Do teens take music too seriously?

[Alte]

You probably heard about Juice WRLD's death, which is sad but surely nothing major? DD's spent the whole day in her room listening to his songs, she's been crying over it, apparently spoken about it on Snapchat etc etc. The same thing happened 2 years ago with Lil Peep, she still hasn't got over it. She seems to think her whole life has been shaped around Lil Peep. AIBU to think it's just music, yes it's sad that they're dead but she never knew them or anything? I liked Queen and The Beatles as much as the next person, but I never felt like that about them. Is she taking it too seriously, or was she right to call me "insensitive" and "heartless"? For context, she's not usually an emotional person and didn't even care when her grandparents siblings died.

Yes way too seriously.

Ok. This thread is making me feel guilty. Maybe I have forgotten how it feels to be young and obsessed!

Everything is deadly serious when you are eg 15. You DO feel this stuff more strongly. Though just imagine the outpouring on MN if Idris Elba or Tom Hardy dropped dead ….

It's normal. We were hysterical and obsessed with the details after River Phoenix
died (not a musician, I know, but a icon of my generation). Kurt Cobain was another, A's was Tupac. I even obsessed over Jim Morrison and he was long dead before I was born. I even persuaded my parents to holiday in Paris, so I could visit his grave. I promise I'm fairly normal now 😂

For those fortunate children who get to their teens without directly experiencing loss or other heartaches it can be very healthy to have very intense emotional reactions to art. It acts as a sort of inoculation to practise those emotions before experiencing them in relation to reality in later life.

I cried when Tom Petty died a couple of year ago. Couldn't listen to his music for a good few months after either!

I think there are two types of people in the world, those who love music and those who don’t.

Music is a huge part of my life, and has been since I was a child. My father introduced me to his favourites and took care to learn who I was listening to and loving in my teens.

When Bowie died , I was distraught. I still can’t bear to listen to Blackstar. He was a multi talented artist and contributed enormously to the world during his life. I saw him live 39 times.

OP your daughter sounds as if she has a beautiful soul, to be so moved by the passing of this artist. I don’t know him or his music, but please support her and understand.

It’s not taking it too seriously at all, music means a great deal to people. The words artists write can relate to what people are going through when no one else could understand, it brings people together. It gets people through hard times and creates amazing memories. People, especially young people look up to these artists, especially the ones that write such truthful words. I don’t know about the artists you mentioned but I remember the day Chester from linkin park died, me and my brother used to sing his songs together all the time, I know his songs related to my brother a lot as well as a few friends and we all took it pretty hard.

I think the lightning rod comment was very apt.

I massively grieved a couple of artists (Bowie being one) because I really could not and cannot deal,with the sudden death of a close family , who I lost around that time. So I grieve by proxy. It’s the only way I can process the loss. - mourning someone I didn’t know and never met.

If you haven’t yet lost someone, I suppose it is a save way to explore those emotions around the fact that you will inevitably lose someone close.

That's what teens do.

TBH I didn't cry when kurt cobain died as it was so tragically inevitable.
I did cry when Prince died though.

You probably heard about Juice WRLD's death, which is sad but surely nothing major?

was she right to call me "insensitive" and "heartless"?

I think if she’s upset about someone she likes dying at such a young age and you let her know that you thought it was nothing major, then I can see why she would think you were insensitive and heartless.

I think you need to acknowledge your daughters feelings and be sensitive to them.

I’d be upset if my favourite singer died and I’m almost 40.

Of course they do. They all think they "discovered" it. We all did.

God, I was surprised that At Seventeen by Janis Ian didn't actually mention me by name

Music was a huge part of my teenage years, and still is. I was so upset when David Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Tom Petty, Freddie Mercury, George Michael and all those other amazing artists died.

I massively grieved a couple of artists (Bowie being one) because I really could not and cannot deal,with the sudden death of a close family , who I lost around that time. So I grieve by proxy. It’s the only way I can process the loss. - mourning someone I didn’t know and never met.

Yes! I was bereft when John Lennon died about three months after my lovely lovely Dad when I was 16. Barely shed a tear for my Dad until years later when I could cope.

I remember being genuinely devastated when I heard my teen rock star crush was getting married and the huge relief when it was actually his band mate, genuine feelings, utterly bizarre

I was not one of them, but I remember friends being upset at the death of Ian Curtis from Joy Division, and the outpouring of grief over Elvis Presley.

Mike Rutherford (of Genesis) described how for some people their music was the 'soundtrack to their life' and I think this rings true in many ways. There are many years of my life where I would probably be able to remember the music of that year before I could tell you where I went on holiday, or how well my favourite football team did.

I remember teaching a girl who was so distraught on the day that Stephen Gately from Boyzone came out as gay that she was sobbing in her maths lesson.

I was not sympathetic.

I will shed a genuine tear for Bob Dylan, Paul Wellor and Meatloaf

Love them and their them all so much

@Candlebarbara What! Paul Weller is dead?! I bloody well hope not - I've bought tickets to see him in concert next year! Unless there's another one.

They probably do need to learn to get things in perspective. IIRC someone left the biggest band of the time (One Direction?) the same day as the GermanWings plane crash happened, and the images on the news of teenagers blubbing helplessly about his departure when 150-odd people were dead on a French mountainside made me get cross at my TV.

T'was always thus. My then g/f virtually went into mourning when Nick Drake died.

Death of a star has never affected me but I was gutted when the Smiths split up and spent all week listening to them in my bedroom.

I don't think I cried over any musician deaths as a teenager- I would have been the peak age for it when Kurt Cobain died but I was never into Nirvana.
Had a wee bit of a cry by myself last year when Dolores O'Riordan died and played Zombie on repeat for a bit. That was a powerful song summing up the feelings of not just my generation of Northern Irish people, but many from the generations before me: anger, grief, sick to the core of all the shit. This type of public expression of an emotion that was common to us all; the expression of it by musicians, newspaper columnists, talk show guests, TV interviews with bereaved families and just ordinary vox pop stuff was a powerful driving force behind the Good Friday Agreement. Dolores- for your small part in it- thank you.

@StCharlotte

I’m with you on ‘At Seventeen’. I thought Janis Ian had been reading my angsty teen diary. 😀

Not just musicians though is it.
Its competitive grieving sometimes.
I have never cried over a celebrity’s death, can’t think of one who would make me cry. I’d be sad for their families of course but that’s all.
I once thought of a plot for a short story where a florist and a helium balloon salesman were bumping off celebrities to increase their sales.
People need prospective.