Something occurs to me to wonder now that Pete Townshend is being questioned about internet child porn…
When Gary Glitter was convicted, he was pretty much airbrushed out of music history. No radio station plays his records any more and frankly, fun though a Glitter track sometimes was at parties, that's not exactly a huge loss to world culture. Most people probably haven't even noticed the difference, except when they've got their Fully Monty soundtrack on and suffer a sudden burst of embarrassment at finding their toe tapping to his track on it.
Similarly, there haven't been riots because we no longer hear anything by Jonathan King or the Bay City Rollers.
But what if Townshend's “I was only doing research, guvnor” defence doesn't wash and he ends up convicted? This is The Who we're talking about. You can't just pretend they never existed. I wonder if people will try?