Why is it that when a rock star dies. Their Great?

Question

Why is it that when a rock star dies.why do they become larger in death than they were in life? everybody acts like they were just the best, and what a loss. Kurt Coban... Jimi Hendrix...Janis Joplin just to name a few but the list is endless. And if you think i'm crazy think about this... Elvis made more money the first year after his death than he did in all of his life. The truth is that had they not died they would be tring to get a gig at the Holiday Inn

sorry...it's cobain not coban

Answer 1

Oh my God, someone finally gets it!!

Answer 2

Because no matter how far down the rungs of fame they've fallen, the truth is they WERE popular, and their death jogs our memory ("Hey! Remember when Bleach came out? MAN that was awesome!") and people try to recapture the good times they associate with their (former) idol's music.

You're right. Had they lived longer, their fame probably woudn't have taken an upward tick, but who knows?

Answer 3

i don't think you gave really good examples.....jimi hendrix and janis joplin really WERE great....and kurt cobain helped to shift the direction of rock music...elvis on the other hand....he really wasn't that great but he was huge before he died so it's only natural that he would be huge post-mortem as well....and the same really goes for the others you mentioned, they were popular and they stayed that way after they died......

Answer 4

Better to burn out, then to fade away (Hey hey, my my...Rock and Roll will never die). Best answer I have is that for SOME of those musicians it seem that people don't give them the attention they deserved until they are gone (i.e. Stevie Ray Vaughn or Robert Johnson). The others are just forced down our throats.

Answer 5

One answer was given by Harvey Fierstein in his play and movie "Torch Song Trilogy." In a house of mourning for someone he tries to criticize, he says: "The dead are easy to love; they make so few mistakes."

Aside from not making any more mistakes, the dead cannot defend themselves against criticism, so it is considered impolite to criticize them. Think of how bad it is just to talk someone down when they are not in the room!

But you are right. If you only have bad things to think about a person after they died, that doesn't mean you have to SAY those things aloud... but it is also true that you shouldn't have to lie and say good things, too, if they were a total jerk!

The artists you mention have two things in common, though. One is that you are, well, wrong! They were amazing and stayed popular their entire careers. The other is that their careers-- and lives-- were cut short when they were young. This is always sad, as one must wonder what amazing music they would have made had they lived.

This trend is not true in music alone, by the way. James Dean only made three movies, River Pheonix died young, and so did John Belushi. Even Richard Nixon, who did not die young, was praised after his death... and he was NOT popular during his lifetime!

But when someone famous dies, we feel a rush of emotion. It means time is passing. It means something of our lives that we knew is now gone. People cling to the past because they know it, so they cling to, say, Marilyn Monroe even if she wasn't the best actress ever... or even the best-looking actress.

But if people do cherish the past, it is because don't know the future, so they are scared of it! The unknown is always scary.

The one thing they DO know is that if someone as famous, rich and powerful as Marlon Brando can die, so can they! That fear makes them fill their homes with John Lennon photos and say stupid stuff like that Elvis is not really dead.

Death has a way of making people perfect in the eyes of those who they leave behind. We are not allowed to see their flaws or talk about their failings, as I explained above. So for many, these flaws stop existing-- so the ones who died must have been perfect!

This works best with celebrities because we didn't really know them even when they were alive. They could give us the perfect painting, song, or movie because they could MAKE it perfect before they gave it to us! We never saw the rough draft or the rehearsal. Well, if all you know about someone is what you see, and what you see is perfect... doesn't that make the person perfect?

For instance, Vincent Van Gogh was a brilliant artist, even a genius, but also one messed-up guy. He sold ONE painting during his life, which he spent much of in a mental institution. He once cut his ear off as a gift to a hooker he fell in love with. Then he committed suicide. Now, a single one of his paintings is worth tens of millions of dollars! So which Vincent in the real one? The genius or the mental patient?

How did singer Don "American Pie" McLean explain this in his song about Van Gogh? He wrote: "I could have told you, Vincent/This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."

You see? Van Gogh was mentally ill, but can we SAY that? No, that's rude! So what can we say? That WE must suck, that this world of ours was not "beautiful" enough for him.

See how that works? He gets to die and be perfect and we get stuck with imperfect reality... but we can still have a taste of that perfection by putting one of his paintings on our wall... or listening to Buddy Holly, seeing an Audrey Hepburn movie, or reading a Hemingway novel.

The important thing to remember is that we are all human. Someone may be a good artist or athlete, but we must never confuse that with whether or not someone is a good person.

Answer 6

Because the potential was there for them to produce more great music. But since their life was cut short people mourn what could have been.

Answer 7

You mean dying young. They either burnout or fade away. If you die during your height, that's what we remember. Same thing goes for Marilyn Monroe,etc...

Answer 8

cobain not coban

Answer 9

Because artists are only truly appreciated after their deaths. Look at all the painters whose art jumped in value only after their deaths...

Answer 10

i say how can you love someone more when their dead?.