Highly Scientific Study Finds Musicians Really Do Die Younger


A legit, no-bullshit research paper from the Goddamn University of Sydney has proven without a shadow of a doubt what you kind of suspected to be true all along – a life of sex and drugs and rock and roll will lead you to an early grave. Between beefs, overdoses, drive-bys plane crashes and other, similar misadventures, it seems that popular musicians really do have a tendency to die earlier than regular civilians.
The study, which was conducted by psychology and music professor Diana Kenny and whose findings you can read here, begins with a few colourful, scene-setting paragraphs about the brutality of today’s popular music landscape:
The “pop-cultural scrap heap”, to borrow journalist Drew Magary’s term, is piled high with the dead or broken bodies of young musicians whose personal and musical aspirations collided with the aspirations of those occupying the commercial edifices erected around them, which turn them into income-generating commodities whose role is to satisfy capricious and ever-changing consumer demands.
Many of those musicians end up feeling suffocated, caged and possessed by their minders, exploiters and fans. And many end up dead.
Research for the study was conducted via a tireless search for gifs of Biggie, Left Eye, 2Pac and Aaliyah highly scientific means – specifically, a population study of more than 12,000 performing pop musicians who died between 1950 and 2014.
The likes of Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Brian Jones are all part of the ’27 Club’ – popular musicians who died at the age of 27 – but the study found that deaths like these only represent a very narrow sample of music’s real casualties.
The paper actually reached some pretty surprising – and if you’re a musician, fairly worrying – conclusions. For instance, the lifespans of popular musicians were found to be “up to 25 years shorter than the comparable US population.”
Rates of accidental death for musicians were up to 10 times greater than those of the general population, suicide rates were between two and seven times greater, and homicide rates were up to eight times greater.
One positive aspect of all this is that the worst years for musicians appear to be behind us – the figures show that deaths by accident peaked during the 1960s, while deaths by homicide and suicide both peaked in the 1990s.
Life expectancy for musicians is also at its highest since the 1950s, with male pop musicians expected to live until their late ’50s, and their female counterparts until their early ’60s. That’s not exactly fantastic, but still, it’s a lot better than the grunge era of the 1990s, when male pop musicians could only be expected to live until their late ’40s.
What conclusions can be drawn from all this? Professor Kenny says that the pop music “scene” must attempt to provide boundaries and to “mode and expect acceptable behaviour”, instead of promoting outrageous, aggressive and destructive behaviours.
In a pop landscape where the major players include Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, it’s safe to say that outrageous, aggressive and destructive behavious are on the way out … unless you count writing thinly-veiled diss tracks about Katy Perry, which we don’t.
Nonetheless, if you see a musician today, give them a hug.
If you’ve experienced depression or anxiety, you can contact Beyond Blue for immediate support, by calling 1300 224 636.
Image via YouTube

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV