The Seedy Underside of Rock Stars and Their Adoring Fans

I was having lunch today with Melissa at a local restaurant when they played the Dire Straits 1985 hit single Money for Nothing.  Written as a satire on the rock music scene and what motivates rockers in general, one of the main lines in it is "You get your money for nothing and your chicks for free."  No surprise there, as I have long understood that a substantial number of rock celebrities...and perhaps celebrities of other types as well...tend to enjoy the adulation of their fan base, sometimes crossing the line into promiscuity and groupie behavior.  I remember a radio show I heard about Def Leppard that revealed that during the band's concert tours they would spend the mid-concert intermission in their dressing room making out with the young women they earlier picked out of the audience during the opening half.  I thought at the time that this band was pretty awfully arrogant to do such a thing, and then to openly brag about it like that.  I think times may have changed since then, though, and that can't be a bad thing, right?  After Arcade Fire released their album We in early 2022, allegations were published about frontman Win Butler that he had been aggressive about sexually pursuing some of his female fans on social media...a scandal about it erupted just as the band was about to go on an album-promoting concert tour while Butler maintained that everything had been consensual. Scheduled opening act Feist withdrew herself from the tour and there was a question about the future prospects of Arcade Fire.  Now they've just released their next album and we'll see how that goes.  I am dead set against any form of sexual harassment, but in the entertainment industry it seems that any standards...if there really are any...are applied in a sloppy, haphazard manner with some alleged offenders being severely demonized..."cancelled" if you will...while others, apparently given a free pass for being "cool",  are almost lifted up as folk heroes for their antics.  To me it's a terrible distraction from the music, which is the only reason I ever paid attention to any of them in the first place.  And to me Def Leppard has always sucked while Arcade Fire has been a quality act...