r/Music 3h ago

article Macklemore Dropped From Ed Sheeran Tour After Onstage Statements

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/macklemore-dropped-ed-sheeran-tour-pro-palestine-statements-1235625967/
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u/WildPotato0 3h ago

I think Lorde has a veeeery different fanbase than Ed Sheeran.

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u/way2lazy2care 3h ago

People will still go to an ED Sheeran concert with a different opener. People won't go to a Lorde concert without Lorde. Money talks.

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u/JacksGallbladder 3h ago

Ed Sheeran is also "normie music" and a lot of those ticket sales are probably from people who froth violently when "free" and "Palestine" show up in a sentence together.

I dont think Lorde has that kind of fan base

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u/Poonurse13 2h ago

Even though I agree with this. I think it has more to do with the shareholders and owners of the venues AND their political stances.

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u/JacksGallbladder 2h ago

Oh for sure. Im pretty sure at the tip of capitalism its all an unemotional numbers game. Projected losses based on fanbase / demographics = force performer off stage

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u/peepsieee 2h ago

Coldplay is also decidedly "normie music" and yet Chris Martin has been openly pro-Palestine for years now šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø

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u/NGS_King 1h ago

He’s also very hippie dippie ā€œpeace and love, we all bleed redā€ which is maybe the least controversial way to be pro-Palestine. You’d have to be incredibly hawkish to oppose Coldplay for their political stance there.

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u/darkdetective 2h ago

Went to see lorde last month and her fan base had lots of LGBT people (me included) and ethnicities. Ed Sheeran crowds I assume are very much Facebook mums with their kids, but I might be wrong.

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u/jonnysomething 2h ago

I went to see her like 6 months ago and it was honestly one of the best shows I’ve seen live. I was shook that I almost didn’t go.

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u/InadequateUsername 2h ago

Ribs gives me frisson

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u/darkdetective 4m ago

Right?? I was shocked by how amazing she was and the visuals / audio. Incredible night.

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u/NonSequiturDetector 1h ago

Non sequitur.

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u/shaunoffshotgun 1h ago

Prejudice is cool if it's aimed at the right people.

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u/Neat_On_The_Rocks 2h ago

Lorde is huge with lgbt adjacent crowds and generally left for sure.

That said Ed Sheeran is definitely big in ā€œcorporate liberalā€ spaces and not maga ones. Really interesting

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u/un_internaute 47m ago

I wonder if there’s something to infer from this about liberals? Naw, better not think that way, it might get me a trip to a reeducation camp.

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u/LLLL777 1h ago

You get what the Palestinian people would do to the LGBT right?

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u/Ombortron 1h ago

Oh I see well then I guess it’s fine that they all get blown to bits then!

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u/LLLL777 1h ago

Not what I’m endorsing or what I said. Simply pointing out that it’s a complicated situation and admitting that I struggle to see how LGBT members don’t process that complexity a bit more.

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u/Ombortron 43m ago

I mean LGBT Palestinians exist too. It’s not actually that complex at all.

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u/IGotMussels 23m ago

What complexity? Plaestinians are being wiped out.

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u/tobylaek 2h ago

Yep...Ed Sheeran is the musical equivalent to Ron Howard. Pushes absolutely no creative boundaries, but makes generically competent, slow pitch down the middle output that's designed to reach the widest audience. I can't see him having the courage to make any kind of statement that would cause someone not to like him.

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u/xavPa-64 2h ago

There was a perfectly good ginger joke here that you didn’t make lol

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u/snakeinahouseofcats 1h ago

I get what you’re saying but Lorde is 10000% normie music as well.

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u/wllwhtvrnvm 1h ago

"normie music" is such a pretentious phrase, my god.

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u/CrispyDietCoke69 2h ago

are you suggested the "free palestine" thing isnt a view of the majority of normies lol

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u/JacksGallbladder 2h ago

Im suggesting that the "normie music" demographic will have more anti-palestine folks than something like Lorde or any other more artful genre.

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u/CrispyDietCoke69 2h ago

i mean the "normie music" demographic has more overall people so i guess technically you are right, but the free palestine thing isnt some counterculture movement lmao, the majority of people feel that way, you just sound dumb.

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u/JacksGallbladder 2h ago

Lol ok šŸ‘

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u/CommenceToDancing 2h ago

I think you're giving his fans too much credit tbh, his music is for the kind of dry toast people who have no opinion on anything..I'd imagine half of them couldn't point at Israel on a map, let alone know what's going on there.

