I had the pleasure of meeting Robert a few times in the early 2000s, first at a festival in Antwerp where he was playing & later at a festival in London where his version of ‘Waterloo Sunset’ left the goth audience somewhat bemused; something he found quite amusing, I think!! He was a down-to-earth guy with a good sense of humour &, in ‘Calling All Destroyers’ & ‘No Heart’ wrote two of the best synthpop songs of all time. RIP Robert

Punk is truly dead.

Even if we were to take his claims as true (neither Skinflicks nor ROME are right-wing), does Robbins suggest that the punk thing to do is call your lawyers and sue? Utterly clueless.

Assuming a peculiar point of view isn’t exactly serving right-wing narratives. It’s serving narrative. Let’s put it this way: you won’t find “redeeming qualities” in Rome’s music, not in its bulk. You’ll find that facts are often narrated from conflicted, contorted point of views, such as those of the historical losers in a Passage to Rhodesia, for example. Is it troubling? Yes. Is it interesting? Yes. Is it right wing? No. It’s just an attempt at understanding at a level that differs from a purely moralistic point of view.

Take Celine in Jerusalem, which is in its own a masterpiece: it is written from the point of view of the eventual victors (the Israeli people), and talks about Céline, known collaborator, depicting the difficulty of dealing with his literary greatness and, at the same time, the misery (even intellectual) of his political efforts against the jews. That song depicts perfectly that conflict. It’s something that many people who have read Journey through the Night have faced. You cannot take that song lightly, as you cannot take lightly any other song by Rome. Jerome Reuter has chosen to depict strong emotions and strong stances, not an ideal concept of right and wrong; he has chosen, rather, to try to understand and depict the underlying emotions and apparent “reasons”. It’s not a heroic, educational approach, it’s extremely modern. If you’re looking for heroism and redeeming qualities, look somewhere else.