Taking Sides: Burning Out vs. Fading Away

Maybe it needed to be preceded by a thousand-word contextual caveat. Roughly: The conceit is that life, culture (considered broadly enough to encompass extramusical things like the way a musician lives), and the universe can themselves be considered as artworks and talked about critically in the same way we talk about artworks.

We don't actually want actual humans to die young, or for their careers to go down in flames. We don't want people to suffer unnecessarily for our own amusement.

But given that some people will die young, some careers will go down in flames, and some people will suffer unnecessarily, what elements in this pageant are more beautiful to watch? What elements are less beautiful? Which elements are more interesting? Which less?

does an old, saggy marylin detract at all from the stunning beauty of her youth? Elvis DID age horribly. he's on the line between burning out and fading away. does that make his early music any less potent?

of course not. to have a 60 year old hendrix (or however old he'd be now) playing casinos and making music worse than clapton's would not make the music we currently have any less valuable. To say that it would is worse than corny indie fuxors being overly protective of their music. its a kind of 15 year old mentality. they're beautiful to watch, but only as fictions. as reality it's both sad and apalling for fans and loved ones. if an audience is allowed some amount of selfishness, i think this is taking it a bit too far.

By 1980, their solo output was about the same quality. In 1990, John Lennon was ten years dead while McCartney had spent the last decade (among other thing) releasing the two best solo albums ever recorded by an ex-Beatle, namely "Tug Of War" and "Pipes Of Peace".

After which he has faded away, but at least, if you fade away, everybody is certain you had nothing great left after burning out.

Wait, which of these is Burning Out and which one is Fading Away?