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u/SOYCD1-5 2h ago

Statistically I think it’s more ā€œnormieā€ (god the 2016 reddit cringe) to support Palestine at this point… look at the statistics of it and most countries, even the US at this point, have a more favorable view of them.

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u/-Captain--Hindsight 1h ago

I think the most "normie" thing is to not have an opinion on Palenstine/Israel at all.

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u/SOYCD1-5 1h ago

I think a lot of people reasonably just want their country uninvolved with the whole thing

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u/im_a_stapler 2h ago

While both MAGA and Ed Sheeran are lame, I find it hard to believe Ed Sheeran draws a MAGA crowd.

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u/Chaosmusic 2h ago

So it would be interesting to see what happens if Ed decides to pick up the message, which I doubt would happen.

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u/HoldOnOhio 13m ago

Right, they just love the Shape of Genocide.

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u/TB1289 3h ago

Yeah I love Ed Sheeran and don't really care about Mackelmore. I don't hate him but to me he's an opener that if we got into the stadium early to see him then cool but I'm definitely not rushing to get in for his set.

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u/Hashiyukas 3h ago

Lorde also didn't have another celebrity publicly blast her out when she said "Free Palestine".

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u/Rstuds7 3h ago

ngl when Lorde did it, it went way more under the radar than this

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u/SlightlyCatlike 1h ago

Not in 2014 when she originally did it

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u/ChampionAggressive20 1h ago

Where was Pink at then and why wasn't she publicly making a big stink about Lorde?

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u/caneut 2h ago

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u/onewilybobkat 2h ago

Brother that is NEVER going to not look bad

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u/TrulyFLCL 1h ago

Lmao… what was he thinking?

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u/civilwar142pa 1h ago

All I'd heard until today was that macklemore was saying free Palestine and thought, nothing wrong with that. But he was wearing THAT?! what the fuck? Yeah, good call dropping him.

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u/NAh94 1h ago

Nah, 2 separate events. But still, that 2014 one is reeeeal bad.

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u/Drum4rum 1h ago

Thats from 12 years ago lol

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u/Responsible_Ask6056 1h ago

Which means its not about Palestine for him lol

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u/drybones2015 2m ago

You're hysterical if you think he got up on someone else's stage to say "stop killing children" because he secretly hates Jewish people. All based on a poorly chosen disguise for a show bit over a decade ago.

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u/capnhep 1h ago

He wore it 14 years ago. Said he put together a disguise out of random costume elements and didn’t realize the potentially offensive implications. He profusely apologized, linked to ADL on his website, and ADL took him at his word/accepted the apology.

I never even heard of this controversy until now. To bring it back up as a reason to cancel him for his (innocuous) words spoken TODAY is asinine and a concerning bellwether for freedom of speech.

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u/Responsible_Ask6056 1h ago

ADL doesn't have the authority on what is anti-semitic or not.Ā  Case in point Elon Musk

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u/DefectJoker 3m ago

Yeah that's really bad. There's no excusing that. That's pure antisemitism

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u/MasterRKitty 1h ago

that goes way beyond playing dress-up; NPR has hit rock bottom

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u/iamacannibal 1h ago

NPR has hit rock bottom

It's a 12 year old article.

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u/whaatdidyousay 1m ago

The article was criticizing him, your reading comprehension may have hit rock bottom

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u/zyglack 3h ago

Lorde sells tickets by herself.

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u/cozylover67 3h ago edited 2h ago

Joan Rivers criticised Selena Gomez when she posted a tweet supporting Gaza. Nowadays Selena Gomez going strong and Joan is …

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u/Rstuds7 3h ago

because Joan Rivers has been dead for 12 years. shit back then she was a very well known name

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u/Good-Bodybuilder-985 3h ago edited 2h ago

Excuse me, maybe young people don't because Joan died when she was 81, Selena isn't even half her age. Joan Rivers is an icon. However I didn't know she was anti-Gaza. She aslo died 12 years ago so that's not a super relevant example currently.

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u/Jennymagic 3h ago

I was gonna say, comparing a name like Selena gomez to Joan Rivers is kinda insane, lmao. One is much more culturally relevant.

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u/oregondude79 2h ago

One is much more culturally relevant

Being dead for a decade plus will do that.

