Shortly after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he would be pausing his troubled presidential campaign and throwing his weight behind the candidacy of Donald Trump, he was received as a “rockstar” at one of Trump’s rallies, according to a reporter for the conservative Web site the Bulwark.
It was an apt description. When one tries to come up with a precedent for R.F.K. Jr.’s multiple debaucheries—the “lust demons,” the heroin addiction, the dead bear cub, the decapitated whale—the only individual who really springs to mind is Ozzy Osbourne, the Black Sabbath singer who spent years on a semi-permanent cocktail of cocaine, heroin, and cough syrup, slept with countless young groupies, and infamously bit off a bat’s head while onstage. Or perhaps Led Zeppelin, who, in addition to consuming quantities of pills, potions, and powders, were alleged to have roped a shark into one of their sexual orgies.
Indeed, the news from Washington is increasingly indistinguishable from VH1’s Behind the Music. Our current president’s son is a former crack addict with a penchant for taking nude selfies, and the Republican standard-bearer was recently convicted for paying hush money to conceal an affair with a porn star. When, back in July, Charli XCX tweeted that “kamala IS brat,” there was a deeper truth to it about how politicians are now perceived.
Perversely, the one place you will struggle to find people behaving badly without fear of consequence is in the world of pop. Take Chappell Roan, the theatrical, proudly gay singer who burst into the public consciousness earlier this summer. No sooner had she conquered the charts than she was immediately criticized for not committing to vote for Kamala Harris, as Taylor Swift had done shortly after the presidential debate, in September—an endorsement that was more sought-after than that of any political officeholder.
Then, when Roan canceled two shows in Europe, she was attacked for being “disrespectful,” and when she complained about the “stalker vibes” given off by some of her fans (“I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s selfish of me to say no for a photo”), she was accused of being condescending, hysterical, and hostile. At what point did things get so topsy-turvy that the culture now holds pop stars to a higher moral standard than it does politicians?
The news from Washington is increasingly indistinguishable from VH1’s Behind the Music.
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who believes that California’s wildfires were caused by space lasers controlled by Jewish financiers, is still legislating away. And yet when it was revealed that Roger Waters, the co-founder and lead singer of the band Pink Floyd, had once e-mailed his bandmates to suggest that the group’s signature inflatable pig be covered with Stars of David as well as the words “dirty kyke” and “scum,” numerous concerts were immediately canceled.
Diddy is facing decades in prison for his depraved “freak-offs,” while the politician Matt Gaetz has effectively laughed off sex-trafficking accusations and continues to operate as normal—well, normal for him. When the singer Lana Del Rey recently posed with a gun in an Instagram post, fans declared it was a “cry for help.” Yet when Kamala Harris boasted of owning and firing her Glock handgun (“Look, my background is in law enforcement”), it was seen as a savvy political move.
So completely have the rules for politics and rock been reversed that when Dave Grohl, lead singer of the Foo Fighters, admitted to having a child with someone other than his wife, he did so in a mawkishly earnest statement that would not have seemed out of place coming from a heartland congressman of yesteryear: “I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness. We’re grateful for your consideration toward all the children involved, as we move forward together.” Somewhere Mick Jagger was shaking his head.
Last year, the Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert was caught vaping, caressing her male companion’s crotch, and having her breasts fondled while in the audience of a Sunday-night community-theater performance of Beetlejuice in Denver. When asked to leave, she retorted with “Do you know who I am?” By the standards of, say, Eleanor Roosevelt or Sandra Day O’Connor, it was unbecoming, to say the least. But not if her true peers are Britney Spears and Cardi B.
Meanwhile, Coldplay has embraced a stultifying form of wellness rock that preaches vague progressive homilies and anodyne self-help messages. Lead singer Chris Martin, who describes his band’s message as “No one is more or less special than anyone else,” was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times about his new diet. Will someone please give the man a bat to chew on?
The one place you will struggle to find people behaving badly without fear of consequence is in the world of pop.
Some called Bill Clinton the “first rock ’n’ roll president” when he played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, but he wasn’t really, otherwise that assignation with Monica Lewinsky would have been widely applauded. No, that honorific must go to Donald Trump, who discovered that acting politely was politically unnecessary. When Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” it was like John Lennon declaring the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” Outrageous, pompous, inflammatory—and great copy.
Trump took rock’s excesses—the vicarious thrill of seeing someone else break all the rules and get away with it—and attached it to politics. To oppose him is, in some way, to stand against such behavior. Hence, the younger generation’s desperate search for saints among its singers.
This turnabout is bad news for those seeking decency in politics. But it is no less dispiriting for those seeking carefree libertinism in music. Morality clauses in record contracts, which were once prevalent in the 1950s, are now said to be returning, and could allow music labels to terminate an artist’s deal for simply behaving like a rock star.
Recent pop documentaries, such as Swift’s Miss Americana and Beyoncé’s Homecoming: A Film, are closer to extended campaign ads than Don’t Look Back,Cocksucker Blues, or even Madonna: Truth or Dare. Indeed, both Swift and Beyoncé are praised for the power and control they have over their image. How long before politicians, freed from criticism for their actions, continue down the rock ’n’ roll path and appear in lurid, sex-and-drug-filled Behind the Music–style documentaries of their own?
George Pendle is an Editor at Large at AIR MAIL. His book Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons became a television series for CBS All Access. He is also the author of Death: A Life and Happy Failure, among other books
