Music’s ‘Forever 27 Club’

Published 4:00 am Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Singer Amy Winehouse was 27 when she died in July after drinking too much alcohol — a fact that earned her an unfortunate membership in what some have called the Forever 27 Club.

She joined Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and a number of other famous musicians who died at age 27. The idea that it is a perilous age for chart-topping rockers has been around for some time.

“The number of musicians who passed away at 27 is truly remarkable by any standard,” Charles Cross, who published Hendrix and Cobain biographies, wrote in 2007.

In a study published in the Christmas issue of the journal BMJ, scientists who investigated the phenomenon begged to differ, declaring it a myth.

In their study, the scientists compiled data on 1,046 musicians who had a No. 1 album on the British charts from 1956 to 2007. During that period, 71 of the artists died. The risk of death for famous musicians in their 20s and 30s was two to three times that of the general population. But there was no spike in deaths at age 27.

The bottom line: The “Forever 27 Club” appears to be a myth.

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