatant.
I thought his best song was “Cocaine”. It was the 70s. I was in Florida. He’s still a douchewad though.
Because I think many of us don’t want racists to become and persist as wildly popular cultural icons with wealth and fame and power in their industry. There seems to be a threshold of hate allowable by the level of entertainment we get from people. It is human nature to want to decrease the factors that are allowing these people to pass.
With Clapton, the tarnish shows through once you know his ideals. He’s not an originator, and he borrows from the people he reviled as not being welcome in his country. He can somehow cover a Bob Marley song, stand on stage with blues greats whose methods he copied, and not fear judgement for his racist hypocrisy.
His entire body of work is borrowed from the people he felt weren’t worthy to live in his society.
So yeah, he sucks.
He famously worked with stole from people he wouldn’t want to live next door to. BB King may be driving, but it sure looks like Clapton thinks he’s his Uber. He’s expressed regret for the fact of the racist drunken rant but never its content. Yes, he’s a racist.
What about waters? I only heard about him giving facebook the finger. Which I rather liked.
Well, there was the whole brouhaha about him supporting BDS and making remarks that were supposedly anti-semitic. I’m including a link to an article going into detail below. Also some stuff about him still supporting Julian Assange. I personally do not think he was anti-semitic, more anti-Likud and anti-Netanyahu.
(English translation, original German version of the article available via link on the page)
It’s perfectly consistent to be totally disillusioned with the Government regardless of what side of the Brexit argument you are on, from such diverse reasons as :
I could go on.
