With the media still buzzing about the death of Whitney Houston, it made me think about the parallels to the passing of Michael Jackson in 2009.  And there are a lot of parallels.

Both are superstars from the 80’s.  Neither had produced anything particularly good in almost twenty years preceding their death.  Both had almost completely fallen out of stardom, with the exception of unrelenting tabloid coverage.  And both had severely abused themselves, with the help of drugs, and in turn, became almost unrecognizable iterations of their former selves, both physically and personally.

Despite that neither of these stars were of old age, no one can be particularly surprised at their passing.  A single look at either of them would tell you that they were not in good health.  But that certainly doesn’t ease the sense of loss that people everywhere have felt upon their deaths.

I can understand that people feel sad about Whitney and Michael’s deaths because someone who has influenced them, made memories with them and has contributed to their life in general, is now gone.  But what has really changed with their passing?  What have really lost?  Let’s be honest: neither has contributed much to the collective consciousness in a long time.  (That is, except tabloid fodder.)  They haven’t released new material (at least not any worthwhile) and they haven’t even been touring or performing live.  In reality, we lost Michael and Whitney somewhere in the first half of the 90’s.

While talking to a friend about Whitney Houston, it suddenly dawned on me what’s really at the root of everyone’s sadness.  Collectively, we have all been holding on to a shimmer of hope that one day, these stars would return to the limelight, and it would be awesome.  Just like it used to be.  Especially given that they weren’t too old for it to be possible.  The loss of that hope is what we’re really reacting to.

Some of my biggest influences; makers of my most beloved music, have died before I was even born (John Lennon to name just one).  Let us not forget that the great contributions that they made to our lives can never be undone.  They don’t need to be here for that to be true.