Time Gary Glitter found a new career and music ain't it

SO, disgraced pop paedophile Gary Glitter wants to get back to making music now he's been released from prison.

In an interview with a Vietnamese state-run newspaper, the fallen glam rocker is quoted as saying that he has an "incomplete album" that he wants to finish.

"I have been thinking about the plan during my days in jail," the 64-year-old said.

You wouldn't stake your mortgage on it being a chart-topper, would you?

For one thing, British radio bans his records, both officially and unofficially.

Same applies to Jonathan King, another singer from the 1970s, who was convicted of sexual offences committed in the 1980s against teenage boys, for which he served three and a half years in prison. His records, too, have been airbrushed from the airwaves.

Glitter was arrested in Vietnam in November 2005 and subsequently jailed for three years after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two children. He was released from prison last week as part of an amnesty programme.

He had a dozen consecutive top ten singles, from 1972's Rock and Roll Parts One and Two to Doing Alright With the Boys in the summer of 1975, including the number ones I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am) in 1973, and I Love You Love Me Love, its follow-up.

That's success by anyone's standards, but you have to wonder what he thinks he has to gain from making a comeback.

Sure, he no doubt still has some loyal fans, but if he tried playing shows he would probably meet a lot of opposition. Or worse. Who would book him in the first place? Who would want to give him a new record deal? Who would want to be in his gang now?

Not many I dare say, but all the same, art should never be confused with the artist.

Wagner's venomous anti-semitism means you wouldn't have wanted him round for tea and scones, but the composer's music is still performed all over the world. Director Roman Polanski admitted sex with a minor but people still watch his movies. Chuck Berry, R Kelly . . . the list goes on and on.

So why is Glitter so vilified? Because he's taken over from Moors Murderer Myra Hindley as the most-hated in the eyes of the tabloid press?

Glitter's crime stirs up strong emotions, and rightly so, but where does one draw the line with stopping people who have committed crimes from earning a living. Do we stop people who have physically and mentally abused children from earning a living – or indeed from having more children?

Do we do the same for drug dealers? Surely it is the job of the courts to punish them appropriately.

Theoretically, anyone who has served time for a crime is deemed to have paid the price and is free to live his/her life as they want.

If the public do not want to listen to Glitter's music then they have the option to switch the radio off.

Regardless, Glitter's chances of a successful comeback are slim. You see, it makes a difference that most people in the UK identify his songs with his persona.

We feel like we've known this persona well over the decades, and his songs have become inseparable from the man himself - after all, part of the reason why he was so successful was his stage performance.

Once that persona got tarnished with his convictions, not only can we not abide the man himself anymore, we can't abide his songs, by association.

Personally, though, I think Gary Glitter needs no other reason to be banned than for simply being Gary Glitter. The sins of his music should be enough.