Mediation, generational memory and the dead music icon

Abstract

Rock stars cast an iconic presence over society, a quality that persists even in death. The earliest examples of the ‘rock casualty’, notably Buddy Holly, have demonstrated the propensity for a key music icon’s death to elicit generational grief and mourning on a global scale. Similarly, in their account of the global media’s response to the death of Elvis Presley following a drugs overdose in August 1977, Gregory and Gregory (1997) note that the rapid and overwhelming response of the global media was interwoven with the world-wide mourning that followed. They further observe how the media’s role in the public enshrinement of Elvis evokes another critical element in the mourning of the popular music icon, generational memory: ‘Even for those who had not really thought about Elvis for years, there was a great feeling that something had changed. A whole generation felt middle aged; a part of their youth was gone’ (Gregory and Gregory, 1997 p. 227). Equally significant, however, is the way that, through the process of mediation, dead rock icons continue to ‘live on’, through their music, words (sung and spoken) and images. Exuding a truly ‘beyond the grave’ quality, dead rock stars continue to ‘speak’ to their audience in a way rarely achieved by those working in other idioms (with the possible exception of a small number of movie stars, such as James Dean). This chapter examines the phenomenon of the dead music icon using the related concepts of mediation and generational memory in order to understand the ongoing importance and sense of connect that these icons continue to have with their audience (and indeed with new audiences born years, and increasingly decades, later). In addition to considering the importance of textual and media artefacts in the collective remembering of dead music icons, the chapter will also examine another increasingly important medium through which they continue to be celebrated, the tribute band.