So, exactly how bad does an artist have to be before one becomes complicit in their badness by liking the art they create?
By "bad" I mean "doing really rather horrible unethical and/or immoral things" that don't necessarily manifest themselves in the art.
Exhibit A: Some folks were talking about buying a Phil Spector box set, which pissed me off in light of what I've learned about him lately. (Granted, it also pissed me off because the music is being marketing as Phil Spector's, when really it was largely the music of girl groups produced by Phil. The paranoid feminist in me assumes the aforementioned folks [male] bought the CD because it's easier to maintain your manly punkrock cred by saying you like Phil Spector than saying you like girl groups. If you are more secure in your manly punkrock cred/like girl groups than I assume the folks in this story to be, you should invest in this absolutely incredible box set.)
Exhibit B: I still listen to Biggie even though I know he beat his wife and other women (discussed in this article).
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4 comments:
Some Wagner fans grapple with this very question ...
Unfortunately, I don't really know the answer.
you know, phil spector records really are phil spector records. he chose the songs, musicians and singers, and instructed all of them. he built the records after the singers were out of the studio. in some cases, the singers listed on the records weren't even the ones who did the tracks (as in the case of the crystals)! yeah, he's a nutjob and probably a murderer, but those records are really his.
well, anonymous, this is exactly the logic behind the position i attacked initially: that the musicians are merely the clay with which spector formed his pop-music masterpieces. it's a classic from patriarchal history: it can't possibly have been the woman's creativity and talent that made it great, could it? the (mostly female) groups spector worked with in his early career were not just women, but young, virtual unknowns (the ronnettes were teenagers when they signed their contract with spector, and still only get 3% of profits from the deal) with little savvy to position themselves as the stars. i don't think it's a stretch to imagine that a well-documented egomaniac like spector would exploit the voice and musical talent of young artists and then claim that all the work was his.
consider other famous producers. would you consider a david bowie record produced by brian eno an "eno record"? there are certainly those out there who would argue eno made the record what it is, but that doesn't mean we consider bowie to be a throwaway (unless that happens to be your personal opinion). i imagine this is because a producer who is brilliant, but not a complete asshole, acknowledges the value of the musicians they work with and consider the effort collaborative. spector has made no secret the fact that he considers himself better than even some of the most famous artists he's worked with; only, the were already more famous than he, and we can pass off his narcism as eccentricity.
there's a connection between the insistence of spector and his fans that he's the source of all the talent, too. spector's "you're nothing without me" claims are echoed in none too few tales of domestic violence: it's the classic cry of the man who can't stand the idea of a woman as something he can't dominate, something he isn't the master of.
God, this is an overwrought argument. I can feel the steam poring out of elsa's ears all the way to Hippy Town in Southern Appalachia, where I reside, with my Phil Spector boxset, which I only bought and pointed out to others on a music list (with miss capuntas) because it was DIRT CHEAP on Amazon and I didn't know much about Spector and his production. Yes, production matters. I wanted to know more about Spector and the Wrecking Crew, all of whom were not so bad, including Jack Nitzsche, Glen Campbell, and Carol Kaye (another woman he exploited, I would assume from elsa's argument). I've also been on a Lee Hazlewood kick lately, and when I discovered he had a connection to Spector, I wanted to know more. You see, Hazlewood was a brilliant producer too (Duane Eddy, Nancy Sinatra, e.g.), and it's been said that Spector stole some of his ideas, and I wanted to compare. After listening, I hear differences, and in a lot of respects, I dig Hazlewood more.
I would buy an Albini box set for his production. I consider Bowie's Iggy Pop records co-productions, and I would consider buying a Brian Eno, Producer, box set. More germane to Spector, I would buy a Kim Fowley box set. Malcolm McLaren, though not a producer, would also make an interesting box set because he managed/invented some truly compelling bands. Do I give those people full credit for all the music they worked on--no! Is Spector an asshole? Yes! But for Spector, there is a thread, a true producer's innovation, than I think deserves to be documented as such. Does he deserve credit for these tracks? Honestly, I think he probably does deserve a great deal of credit for them. All the credit? No. But does buying a producer's box set necessarily mean giving him all the credit?
This is not an excuse, but if you look at the soul world, you'll see a lot of exploitation of young women (and men) by producers, record execs, and the like. Hardly anything but exploitation! The 60s (and surrounding decades) were an ugly time for most pop artists. Phil Spector was by no means unique in his exploitive capacity. In all honestly, if they still get 3%--that's not all that bad. Managers (Col. Tom Parker, anybody?) and labels took huge cuts from tons of people. I remember hearing about Hasil Adkins getting less than 3% from reissues of his music by a label I shall not name for fear of legal retribution --whoops, I shouldn't mention Hasil; quite a misogynist, that guy. No more hot dogs for me!
And do you really think many (if any) of those musicians would be getting money at all from their musical careers if they had not worked with Phil Spector? Obviously, a rhetorical question--or is it? I honestly don't think the music holds up that well aside from the production (a few artists excepted, including the Righteous Bros., who in fact did have a career without Spector). The singing is often pedestrian. As for the production, I'm not uniformly impressed by it either. I think Brian Wilson, Hazlewood, even George Martin and some others managed to do pretty darned well with the same ideas. Were they Spector's production ideas? I think it would be hard to deny the influence he had on his peers. Most of them don't.
I don't regret buying that box at all. I'm sorry you got riled up at my mentioning the bargain in a public forum. But I really don't think you can boil down a decision to take his musical life seriously based solely on his misogyny, which is repugnant and pernicious. In fact, I would make the case that this is an even easier case to defend than a similar controversial figure in another idiom, Leni Riefenstahl. But honestly, I find all these black/white arguments tedious.
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