Operation: Mindcrime

Everybody’s talking about Ed Sheeran this week. Not for his music, which is made for people who find ketchup too spicy. No, it’s for his cowardly response to a right-wing billionaire forcing him to remove also-unappetizing artist Macklemore from his latest tour because Macklemore isn’t a fan of genocide. As someone who’s spent a lot of time talking to musicians and with a lot of friends in the support structure side of the music business, I want to talk about why I think he made the right decision in an impossible situation and then fucked it all up with his statement on why he did it.

Let me preface this. I am an American Jew. Born Jewish, raised as a Conservative Jew --basically the boring middle path between Reform and Orthodox, which are the ones you’re more likely to hear about. I’ve been Bar Mitzvah-ed, confirmed, the whole nine yards. I’m proud of my heritage. It’s something I hold as a key part of my identity. How could it not be? I went to religious school every Sunday morning and Wednesday night of my formative years. Judaism taught me a lot about morality and doing what’s right.

What Benjamin Netanyahu and his lackeys/enablers are doing to the Palestinian people goes against every precept of the religion I was taught. It is horrible, anti-Jewish, and inhuman.

It's also weird that that's a controversial statement.

I'm not interested in getting into a debate about Israel. It exists. That's something that can't be changed, no matter your view on the subject. I think there needs to be – to say the least – a sweeping overhaul of its government and policies regarding Palestinians. I’m a writer, I don’t know how. If policy professionals don't have the solution for peace in the Middle East, how can I? I just know that unconscionable violence ain’t it.

Anyway, billionaire Robert Kraft doesn’t agree with me. He thinks that any criticism of the Israeli government’s actions equates to Anti-Semitism since it’s the home of the Jewish people. This argument is exhausting and wrong, but he has infinite money, so he gets to shape reality as he wishes. He owns the stadium that Ed Sheeran and Macklemore performed at (should one person be allowed to own an entire stadium?). Macklemore used his platform as an artist to speak out about the atrocities being perpetuated against the Palestinian people. Kraft didn’t like that, spoke to some of his billionaire buddies, and presented Ed Sheeran with an ultimatum: no more Macklemore or no more venues for Ed Sheeran to perform at.

Ed Sheeran is more than just Ed Sheeran, milquetoast troubadour with bad tattoos. He was that when he was starting out. Ed Sheeran, at this point in his career, is Ed Sheeran Incorporated. He’s the forward-facing figure of a massive business entity. The livelihoods of hundreds of people rely on him showing up and singing songs that are the musical equivalent of dry toast. A stadium tour is not a simple thing. It requires so many logistics. You need the road crew, the bus drivers, the truck drivers, the security guards, the vendors, the custodians. There’s an entire merchandise machine that lumbers to life to make sure there are enough t-shirts and posters and vinyl for sale, and those merchandisers get a cut of the sales that allows them to then continue doing that for other tours and bands. So yeah, Ed Sheeran can’t just call off his tour without massive economic repercussions.

That would’ve been a fine excuse. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, had to make a hard decision, and decided in favor of not taking work away from people. Sheeran could’ve said that. He didn’t. He gave some mealy-mouthed excuse about being apolitical or some nonsense like that. That’s why people are pissed at him, because his music certainly doesn’t evoke enough of an emotional reaction to do that.

Clearly he didn’t think he had enough leverage to push back. I don’t know what bands would at this point – Metallica? T-Swift? Neither of those would include a politically-charged act on one of their tours, though.

Ed Sheeran handled this in a head-assed way. But you’ve seen his tattoo choices, we all knew that was gonna happen.

All art is political to some degree. I think Mr. Sheeran’s predecessors in the singer-songwriter space would agree with that. And the attendees at the concert are adults, or at least old enough to think for themselves. Macklemore presenting them with a political opinion in the course of a concert can be a vibe-killer but they can get over it. Carlos Santana didn’t get banned from performing at the venue he gave an anti-trans rant at. Actual anti-Semite Kanye West is still scheduled to perform at Kraft’s stadium.

The real bad guy here is Robert Kraft. Well, besides Netanyahu. Sheeran is easier to heap scorn on because his statement sucked, but Kraft is the one that decided to use his power to step in – which, ironically, probably wound up getting Macklemore’s message out even more because of all the news coverage. Still, we are currently ruled by plutocrats who have decided to use their infinite resources to force their opinions on the public and silence people who disagree with them. The man owns a sports team called The Patriots! I’ve seen NFL games. They are bloated ticks of jingoism.

Ed Sheeran just wants to make unseasoned chicken breast to placate the lowest-common-denominator audience. Kraft wants to use his unjustly-gained wealth to reshape America into what an out-of-touch 85-year-old white guy thinks it should look like. One of these people is clearly worse than the other. The enemy remains the same as ever.

NOW SPINNING

Spontaneous Combustion – Triad
Lenny White – Presents the Adventures of the Astral Pirates
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – Shapes of Midnight
Demon Fuzz – Afreaka!
Ryokuoushoku Shakai – Atamago