Do an artists crimes reflect on their art?
An American football team that had “I’m the Leader of the Gang (I Am!)” as its team song and played it as the team took to the field has found a less contentious tune. I doubt that there’s much of his music being played in Britain either. Though I haven’t done a scientific survey, I’d be willing to bet that few if any radio stations in Britain are currently playing any of the Glitter oeuvre. And doesn’t your heart go out to his erstwhile backing group, the Glitter Band, innocent of any crime, and happily carving out a nice little earner of a separate career in the pubs until Gary became a monster. Who’d hire them now? The case of Gary Glitter has set me thinking about the difficulty of separating art from the character and crimes of the artist. Gary Glitter is a despicable man, guilty of a vile crime, but does that make the tunes any less jolly than they were before his arrests? It reminded me of a similar dilemma over an infinitely superior artist a few years ago. The novelist Arthur
