How Musicians Die, And At What Age, Organized By Genre: Study

Dianna Kenny of The Conversation has put together a truly fascinating study on musicians and death. In her lengthy study she mapped out musicians’ average life expectancy, busted the myth of the 27 club, and the average age of death broken down by musical genre.

It turns out that no, the age of 27 is not the most common age that musicians die, though it may be the age that we know about the most due to Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse all expiring at that young age.

The average life expectancy of a musician, based on her research, is somewhere actually around 56 years-old. (Just don’t tell that to Keith Richards, who will live to be 150.) That being said, 56 is still pretty young and well below the average person’s life expectancy – around 20 years to be exact.

This chart from her third article in the series explores “how” musicians have died over the years and shows that based on what type of music someone performs, while not totally causal, is still worth noting.

She makes an important note when discussing the chart above in that in the case of the newer genres such as rap and hip hop most musicians haven’t lived long enough to fall into certain categories such as heart and liver-related illnesses.

Still, if you’re in a metal of punk band, you might want to double-check for falling anvils the next time you step outside your recording studio.

Check out her entire study with many more charts and graphs here as this is only the tip of the iceberg. Truly interesting stuff.

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