celebrity-buzz-scott-weiland

Today’s celebrity buzz criticizes the type of buzz happening today.

Remember the song by The Buggles entitled Video Killed the Radio Star? Aside from becoming eternally embedded in history as MTV’s first music video ever released, this has become a statement that’s reflective of pop culture today- a time when art and music is only secondary to looks and publicity. I’ve interviewed artists and musicians that prefer to go by another persona or would wear masks whenever they would perform. Real artists would rather divulge their creative process or what inspires them to create rather than what they’ve had for breakfast or the price tag of the shirt they’re wearing.

Last week avid fans of 90s rock music were struck by Scott Weiland’s sudden death. His struggle with drugs and personal relationships were pretty much publicized and he was reportedly clean for the past few years. I have been listening to the Stone Temple Pilots for over 10 years and several of their songs are definitely on top of my mainstay playlist. As of this writing, Weiland’s ex-wife Mary Fosberg’s open letter has been circulating the internet and the details from the scene’s search warrant were published. To be fair, Fosberg and his two kids were also suffering because of Weiland’s substance abuse. I do especially like the part when she shared that she encourages his fans not to glorify his death, but instead to look at their own lives and make sure they're doing everything they can so their own children don't suffer as hers did.

This truly saddens everyone, but what’s even sadder now is that people would still want to nitpick the personal lives of an artist and forget about the artistic contributions he/she has done for the music industry. Fans and fellow musicians were expressing their grief and gratitude the first few days of his death, then shift to shaming Weiland for his drug use as the days go by. Drugs, infidelity and excessive wealth or the lack thereof will always be a universal issue whether you’re famous, talented or none of the above. Mourning over the loss of a talent would be pointless if you’d care too much over his personal life and vices. In a world where we see too much of the Kardashian’s antics and obsession over labels, we have no time to appreciate the type of artistic material that would resonate with our personal experiences. Hence the statement, video killed the radio star.

#y101 #alwaysfirst #celebritybuzz