6 ms·
I thought this was a really good piece of writing. It’s rare to do something like this because the job discourages it by putting PR filters on everything you sa
by decasia 10mo ago
I thought this was a really good piece of writing. It’s rare to do something like this because the job discourages it by putting PR filters on everything you say.
My uncle was a pretty big pop star in the 1960s. His group at one point had a big fanzine, they were household names across the country, over time they had stalkers and weird fans and all that, made movies and albums, had big parties and knew other famous people, pretty much all those things that the OP writes about (circa 50 years later, some of it has changed but not that much).
He could be charismatic and surprisingly eloquent and I could picture him writing a piece like this, if the mood had struck.
He also lost pretty much all the money through mismanagement (several times over), eventually moved out of LA, had a tumultuous family life with numerous spouses and wasn’t around much for his kids, and after his 40s was trapped in a sad cycle of reunion tours because the band still needed the money. The tours still had some level of excitement and crowd enthusiasm, even pretty late in life and I guess he always loved the stage, the performing, all that. But in the end, I kinda felt it seemed like a lonely existence. Hard to form really deep connections when you’re always traveling and often away in your head.
- sandblast 10mo agoSorry, I'm curious: why it "was", not "is", a really good piece of writing?
- CoastalCoder 10mo agoPresumably the tense refers to the time of the reading, not the time of the article's existence.
- ilamont 10mo ago> after his 40s was trapped in a sad cycle of reunion tours because the band still needed the money. Celebrity memoirs are often written for the same reasons, or to promote other ventures. For instance Peter Wolf seemingly reluctantly shared vignettes about Dylan, The Stones, Faye Dunaway, and rock 'n' roll life in the 1970s to promote his newer stuff: "I was putting out solo CDs. Not to sound self-congratulatory, but I thought each one got better and better— but they weren’t finding an audience. I thought a book might encourage people to check out the other stuff. So basically, the intent of the book was to find a wider audience." https://www.boston.com/culture/books/2025/03/10/peter-wolf-memoir-waiting-on-the-moon/?p1=hp_secondary https://www.boston.com/culture/books/2025/03/10/peter-wolf-m...
- Insanity 10mo agoIt was interesting and a fun read, but not a “good piece of writing” in my opinion. Apart from some spelling mistakes, the sentences droned on and it read more like a semi-coherent rant than a thoughtful piece on “being a pop star”.
- thaumasiotes 10mo agoThe sentences do drone on, but they're fully coherent; this is above-average writing. It wouldn't likely meet publishing standards, but it's a lot better than you'd expect a randomly-chosen person to produce.
- bryanrasmussen 10mo agoI'm sure an editor would go through and suggest tightening up some points, but I agree it's good enough as a first draft. The problem is there are too types of writers who don't get the help of an editor, those who are too big and famous to accept one and those too poor to afford one. I sort of feel the people who are saying it's bad aren't very able to separate their own preferences from determining quality https://medium.com/luminasticity/to-speak-meaningfully-about-art-329093dbce7f https://medium.com/luminasticity/to-speak-meaningfully-about...
- IceDane 10mo agoAs interesting as I find it, cannot agree more. It's very childish writing - feels a lot like it was written by a teenager. It sort of reminds me of my young 8 year old niece telling me a story she finds so exciting she barely comes up for air.
- derangedHorse 10mo agoIt read like something the young adult women I know would write. It's surprisingly normal.
- tomsmeding 10mo agoIt is thoughtful, that's not the problem. It's just not written in the standard language "written English", but instead in "spoken English" with some attempts towards the former ("My final thought on ...") that sound like someone trying formal writing for the first time.
- nunez 10mo agoThat's the fate of many acts from that period. So so so many artists who were stratospherically popular but are still touring for cash playing to nobody younger than them. It's sad.
- BrandoElFollito 10mo agoThis is a staple of French TV music prime time shows. You get the stars of the 80s and 90s and it is often simply sad to watch.
- derangedHorse 10mo ago"better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" Is it sadder than any other individual who has to work into retirement age? Or is the fall itself what you find sad? I can imagine some artists might be happier in this latter stage of their lives where they can focus on their real fans and better fostering other personal relationships in their lives.
- singleshot_ 10mo agoThis was slightly better than reading something generated by an AI but I have a similar sense that I am dumber for having read two paragraphs of it.