ABSTRACT
So sang Morrissey in The Smith’s epic study of fandom ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’. That song begins ‘at the record company party’ and continues ‘on their hands a dead star’. The story is a recognisable modern myth, it is iconic. Pop and rock stars are obvious texts, even to the non-specialist. Exponents of the divided self they revel in the postmodern crisis of identity. They remind us of the pleasures and terrors of self-presentation and how easily the self can be reduced to image, identity to a front. They live near the edge so that we don’t need to, rushing to the boundaries to remind us where they are. The cost is usually enormous in damaged hotel bedrooms and ravaged lives, but our grief is vicarious: paid by us they pay for us.
