Entertainment For Lively Minds
'Tribute' to Stephen Gately
Posted by JohnH on 21 March 2010 - 9:09pm.
This is more Popjustice than this site, but is anyone watching this? It surely would have been easier to just film the surviving members pissing onto his grave:- Cheaper and basically the same end result. Not a fan by any means but he deserved better than this.
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Nah,
Queen + Paul Rodgers already did that
Whatever happened to...
dignified silence?
Dignified silence
doesn't sell records or column inches.
You've not died unless everyone who knew you lives on in a permanent group hug in front of a camera.
Also apparently Bono has to comment
He does seem to be a rent-a-quote whenever a celebrity death occurs, including the pope.
I didn't see it...
So not best placed to comment, but isn't cheap and cheesy exactly what a member of Boyzone would want as a tribute? And isn't anybody who watches a tribute to a member of Boyzone expecting anything else perhaps guilty of hopeless optimism?
I can't help but notice
that Boyzone also appear to have a new album out, and it's doing rather well in the charts
Oops
Just doing some research, and it appears Boyzone's new album is a studio album that's been in the pipeline for ages. I've obviously become such a cynic that I assumed the record company were looking to cash in, but the record was going to be made and released anyway, so I was wrong. As you were.
Mrs. F insisted on watching it
and I couldn't help but think a) Boyzone have become Ronan Keating and some backing singers; b) Keating seemed a bit pushed on some of the songs; c) Westlife sang them offstage; and d) it was all a bit cloying and sentimental.
It also struck me how unfair the Grim Reaper is. He always takes away the mega-talented, mega-wonderful, mega-stars and never the mid-table, decent singers who seem to have been reasonably nice and rounded people. Odd that...
There is a lot of sneering
There is a lot of sneering going on here. It seems you're allowed to be cloying and sentimental about credible artists, but no pop stars.
Who says
Boyzone aren't credible? It seems like there's a lot of assuming going on here...
Yeah...
... it's the Jan Moir fanclub.
Just you wait till the Alex Chilton tribute.
Big Fun and Five Star are in rehearsals as we speak.
What were they supposed to do?
I don't like their music, but in the bit I saw (the last 15 minutes) the members of Boyzone came over as four people deeply affected by the premature death of someone who was clearly a friend. The fact that other bands/artists were on and it was on TV doesn't make it any less valid. I echo Lucifer Sam's comments and would add that just because you're a "pop star" doesn't mean that you can't feel normal human emotions.
Who's denying
that there are "normal human emotions" here? The comments seem to be about the fact that these emotions are packaged up into a TV show to be gawped at. The fact that the TV tribute coincides with the release of their new album also tends to detract.
I've no doubt the four remaining members were/are deeply affected by his death but the views on here appear to be about how each of us individually views the grieving process with some of us preferring it to happen off camera and in a way that is more clearly demarcated from the world of commercial TV and selling a new album.
To be fair
they've conducted their 'grieving' with great dignity from the moment his death was announced. They all clearly loved the guy, and it shone through their reactions in the night vigil, the funeral and, yes, the show. It was abundantly clear that Stephen, perhaps more than any of them loved performance, so I think this was an entirely appropriate tribute in his memory.
Fair enough
Each to their own. I don't mind mawkishness, and the video inserts were clearly heartfelt. But I found the juxtaposition of those and the Summertime Special shiny floor stuff jarring and, yes, undignified. Though I suppose no more so than me posting an old Lee and Herring gag. Strangely the idea of using a memorial for commercial benefit was featured in the Jessica Stevenson pilot the night before. Life imitates art and all that.