Pirating is good. Pirating ziohead is even better.
Thom has a point about Trump and not playing in America. Personally I’d rather see more people boycott America.
Wow, what a terrible article. The author doesn’t engage with any of the substantive points Radiohead and Nick Cave are making, he just disparages them and insists on his obvious moral superiority. It’s dressed up in some, admittedly, very nice writing, but this is just childish name calling.
Still, interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
It’s a hit piece on musicians for playing in a country the writer hates. Also it’s not even clear that they’ve played in Israel in the past two years… quotes from Nick Cave were from 2022 and the quote from Radiohead is from 2017.
It’s really ugly when people are researching anyone that has ever been to Israel so they can target them for a hit piece. Like what’s going on here?
Thom Yorke’s quote seems reasonable:
Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government. We don’t endorse [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.
I mean yeah, was it morally wrong to visit the US when Trump was President? Was it wrong to go to the US while the Iraq war was happening and people were being tortured in GitMo? Is it wrong to go to the US now?
Yeah, the point that the musicians seem to be making, from the very brief quotes he shares (I haven’t been following this independently), is about the efficacy of music boycotts as a tool for political change. You can object to a nation’s political actions and still think that performing music for your fans in that country will make things better.
The author just insists that Israeli government genocide is bad and that the ordinary citizens are complicit. I think the implicit logic must be: bad people should be punished, depriving them of music punishes them. While it might satisfy a craving to hurt the bad guys, I think it’s much harder to claim that this would help stop the genocide.
I think the musicians have a stronger case that actually performing would be more likely to change people’s minds and improve the situation. Plus the broader benefits of keeping music and art apolitical, rather than trying to make everything in life a tool for political manipulation. I’d have actually been really interested to hear some substantive arguments about those points, but was disappointed to discover that, as you say, it was just a hit piece.
This is a moronic take, the kind of thing only some western Gen Z cancel culture warrior with no life experience would believe in. Radiohead understand that large numbers of their fans live in countries with questionable or outright authoritarian governments (they are massive in South America, for example). It would be very problematic if they started picking and choosing which of their fans was deserving of a live concert based on where they live or what kind of policies their government has been pursuing. Their music is something that unites people from all over the world and continuing to share it with everyone is the best thing they can do in this situation.
