At a time when so many seemingly innocuous activities — from the type of car you drive to the pillow you sleep on — are loaded with political subtext that has nothing to do with an object’s actual purpose, it’s not surprising that music is more loaded than most.

Without taking away from the emotional investment one might have in a car or pillow, it just doesn’t compare to the impact on the human spirit that music can have — or the potentially problematic associations. And at a certain point, it becomes difficult to separate the song from the person performing or associated with it, and all the history and baggage they bring with them.

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So if owning a Tesla truck has become the equivalent of a red MAGA hat, does listening to Morgan Wallen’s new album “I’m the Problem” have the same effect? And is enjoying — and financially supporting — a person’s creative work the same thing as endorsing or overlooking their stated beliefs or opinions, even if there’s no overt reflection of those views in their work?

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The answer to that last question, of course, is yes and no. To be clear, we’re not talking about an artist like Kanye West, whose once-clever lyrics have metastasized into unapologetic hate speech; political rabble-rousers from Kid Rock and Jason Aldean to M.I.A.; or even some of Woody Allen’s films, one in particular that attempts to normalize the kind of romantic relationship with an underaged female that, in real life, immolated his reputation and career. Intentionally or not, those people placed certain messages into or in front of their art — it’s virtually impossible to hear even a completely non-political song like Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” and see past his red hat and some of the idiotic things he’s said.

While Morgan Wallen has done some very offensive things in public, he’s no Kanye West or even Kid Rock (although, ironically, in 2020 he was kicked out of Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse in Nashville and subsequently arrested and charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct — how badly do you have to behave to get ejected from an establishment owned by Kid Rock?). That same year, he broke Covid protocols just days before he was scheduled to appear on “Saturday Night Live,” clearly running the risk of........

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