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Michael Jackson covers- Yes or No?


redbandit599

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Just now, redbandit599 said:

Hi all

A question for my fellow gigging covers band guys and girls.

What's your opinion on playing Michael Jackson covers post the recent documentary? (Which I haven't seen btw.)

Only have Alien Ant Farms version of Smooth Criminal in our set.

Cheers 

It's an interesting question. It's going to be interesting to see how MJ's work holds up after this. Does good music excuse bad behaviour? Should the music and the musician be viewed as separate entities? I must admit to being sceptical in the past of the allegations made against him, but having seen the new documentary there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was guilty of, and got a with molesting children for decades. The most abhorrent crime I can imagine. Yet, I still like his music. It's going to be interesting to see where society lands on this one in the coming months. 

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28 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

I wouldn’t play them, just an excuse for drunken idiots to start shouting paedo. Shame, the music should be entirely separate but thinks aren’t always quite so clear cut.

This is partly my concern too - covers bands are there to entertain and opening up a drunken 'debate' amongst the punters mid gig is probably not that entertaining...

As the other names above illustrate, it's hard to know where to draw the line if everything you perform goes through the 'moral filter.'

Tricky eh?

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Always a tricky one this.  Being in a glam rock act we made a decision early on that absolutely no Gary Glitter was included in the sets.  Last year we were considering brining in some Glitter Band numbers, due to the association with GG we put the question to our followers on our FB site.  The vote was almost 50 50 for yes no, so, with a heavy heart (like Brexit) we decided no to add any GG numbers in for fear of upsetting any members of the crowd.  I can see this sort of thing getting increasingly difficult as more and more allegations (many posthumous) get dragged up. 

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It's very hard to say.

It does make me sad, a brother of mine died very young and he loved 'Garold' Glitter's music. I recall being moved seeing Rolf Harris crying while singing (ironically) Two Little Boys on Crackerjack when the audience joined in. One of my steplads was massively into MJ as a teenager, now in his late 30s he's not sure how to feel about the music. 😞

Jimmy Page had a long and well documented relationship with a girl that started when she was 13 or 14. Outside rock, most people accept Wagner was an anti-semite whose music was much used to promote the Nazi's vision of 'Aryan' culture; but it doesn't stop his music being remarkable and widely performed. Churchill was a national hero, but also did some pretty foul things.

We should also remember that no-one is perfect; where do you draw the line? Should you play music by someone who once bullied another kid in the school playground or smacked their children?  Where do you draw the line?

As a society we have to be mature about the difference between the deeds and doer. As things become historical we can enjoy the works but condemn the actions. That said, while things are still more or less contemporary we also have to realise some things might upset some audiences. Some people might get 'offended' by MJ music who just enjoy taking offence, but it might be genuinely quite upsetting to someone who has suffered abuse or be seen as 'flag waving' in support of MJ.

I'd tend to err on the side of caution - there's lot's of other music to play while it's at the forefront of everyone's minds. But I wouldn't change radio channels just because Beat It came on.
 

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It was a completely different era for some of those older bands and groupies were the norm for many of the them. 

Attitudes from both males and females was very different. Free Love and all that kind of thing. 

The paedo issues are completely different tho and that is not acceptable at all.

Our drummer is ex Glitter Band but we wont do Gary Glitter songs and we even debated whether or not we should do the Glitter Band songs. We agreed to do some of the bands but not GG songs.

Not sure why but i would still happily listen to M.Jackson songs and enjoy them but not the GG ones but not sure why my brain thinks that.

Dave

 

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3 hours ago, dlloyd said:

A issue raised but not considered in this article, is how an allegation - regardless of truth - is enough to destroy a career. 

 

 

 

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