According to the Oxford dictionary, an icon is something greatly admired, loved or revered. Hence the pop idol!
From Elvis to The Beatles, Michael Jackson to Madonna, the pop star’s popularity and admiration is enhanced by successful music, which can form a soundtrack to our lives.
But while we follow their career, listen to their songs and see them staring up from magazine covers, it can all come crashing down when they suddenly are no more. The deaths of Elvis, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain and Michael Jackson all left the world reeling in dismay. When a pop star dies it can hit hard because for many, such celebrities are a familiar and comfortable part of their lives, not to mention someone they aspire to.
How many teenagers throughout history have copied the dress sense of their heroes? Flash back to the Eighties and I, myself, had a Huey Lewis hair style and Springsteen shirt!
For many, losing such a person to the great ‘concert stage in the sky’, can be the final chapter in a childhood fairytale. When Dolores O’Riordan recently passed away, social media was abuzz with sentiment from Gen Yer’s. They reflected on listening to The Cranberries during homework, school dances and first kisses. Such sentiment also came from the Gen Xer’s over Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain. And for the Baby Boomers it was Lennon, Joplin, Hendrix and Elvis.
More recently the deaths of Bowie, Prince and George Michael made the New Romantic children of the 1980’s address their own mortality and forgotten youth. To others, the loss of David Cassidy last year brought back memories of weekday afternoons watching television’s The Partridge Family while sipping Fanta.
As far as pop idols go, Cassidy certainly made his mark. A precursor to the likes of Harry Styles and Justin Beiber, he set the pace literally, with hysteria girls stampeding his concerts. To get more insight, you can read my DNA Magazine tribute to Cassidy below.
Each year, thousands of Elvis fans flock to Graceland, roses are left at the Freddy Mercury statue in Montreux, and you’ll always find a bottle of whiskey beside Jim Morrison’s grave at Paris’s Pere Llachaise Cemetery. It is somewhat refreshing to know that when a pop star dies, each generation feels the same impact of emotion, sentiment and devotion.
In the Pretenders song Popstar, Chrissie Hynde sings “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” But somehow I think they do!
Read my tribute I Think I loved You here
Get an idea of ‘Cassidymania’ by watching this clip – his surprise meeting with some teenage fans is priceless!
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