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27 Club

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The 27 Club refers to the supposed phenomenon that rock musicians are more likely to die at the age of 27 than any other age. The examples usually given are Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. True, they both died aged 27, but they were also both from Washington. Perhaps there should be a WA club?

The idea of a cluster of rock star deaths at age 27 isn't completely silly. Rock musicians often gain their first taste of fame in their early 20s - drop out of school, learn to play, get noticed and then make it big. Add five years or so of heavy touring and the drug-fueled excess that might come with it, and a statistical median centred around age 27 isn't too surprising. In modern times early deaths are rarely due to 'natural causes', so are reported more readily in the media and gain a lot of attention. Meanwhile deaths over the age of 30 are more likely to be natural in cause and not counted as 'rock n roll' enough. Although this is just speculation, there's nothing particularly mystical about a statistical blip in mortality centred around 25-30 year old rock stars.

It is possible that popular music the only profession in which dying young is considered a good career move.

Contents

[edit] Dead at 27

There are now six members of the 'official' 27 Club. With the exception of Kurt Cobain, who shot himself under the influence of heroin, all their deaths are all reckoned to be directly drug-induced; overdoses and choking, for examples. Details tend to be a little sketchy, with few witnesses, contradictory accounts, and inevitably some conspiracy theories claiming alternative explanations.

This main group of musicians who are considered part of the official club have also produced the "white lighter" superstition, based on the rumor that Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin and Cobain all had a white lighter on their person when they died.

Wikipedia lists 36 others who are part of the "unofficial" 27 club;[4] many of these members date from long before the official club started in the 60s and 70s. This list includes early blues musician Robert Johnson (1911-1938), who is possibly the most famous and influential outside the "official" 6 mentioned above. One of the 36 in Wikipedia's list, Jean-Michel Basquiat, was only incidentally a musician and nobody has ever heard of him.

Although a death toll of 41 looks like a relatively high number, in context the Wikipedia category "American rock musicians by instrument" lists 3,759 articles,[5] and similarly "American blues musicians by instrument" has 1,078.[6] So, 41 out of 4,837 gives us 1 in... quite a lot.

One doesn't have to be much of a statistician to see that that's looking like a pretty safe age to be twanging a 6-string or beltin' out the ballads.

Note: Justin Bieber is only 18.

[edit] Not dead at 27

Many musicians died before they got old, but fail to qualify for the 27 club, although sometimes the "curse" of 27 is expanded to include those who died under the age of 27 - as if it was a "upper limit" to the career of a popular musician. The premature deaths of young musicians or artists is nothing particularly new as examples date back to at least the 1920s. Indeed, the premature deaths of young people aren't limited only to the music industry.

All of this is wrapped up in the theme of selective reporting. It appears that the value of 27 is primarily chosen because of the deaths of Jones, Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison, all within the space of a couple of years. Their deaths were major news events and, along with other events of the time such as break-up of the Beatles, seemed to mark the end of the hippie era's naive spirit of optimism.

In reality the spread of musicians' premature and unnatural deaths is quite wide, ranging from the very early 20s (Sid Vicious and Eddie Cochran) into middle age (e.g. Michael Jackson at age 50). Listed below are some more artists who lived fast and died (relatively) young.

[edit] Under 27

[edit] 27, but not in "the club"

[edit] Over 27

[edit] Can nothing kill them?

This lot seem to have consumed half the world's drugs and fornicated with a goodly percentage of the world's women (or, in some cases, men) yet they're still going strong.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Evidence was strong enough for the case to be formally reopened in 2009. But as almost all the suspects and witnesses have since died, it will likely never be settled to everyone's satisfaction.
  2. ...which is somewhat better than choking on somebody else's vomit...
  3. "Amy Winehouse death: Coroner records misadventure verdict", BBC News, 26th October 2011.
  4. 27 Club at Wikipedia
  5. As of 20 March 2010)
  6. As of 20 March 2010)
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