Death Post

Jessica Kapovich, Kelly Kosiek, Anooj Shah, Peter Dinh

The articles "Art of Dying" by Graeme Thompson, "Dead Ahead" by James Sullivan, and "The Show Goes On" by Melinda Newman have all connected the link between music and death. In Thompson's article he talked about how a lot of mainstream sing and write their songs based on the idea of death approaching them. While in Sullivan's article, he writes about how dead artist's careers still go on while new songs or albums that were previously recorded are released. He infers that these artists are becoming more famous even after dying. In the article by Newman, she explains how bands who lose members still go on.

Sullivan and Newman have theories relating to the actual death of an artist, meanwhile Thompson's point of view is geared towards the thought of it. Sullivan gives the examples of Jeff Buckley, Tupac and Elvis to support his claim that artist become more popular when they die. The musical groups, Sublime and Nirvana, are used as examples for Newman's argument that bands can still go on even when a member passes away. These two are related because they show that even when an artist dies, their music and fame does not. While Thompson's article portrays the living singing of death and tragedy, to a certain point in each artists life. He interviews Mick Jagger who claims that singing about death is okay, once in a while.

To every argument there is a counter-argument. Against Sullivan's claim, artist could have died without actually being dead. Meaning that their musical career has come to a standstill or a complete end due to several different reasons, which include: popularity, personal, financial, etc. Common examples of "dead" artists are people from American Idol, only popular for a short amount of time and then never heard of again. Next, the counter to Thompson's argument is that there are artist who sing about death all the time, like My Chemical Romance. Also, that when artists get older their music ceases with the death talk. Examples would be artists Richard Thompson and David Bowie. Lastly, to argue against Newman, there is an example of a band who has lost members and died with them. This band would be Smashing Pumpkins.