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Dan Pal's avatar

This is fascinating! Every young person who dreams of making it as a singer or musician should read this.

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Mike Errico's avatar

This was really interesting, but I'm going to hazard a guess that you're not a musician. One commenter wrote that "getting girls/guys" is a motivator. This is, of course, true, as it is in most fields. One thing no one has mentioned is the love of making music, and the maturity of knowing that stardom is a byproduct; also, I didn't see mention that the love of doing it is sustaining, regardless of outcome. Having a body of work staves off a lot of "what if."

Finally, I think someone mentioned Bach, Brahms, and composers whose work has long outlived them. Some people "get famous" long after they're dead. Lou Reed and Rogers & Hammerstein and Elvis and so many have scored massive hits from beyond the grave.

I will certainly be sending this piece to my students, but what is most interesting about it is the utility of "stardom" as a data point. It's elusive in life, and in death, and in its own definition. I would fall on the floor if I met Tom Waits; my students wouldn't know who that is. I've never known how to reconcile that set of responses, except to try to help my students defend themselves from a concept that is both arbitrary and, as you mentioned with the 27 Club, potentially deadly.

Finally, and I'm sorry for going on, but walk through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame some time. It is a museum of inadvertently cautionary tales, from John Lennon's bloody glasses to bits of the fuselage on Otis Redding's plane. And all of it gathering dust, as if the story is still being written. Spooky place.

Thank you for this thought provoking piece. M

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