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Separating the art from the artist can be a problematic business.
At Christmas, we all want to hear Phil Spector’s trademark Wall of Sound production style providing the lavish accompaniment to Frosty The Snowman, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and (the less expansively-titled) Christmas. We want to hear the sleigh bells and the big chimes on this records, expertly added to them by ol’ Phil as he leant over the mixing desk in late November 1963, forever bottling that heavy-coat-in-the-snow-outside-a-massive-department-store-in-midtown-Manhattan vibe.
Trouble is, ol’ Phil literally murdered someone and died in prison after being convicted of doing so.
And then there’s Morrissey. A man who helped to create some of the best music in the history of the civilised world and who now spends his time saying the most offensive things he can think about.
(In fairness, this is nothing particularly new for Morrissey. As long ago as 1986 he was making batshit statements in an interview with Melody Maker about how a “black pop conspiracy” was limiting the success of The Smiths and calling reggae “the most racist music in the entire world”.)
You could be forgiven for thinking that a concept as wholesome as a library classification would be immune to the worlds of…