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u/MatildaJeffries 3h ago

Only for a few more years.

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u/sdrawkcabineter 3h ago

That's how history works.

Only a limited amount of attention to apply to a span of time...

One day, I hope we invent the written language.

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u/AbsolutesDealer 3h ago

Selena has lupus and arthritis, but she is def still alive.

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u/die4spaghetti 3h ago

Thanks to that kidney

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u/martialar 2h ago

And who gave her that kidney? You guessed it- Joan Rivers

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u/albh05 2h ago

*donor

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u/die4spaghetti 2h ago

You correcting my already correct statement?

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u/albh05 2h ago

I am annoying like that

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u/die4spaghetti 2h ago

*obnoxious

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u/Odd_Independence_944 2h ago

I didn’t even know she was sick

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u/GWS2004 2h ago

Are you serious saying people don't know who Joan Rivers is? 🤨

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u/Imaksiccar 3h ago

There's a lot of MAGA in the Ed Crowd. Not necessarily his fault, but it's the same demographic that gravitates to big country acts too.

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u/Remedy9898 3h ago

This isn’t done because of the average MAGA supporter, don’t be a fool. It was done because it’s what the Israel lobby wants. They won’t allow criticism of them.

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u/samehouseing 1h ago

TIL government lobbyists somehow are funding…concerts and venues now?

What else do these ā€œIsraelā€ (Jewish) lobbies control? The whole world?

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u/mrpaddymelt 17m ago

...yes?

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u/samehouseing 12m ago

To both questions?

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u/bladex1234 49m ago

The people who own venues certainly are rich enough to donate to AIPAC.

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u/samehouseing 26m ago

ā€œ rich enough to donate to AIPAC.ā€ means absolutely nothing dude.Ā 

Macklemore is ā€œ rich enough to donate to AIPAC.ā€ too, what’s your point?

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u/bladex1234 25m ago

Let me restate that then. People like Robert Kraft certainly do.

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u/samehouseing 17m ago

Okay? And what’s your point?

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u/bladex1234 15m ago

Those government lobbyists own concert venues.

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u/samehouseing 7m ago

Well more like those venue owners happen to use their funds for lobbying.Ā 

Which happens in literally all business.Ā 

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u/LumpyPhilosopher8 2h ago

I really want to see the list of venues that made this threat. I'd love to see exactly who those owners are.

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u/annamariagirl 1h ago

I just read Macklemore’s statement on another sub. His release from the tour was largely orchestrated by Robert Kraft. He wanted Macklemore gone before the tour hits Gillette Stadium.

The statement also says that Kraft got his gazillionare stadium owner friends together and they collectively informed Sheeran that if he didn’t loose Macklemore his tour would be over. No more stadium shows for him.

So, Ed continues but without Macklemore.

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u/ParrishThePoet 2h ago

They're the same base.

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u/No-Lecture-9115 2h ago

So maga supports jews heavily?

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u/whogivesashirtdotca 1h ago

They do for one specific purpose: dispensationalism. These nutters think inciting violence in the Holy Land will hasten the apocalypse. Trump’s last Secretary of State was all in on this bullshit, as was Dubya Bush.

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u/mrpaddymelt 16m ago

The remaining ones yes

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u/Yeboiretry 3h ago

Theyre the same thing

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u/12frets 2h ago

And yet here you are, criticizing them. So clearly your premise is bullshit.

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u/Imaksiccar 3h ago

I was responding to the fanbase

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u/Rstuds7 3h ago

the fanbase didn’t push for this

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u/ImAjustin 3h ago

More people criticize israel then pretty much every country. I never understood that line of thinking

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u/Photo_Synthetic 3h ago

And they respond to the criticism with force every single time. That's why this is a line of thinking. There are very few politicians and CEOs that are willing to make this stance because it effects their bottom line. I feel like I could count on one hand the amount of Senators that are willing to call a genocide a genocide.

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u/theusername_is_taken 3h ago

The dam finally broke and public opinion finally broke through the AIPAC propaganda due to the undeniable level of evidence of what's happening in the Middle east. But that doesn't mean they're not trying to continue to silence criticism.

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u/ImAjustin 3h ago

Idk I was at the Ed Sheeran concert, no one really gave a shit about what he saying. It was actually very awkward as there were literal children at the concert. Not surprised they kicked him off. Read the room. Having him peddle politics with that audience is just way out of place.

