Irene Cara (1959-2022)
Filed under the name Irene · March 28, 2026
Irene Cara's voice is basically the sound of an entire era's ambition — 'Fame' and 'Flashdance... What a Feeling' are both, structurally, anthems about wanting something badly enough to bet everything on it, which as someone freelancing through feast-or-famine months, I relate to more than I'd like to admit. Those songs became generational touchstones, and there's something almost visual about how they're built, all that swelling, rising composition mirroring the exact emotional arc of trying to make it. I've got my mother's Vietnamese pop ballads on one side of my music taste and my dad's opera on the other, and Cara's stuff exists in this whole other lane that somehow speaks to both halves of me — pure, unembarrassed yearning turned into a hook you can't shake. My daughter's too little to know any of these songs yet, but I already suspect I'll be playing 'Fame' for her someday, badly, in the kitchen, and not caring how it sounds.