BIGMOUTH STRIKES AGAIN, squealed the NME in white-capital excitement, exposing 80s indie god Morrissey's controversial opinions on immigration.

Morrissey has been in trouble for his views on the changing face of Britain before, and for playing a gig at Finsbury Park draped in a Union flag. "The gates of England are flooded," the NME quotes him as saying. "The country's been thrown away."

With his reedy moan, Ronnie Corbett spectacles and slicked-up quiff, Morrissey used to be the NME's patron saint. As for Phillip Larkin, depression was for Morrissey "what daffodils were for Wordsworth", and he made a sort of art form out of being an NME-reading sad sack.

In a vote of the century's most influential bands, the Smiths came top.

But after his remarks in the NME, Asian indie fan Jeevan Vasagar has thrown in his headphones. "[Morrissey's] complaint that Britain is losing itself is the classic whinge of an expat - no more serious than that," he explains. "But there comes a time when you can't listen to music made by someone whose views you find repugnant."

Yet, if you read the NME interview in full, Morrissey's opinions do not seem to be racist. At no point does he denigrate an ethnic minority. What he does rail against is the decline of a traditional British cultural identity.

Yes, he sounds like a Tory, and that's quite a turnaround for someone whose house got raided after he wrote the song Margaret [Thatcher] on the Guillotine. But it doesn't make him Enoch Powell.

And, more importantly, since when did an artist having objectionable political views preclude you from listening to their music?

The Who's Keith Moon, aka Moon the Loon, regularly used to drive about Golders Green in a Nazi uniform. At the time, Moon was knocking off a bottle of Dom Pérignon and half a bottle of brandy for breakfast, and a few tabs of speed for tea before heading out "to boogie". But being off your head is no excuse for blatant antisemitism. But the Who still rock, and it's proving hard to get the surviving members of the band to stop.

In the early days of the Banshees, Siouxsie Sioux sang the cheerful lyric "too many Jews for my liking". And while touring France with the Bromley contingent she wore a swastika armband, for which she was punched out. But should those things stop us listening to The Scream?

David Bowie also had a couple of "lost" political years. In a 1974 interview, he declared: "Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars ... quite as good as Jagger ... He staged a country."

In 1976 he was detained in eastern Europe for possessing Nazi memorabilia, and then claimed: "I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. After all, fascism is really nationalism."

And a month later, he was photographed, greeting fans at Victoria station with a Nazi salute. Not hailing, but waving, Bowie later explained: "That didn't happen. That did not happen. I waved. I just waved. Believe me. On the life of my child, I waved. And the bastard caught me. In mid-wave, man."

Eric Clapton famously launched into a "rivers of blood"-style anti-immigration speech in the middle of a concert in Birmingham. "I think Enoch's right," he slurred: "We should send them all back ... Keep Britain white!" "I used to be into dope," he said later. "Now I'm into racism."

The music industry found this incident so embarrassing that Rock Against Racism was formed almost as a result. But few people would want to surrender their Cream guitar riffs or put a lid on Bowie's greatest hits.

But whatever the explanation for the despicable outbursts by Bowie, Moon, Sioux and Clapton, whether they were high on fame, drunk beyond reason, cracked on drugs or rebelling against a parental generation for which neo-Nazism was perhaps the one remaining taboo, they all made great music - music it would be a loss to the iPod to delete.

If art were judged by politics and politics alone, we would have many fewer masterpieces in the world.

Perhaps it is time the NME stopped trying to increase its circulation with trumped-up finger-pointing and got back to the issue at hand: new music. Certainly, Morrissey's Daily Mail-style rants on immigration shouldn't hinder anyone from being made thoroughly miserable by his music.