Stars

For someone born in the 1980s, I have to admit I had a little hard time distinguishing between Atlantic Starr and Midnight Star — probably because both are American bands, both have/had multiple members, both had R&B hits, both were formed in the exact year of 1976, and both have “Star(r)” in their names.

But is it really important to tell one “star” from another? As far as I know, many people outside of the Anglosphere still think Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley were the same person or mistake Marilyn Monroe for Madonna. (Beyoncé vs. Rihanna might be even more challenging for them.) On hearing the first eight bars of Billie Jean, however, they can sing and dance to it with total abandon.

So the answer is definitely a no. All we need to do is appreciate the beauty of these marvy works and feel grateful to those artists who ever committed themselves to perseveringly creating one marvel after another and pushing the edge of the envelope, even though we cannot exactly recall their stage or real names after decades.