The downfall of Ariel Pink

Armin Rosen's article on the rise and complete collapse of the career of Ariel pink is an exhaustive and exhausting read.  It's probably twice as long as it needs to be.  The avalanche of music insider detail will alienate most music fans, let alone the average Tablet reader.  The elephant in the room is the article's most glaring flaw: is it meant to evoke sympathy for Ariel Pink?  Is it an attempt to start rebuilding his legacy?  Do Rosen and Tablet believe that Ariel's side of the story has been misrepresented, and are providing him a forum (albeit a highly critical one) to fill a journalistic need?     

The Tucker Carlson interview mentioned in the article is a slobberfest of forced sympathy and manipulation, even by the standards of Fox News.  I have no doubt that TC had not heard of Ariel Pink the day before their meeting and has not thought about him for five minutes since, and yet most of the interview is Carlson practically weeping over the tragically unfair state of the man's career.  I will not link to the interview here, but you can easily find it.  Rosen's article is certainly not that.  But if there's one overarching narrative he presents to his readers, it's that Ariel Pink was and is a unique and even irreplaceable talent.  Rosen doesn't say that great art should be above politics.  However, he seems to spin a cautionary tale about being too quick to degrade great art.  History is full of great artists who fell out of favour because they didn't trade in the dominant politics of the day. 

I don't care one way or another about Ariel Pink.  I've never heard an album, and laughed off the term "chillwave" during the scant years when it was popular.  I recognize that Ariel Rosenberg was a problematic and controversal person even before Jan. 6 of last year.  But I don't see how anyone can defend the complete cancellation of a person and his livelihood based on his mere attendance at a protest.  He didn't storm the Capitol, didn't advocate for violence or insurrection, he just stood in place and listened to a speech.  By no measure can it be said that he committed a crime.  And yet R. Kelly was sentenced to jail time only a couple of weeks ago, after more than twenty years of second chances from critics and fans alike.

We could list off any number of artists who have been given free passes for decades: white, black, male, female.  It would only serve to prove that the line between who gets cancelled and who gets left alone is a fuzzy, even arbitrary one.   A musician might have disagreeable, or even odious opinions, and it is ultimately a personal decision whether to continue listening to them or not.  I struggle with these decisions too and don't pretend to have the answers, not when it comes to Morrissey, or Herbert von Karajan, or Brian Eno.  But I don't think cancellation or pressure politics is the answer either.