At a recent show in Thailand, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine lost his shit.
Blaming Obama for the Dark Knight Co. shooting is Nuggent territory.
Mustaine became a born again to help him get over his addictions (that's my understanding anyway), so I haven't been surprised by the rightward shift in some of his recent tunes. If it helped the man get straight, then what the hell.
Blaming Obama for the DK/Co shooting is just fucking sad. Although, it's not like this is the first time he's lost his damn mind.
It's not like Mustaine is an isolated case. I've noticed a few of my other favorite metal bands drift right over the last few years. Well, some have come out and said that they are supporting Right causes; some might just be my interpretation.
Either I'm just getting old and the messages no longer speak to me the same way they used to, or the messages have been changing over the years. A bit of both I suspect.
So I'm stuck asking myself if I should continue to fill out my collection. Is it ok to buy back catalogue albums, and thereby support current day whack job Mustaine? Does it send a message if I just buy the old albums and avoid the new ones like the plague? Does it make a difference? It's not like Mustaine doesn't have a chunk of change from me already.
I find myself asking the same question about torrents. Yes, I know that they are illegal. I also know that artists can get the download numbers (Kevin Smith was kinda proud of his torrent numbers) and may (as in Kev's case) view them as validation.
What to do....? I enjoy the back catalogue, but also think about how we always say that one voice can make a difference.
It seems to me that the best course of action is to return to the true roots of Metal. Before the big names became the 1% and advocated for policies to keep them there. They used to count on the audience filming them. They learned from the masters by sharing tapes. This is a field that built itself on the backs of those who came before.
So this is my plan. Instead of being OCD about filling out my collection, I will just borrow and rip/burn. In the spirit of what got me hooked in the first place. For those acts that act like assholes anyway. I'm all for buying albums that will top out at 5-15k sales.
And as a bonus, it won't add to the racks of discs I already have.