Top ten twats in rock and pop.

[3 Colours Red]

The convicted paedophiles Gary Glitter and Ian Watkins belong on a totally different list.

I'd go along with that -"twat" isn't strong enough for the rapists, murderers, paedophiles, domestic abusers and fascists already mentioned. They're all firmly in "cunt" territory.

I'd say it was more towards the completely insufferable or slightly more petty criminal types where it's still socially acceptable (albeit just barely in some cases) to enjoy their works.

[tuckwat]

Didn't Queen play at Sun City and the Pixies like to tour Israel.

[Jah Womble]

More chance of hell freezing over.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Wouldn't it be great if he joined OTF though.

[G-Man]

But the circumlocution serves to keep the subject from arriving here by way of Google alerts. That gives me a more peaceful easy feeling.

[Simon G]

If it's libellous, it's libellous, and if I can tell who you're talking about, then your circumlocution is of no legal benefit.

That is a fantastic word that I have never come across before.

[DCI Harry Batt]

If it's libellous, it's libellous, and if I can tell who you're talking about, then your circumlocution is of no legal benefit.

[Greenlander]

Point of order but wasn't the legal eagle singing about a tequila sunrise. The tequila sunset was someone else and I can't (Mc) tell you if he belongs in here or not.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Morrissey made one of his musicians blow out his own 50th birthday party.

That sentence didn't end the way I feared it would.

[Jah Womble]

Presumably he's a legal eagle?

[Duncan Gardner]

G Man's libel lawyer advises checking out of this one (but you can never leave)

[G-Man]

I read a book once by a woman who had extensive experience of sexual contact with stars of the entertainment world. What she said about the sexual conduct of a certain boy of summer who took it easy in tequila sunsets should have led to litigation for libel, unless it was actually true. Let's just say that, in her telling, the new kid in town was an uncompromsing ladies' man.

[Jah Womble]

Other wife-beaters include Bobby Brown, Jackson Browne and Don McLean (allegedly).

Radiohead get extra twat points for using the word 'retarded' to describe critics of their decision to play in Israel, if I'm not mistaken. Also for being really shit. Britpop groups were terrible, weren't they?

Radiohead were decidedly twattish (well, 'beyond') as regards playing in Israel - and that reaction helped them not one iota.

However, just as I still like The Gun Club (dubious lyrics notwithstanding), I still like Radiohead. But they were never 'Britpop'.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Nick Oliveri is another one who's committed violence against women.

The convicted paedophiles Gary Glitter and Ian Watkins belong on a totally different list.

[ad hoc]

Well said

[G-Man]

Should everyone refuse to work in Israel? Sportspeople etc? I don't know what my opinion is, to be honest.

On the question of boycotts, we must be guided by the oppressed. There is a call for a cultural boycott, to which individual artists have a choice to respond. If they decide to ignore the boycott, then that is a political statement. I don't think sports people, especially in team sports, have that choice. But clubs do, so fuck Barcelona. And the players who posed with Netanyahu, such as Messi, should be challenged on that, even if they were just following protocol.

I see a fundamental difference between people supporting evil regimes such as those of Israel and voting Tory. The latter is an indicator of a troubling mindset, but supporting Israel is to support ethnic cleansing, mass murder (in Gaza) and an incremental genocide. You can tolerate Tory-voting as a serious character flaw; but if one tolerates the evil Israel does, then the word "twat" actually seems rather too trivial a description.

When Hynde, Pharrell, Cave or Yorke wave the Israeli flag -- in fact or metaphorically -- they actively and deliberately allign themselves with an evil regime. I see little wiggle room for tolerance there.

[G-Man]

But even in his activism, Bono adopted a saviour complex. And even if it sprang from the genuine concern, the activism smacked of self-mythologising. Take debt relief: Jubilee 2000 was a movement initiated by activists and the Catholic Church in the 1990s. The bandwagon was rolling along when Bono jumped on it and made it seem as if it was his invention.

Similarly his and Geldof's notion that they should be spokesmen for Africa without having a mandate or being subordinate to an African-led movement. There is a racist element to that.

There were benefits to that, of course, but they came at the price of twattishness.

[Hot Pepsi]

Have we mentioned Billy Corrigan? Trumpist dickhead. He was always a dickhead, but Smashing Pumpkins made some great early 90s music and videos.

What did Sting do to the rainforest? IIRC, he made a lot of self-congratulatory pronouncements about it while flying in a private jet, etc, but that’s pretty low level twatery by celebrity standards. His impact on the situation was probably a slight net-positive.