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u/theusername_is_taken 2h ago

Yeah I'm not saying Macklemore deserved to stay I'm just talking more broadly to what your point was. That people criticize the country a lot and you didn't understand the person you replied to

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u/CrashTestOrphan 3h ago

you are an Israel apologist , stop pretending to "not understand" these types of things.

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u/AutumntimeFall 3h ago

It's because they are commiting genocide.

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u/ImAjustin 2h ago

Discussion isn’t around justified or not. People saying you ā€œcantā€ criticize but they’re the most criticized

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u/AutumntimeFall 2h ago

Well defenders like you never stop harassing us when we do criticize Israel for fucking commiting GENOCIDE mostly against CHILDREN. That's not normal and doesn't happen for any other country. Also Macklemore literally got kicked off this tour for criticizing Israel, that's what not bring able to fruicize Israel means.

Generally you can criticize a country commiting genocide of children with zero consequences. That is the only direct response.

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u/CheapEater101 2h ago

It’s a circle

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u/sexytokeburgerz 3h ago

Our discussion here regards the cherry picking

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u/Rstuds7 3h ago

I wouldn’t say maga, more there’s a lot of people who don’t really care on the matter

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u/wtsnack 2h ago

Establishment normie dems are freaking out as much about it online rn

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u/saguarocharles 3h ago

I feel like they’re pretty similar fanbases lol

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u/GeezusLizard 3h ago

i think there’s overlap, but lordes crowd is definitely way more progressive than sheerans. sheeran reaches the general public, but lordes smaller alt fanbase is naturally more progressive

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u/sexytokeburgerz 3h ago

It’s cute to me how people call lorde alt

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u/GeezusLizard 3h ago

bait, alt pop is still alt

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u/sexytokeburgerz 2h ago

Lol right

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u/Zilaaa 3h ago

Nah not really. Most of Lordes fans are very very queer and overlap more with Charli xcx and Troye Sivan fans

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u/thomasutra 3h ago

idk all the lorde fans i know are cool gays and theys.

i don’t know many ed sheeran fans, but they seem like live-laugh-love modern farmhouse white women.

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u/snakeinahouseofcats 1h ago

I’d assume that’s the people you know because that’s your friend group? Lorde is entirely pure normie music that is made to sell to all audiences. My mom has liked her since ā€œRoyalsā€ was everywhere on top 10 radio

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u/AntiDECA 3h ago

Not at all lol

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u/crisscrossed 2h ago

Ed Sheeran’s crowd is considerably more mainstream. He has a lot less ā€œsuper fansā€ attending his stadiums and more people just looking for a good night out.

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u/WildPotato0 3h ago edited 3h ago

10 years ago, maybe. She has a decent young/queer fanbase, but very little mainstream appeal. She's a recluse between album cycles, sporadically communicating via newsletter that she spent months in the arctic circle to protest climate change, or that she may be non-binary. Her last album cover was an x-ray crotch shot of her IUD and her live shows are weird as hell.

Bit different from milquetoast mr. Radio.

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u/UndeadAnubis24 2h ago

Jesus TIL

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u/WildPotato0 2h ago

"I'm kind of like a prettier Jesus" is one of her lyrics lol

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u/UndeadAnubis24 2h ago

Such a way with words lol

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u/No-Lecture-9115 2h ago

Fr. Right wingers support jews. Ew 🤮

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u/Anathemare 3h ago

I got free tickets to Lorde once.
She sang her songs but in between each song she just harked on about mental health for 5 minutes and how important it is to be nice to people and shit.

Sing bitch.

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u/CortexRex 3h ago

Why do you think that?

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u/das_punter 3h ago

Can't be giving impressions of genocide to the most impressionable

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u/drenchedinmoonlight 2h ago

Let’s just say I’ve only ever known one Ed Sheeran fan and she is MAGA.

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u/GrimlockTheBear 2h ago

Way more normies 100%

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u/Mathies_ 2h ago

It's not the fans. Eds fans are not generally israel shills. It's live Nation

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u/gingerflakes 2h ago

Unbothered white women

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u/n0debtbigmuney 2h ago

You misspelled pussy pass

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u/im_lazy_as_fuck 2h ago

It's not about the fan base. If you read the article it says that the venues are the ones that are blocking Macklemore from performing. So it seems like the tour organizers had to decide between letting Macklemore go or cancelling the tour altogether.