Studying Pop stars- Summer post 2

Most of the great pop stars or legends of music are either dead or will not live past 50 due their adventurous and immortal life of a pop star. Regardless of this there music will continue to sell and a death may even boost sale as audiences remember the music that they used to perform. The 27 club who lived fast and died young had very successful and long lasting careers. Their legacy means that there are successive generations of fans who all know these legends story’s and want to buy their music.

However there is some controversy as pop music is dependent on the value attached to its fans especially as most of a pop artists fan base will be youth. Pop music, therefore, needs to be essentially of its time. Pop music will eventually lose its meanings and values after time has moved on. However the songs are the things that change, not the artists. This can be seen through Madonna who has changed the style of her music based on the needs of and desires of her audience. David Bowie is another good example of this comparing him from the 70s to the modern day illustrate massive changes in his demeanour and approach to music.

Pop stars will often have a shared set of values which are rebellion, originality, anger and success against all odds which is one of the reasons why these characteristics come through a lot of the time. Dead artists make the perfect pop stars as they do not lose the musical plot and they are easy to sympathise with because they are no longer around. Pat Gilbert put forward that, “dead rock stars appeal to people because their death allows something nebulous to become a story with a beginning, middle and end”.

Famous dead pop stars include Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson and more recently Amy Winehouse. These pop stars offer semi mythological role models; not particularly who we want to be but who we think it might be cool to be.

For my media product I might use a song from a dead artist as this might ensure that an audience will be attracted to it because of its emotional meaning or simply because he or she was a legacy. Dead artists often have better sales figures than alive ones and are also house hold names throughout the world.