Azeri crooner Oqtay Agayev suggests other singers be shot

Oqtay Agayev, an old time big-band type singer, was quoted this week by the Azeri press suggesting that singers who reveal too much skin should be "shot."

Azerbaijan show-business takes the culture to abyss. Famous artists do nothing but showing strange culture in the stage by undressing. They should perform culture and tradition but not do a strip-tease. In our period there was a serious censorship on music. Law quality music was not allowed to air. I hope Art Council will remove this disgrace. If it can not, we can do nothing but ‘shooting’ them,”

"Agayev said he had health problems some times ago."

I assume they mean he has mental health problems, as this lunar crooner is obviously crackers.

Now I like a splashy story as much as the next wanker but I question this particular paper for running such an insane, violence-promoting rant, particularly during a week where somebody went and shot up a college a few blocks from my house here in Montreal.

This seems to be a good time to share my thoughts on Azerbaijan's artistic generation gap. It's a painful time for some old school Azeri artsies because of the esteem that Soviets once laid on artists has largely disappeared as a demographically-weighty generation has come along hauling an entirely new cultural freight but I'll spare you such pontification and go right to the fleshy Azeri pop stars that seem to have troubled him so.