A word about the death of musical heroes, by way of Tupac Shakur.
Tupac, though many would have you believe otherwise, is
dead. He was shot and killed in 1996, while he was still in his prime.
His flow was groundbreaking, and his death may have
sounded the death knell for gangsta rap as we knew it. Also, he was in Digital Underground for a
bit, and the Humpty Dance is really catchy.
None of this changes the fact that the man is dead, and
nothing on this Earth can bring him back.
Except holograms.
At this year’s Coachella, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg took the
stage with Tupac Shakur’s image, which was computer generated. While not truly a hologram, the image sent shockwaves through the media, some lauding its
benefits, others decrying it as a lame-ass stunt that was akin to unearthing
the bones of a deceased national treasure and having not-consented-to carnal
wisdom with the eye socket of its fleshless skull (at the risk of editorializing).
I am not the biggest hip-hop fan in the world, but no right
thinking person would decry the talent Tupac had. He was an innovator, a rare poet, and the
world of hip-hop, the world at large, lost an artist the day he died. His memory deserves more than to be trotted
out at will by whoever has enough money to project his image onto a stage.
Someone else who deserves better than all that? Freddie fucking Mercury. Queen’s late front man was a master of
stagecraft, songcraft, and above all else, vocals. Any list of the top 3 rock vocalists of all
time must include Freddie, and more likely than not, at the top. Like Tupac, Freddie’s life was snatched away
from him, and his song from us, far too early. Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in 1991.
And, like Tupac, those who he once called friends want to use his image in new contexts, towards their own ends.
Brian May, Queen’s virtuoso guitarist, and recent PhD
laureate, has been working on a holographic image of Freddie to use in the tenth
anniversary of his musical “We Will Rock You.”
But, Goddamnit, why?
The beauty of life is that it is fleeting. I would love to have seen Led Zeppelin at the
Fillmore in the 70s, the Ramones at CBGBs in the 80s, shit, I would love to
have seen Mozart in Vienna. But you
can’t anymore. These things were here
for a brief shining moment, and then they were gone, like shooting stars, never
to be seen again. We’ll always have the
music, but the magic will never be there.
To try to recreate it would be folly.
And that, in the end, is what this is. Taking images from past concerts and
amalgamating them into new contexts doesn’t fulfill the desire to see these
people in their heyday. It just serves
as a reminder that they’re gone. The
images remain, maybe, but the energy, the sheer charisma that these
accomplished showmen had can never be replaced, and certainly can’t be matched
by grotesquely parading their ghost across the nighttime stage. These images delve deep into the uncanny valley,
not sating a need, but creating a revulsion and tarnishing a memory.
I implore everyone with the technology and financial means:
let our dead heroes rest. It’s the least
we can do for them.