Same with Bono. Not nearly as helpful as he’d have you believe, but tax-avoidance and hypocrisy are relatively minor offenses as these things go. And he did inspire a lot of college students to read up on developing-world debt relief. So that’s something.

And I still like a lot of their blow-the-roof-of-the-place Christianish numbers from the 80s.

[delicatemoth]

[@MsD] Ha, were they any good? I only found this out years later when I bumped into him at the council offices. He was the singer, very performative fellow. I performed my one-person show at a gallery event him and (I think mostly) his then-girlfriend put on. Bit weird to think that if I'd been more outgoing and less massively depressed I'd quite possibly have become part of that Hoxton 'scene'.

Yeah, people focus on Morrissey's politics but there's plenty of evidence that he's a complete arsehole for other reasons too.

[Janik]

A quick scan of the thread sees no mention of Ginger Baker. Pretty well everyone who met Ginger Baker seriously disliked Ginger Baker. Apart from possibly, maybe, Eric Clapton. Quite a few of the others mentioned here would divide opinion in a general survey as opposed to the rather narrow political view that we have on OTF (i.e. those who have played Israel/vote Tory/etc.). But the world was moreorless united in considering Baker an utter twat who happened to be very talented. Without him actually being a serious criminal, or anything like that.

[MsD]

Captain Beefheart deserves mention for being even more aggro and tyrannical than MES. At least the latter let his musicians go to the pub after he'd finished shouting at them. Beefy kept his group in a shack and abusively bullied them in a cult-like fashion.

Morrissey made one of his musicians blow out his own 50th birthday party.

[MsD]

Oh, I saw Selfish Cunt play twice! Once at the Hackney Empire, supporting Billy Childish, and once at some other ... thing.

[delicatemoth]

I used to work with a woman who one day asked me if I liked Sleeper. "Fuck, no" I said, then trailed off as I realised my colleague and the Sleeper woman had the same surname. Cousins, it turned out. Happily my colleague was amused more than anything, nice woman she was.

For twats I'm nominating Public Enemy, a group I mostly adore. The reason for this is that not only did they record and release simultaneously their most twattish and musically insignificant song - 'Meet The G That Killed Me' - but they put it in the middle of one of the best albums of its era. Unbridled twattery. Their labelmates the Beastie Boys were obnoxious twats too, though they did apologise for it in later years IIRC.

Radiohead get extra twat points for using the word 'retarded' to describe critics of their decision to play in Israel, if I'm not mistaken. Also for being really shit. Britpop groups were terrible, weren't they?

I was at uni with a chap who went on to be in the Libertines' 'gang'. He formed a group called Selfish Cunt. I'm fairly sure he was a twat at that point in his life, but he was also a very creative guy and I liked him.

Captain Beefheart deserves mention for being even more aggro and tyrannical than MES. At least the latter let his musicians go to the pub after he'd finished shouting at them. Beefy kept his group in a shack and abusively bullied them in a cult-like fashion. This horrible situation gave the world 'Troutmask Replica' and master drummer John French at least thinks it was all worth it.

[MsD]

Thanks. I think it was a flat belonging to a guy called Paul Roundhill, however, at which Doherty was a frequent guest: this included the night of Mark Blanco's death. (Roundhill's home was also the venue for musician Paul Cunniffe's death five years previously - and also from 'accidental' falling.)

Doherty and his girlfriend certainly disappeared from the property very quickly after the incident - and apparently went off and crashed a party at a hotel. Whether he was directly involved or otherwise, that to me seems callous beyond words.

https://www.justiceformark.com/jerry/ for Jerry Sadowitz's comments.

[jwdd27]

It depends on the consequences. Sportspeople might get bans. Western musicians OTOH are doing it purely for financial greed and have total freedom to refuse with no risk of career penalties.

I'm not sure of this, I would presume some record companies, particularly the Americans, put a fair bit of pressure on their acts to play in Israel. "It would be good for your career..."

And playing Israel is sadly so widespread that it doesn't warrant inclusion on the list. Google your favourite act and you'll most likely find they've been there, more than once usually. And the likes of Elvis Costello and The Pixies made the headlines for cancelling booked concerts rather than flat out refusing to consider it.

Even your* beloved Fall played Israel three times.
* your = OTF in general, not Satchmo.

Anyway, I nominate Johnny Ramone - woman beater and out and out racist (including anti-semitic abuse of his fellow Ramones) and that's outside of the general acting the twat that was de rigeur as part of that band.