Review Summary: An irony, a rebellion, a truth.
I have typed and deleted this opening statement upwards of about a billion times. No matter how many times I think it through, I just don't know how to approach this at all. So I am just going to start off by stating an objective fact.
Ian Watkins is a monster who committed one of the most immoral, disgusting, and brutalizing acts that can be committed in the 21st Century. May God have mercy on his soul, because if I were God, I know I wouldn't.
Yet, as I say this, there are other people still listening to Lostprophets albums. These people are going on
Yahoo! Answers asking if they are horrible people for enjoying this music because of what Ian did; of course the answers are always the same no matter who is asking the question. I am one of these people, and a hefty amount of guilt clouds me when I listen to their albums. I know I enjoy them, I know I want to keep listening to them, but then I remember what this band's name is attached to and I feel like I'm a monster. Should I feel like this？ Am I truly a disgusting human being？ Honestly, I've come to a conclusion after thinking about this for so long. The conclusion: No, I'm not.
The Betrayed will probably go down in history as the album with the most ironic title in musical history. Yet it is a good reflection. It is an album that reflects this bitter sense of betrayal that fans feel, for unknowingly supporting someone so putrid for so long. Four albums in, and Lostprophets were riding a wave of commercial success after the critical and commercial juggernaut that was
Liberation Transmission. With
The Betrayed, the band made drastic style changes, adding a more upbeat instrumentation countered by cynical lyricism. This can be seen by the Poppy vocals in tunes like
Where We Belong and
Dirty Little Heart. Of course, the album also has the usual Lostprophets style of Nu-Metal in songs like
Dstryr/Dstryr, featuring heavy riffs and screamed vocals. To be perfectly honest, the album isn't that bad, but it certainly isn't as good as their previous effort. The stylistic change was a good idea, but at points it seemed like the band was torn between their new sound, and their old ways in a tug of war where there was no clear winner.
Why do I mention this？ I mention this because I want to say, without hesitation and without guilt, that I like this album and find it to be a good album that can still be listened to if one so chooses. I don't care about Ian Watkins, he is nothing to me; a little ant that I would usually stomp on and crush on any day he had the gall to be near my vicinity. With that said, I acknowledge that he was the primary vocalist of this band, which makes listening to his lyrics a bit off-putting. However, I don't think the music should have to suffer here. The lyrics did not commit the crime, the one who spoke them and wrote them did. This music, living on it's own, committed no crime. The one who made it did, and that is a distinction that will guide my feelings on the matter from now on. I personally feel, if this album was a sentient being, it would immediately cast aside Ian and want nothing to do with him; because what Ian did went against everything Lostprophets stood for. As an entity, the music stands on its own; a creation suffering from the sins of its father, and I don't think it should.
I will continue to listen to Lostprophets, I will continue to enjoy it's albums, and I will continue to scorn Ian and the ground he walks on till the end of time. I am no sicko, and I am no criminal. Lostprophets has always been about rebelling against oppressive entities that control us. With that said, the literal essence of Lostprophets dictates to rebel against the oppressive grip that Ian's sick crime has on this band. No Lostprophets, this isn't your fault. We won't blame the identity of Lostprophets, we'll blame the smarmy fuck who actually committed the crime. This is no longer your band Ian, the vocals spoke in these albums are no longer your vocals. They are the vocals of the record, speaking nothing but hatred against you. No longer will this album have no agency to defend itself, and in the process I will take whatever agency Ian had that he clearly doesn't deserve. I'll admit it is quite odd to give the name and concept of a band's music an identity, and yet it seems fitting in this sense. You know what else is fitting？ A mental image of Lostprophets, represented as a warrior, piercing Ian Watkins through the heart with a flag carrying the insignia of
Liberation Transmission. It is the greatest rebellion; a rebellion of a warrior, created to rebel against evil, breaking the shackles held against it by it's own previous creator and setting out to destroy the very thing that created it.
