Rockers Tend to Expire Prematurely

A new paper published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health says that pop music as a career can shorten one’s life. Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass Elliot, Marc Bolan, John Lennon, Sid Vicious, Kurt Cobain and Joe Strummer all passed on before their actuarially anticipated date. The study said, “In the music industry, factors such as stress, changes from popularity to obscurity, and exposure to environments where alcohol and drugs are easily available, can all contribute to substance use as well as other self-destructive behaviors.” The world needed a quantitative study to show this?

The methodology in the paper was about what one would expect. “In order to carry out a quantitative study of pop star mortality, we have had to make a number of assumptions [caution: nonsense ahead]. Firstly, our choice of sample utilised a specific international survey. However, its size, independence from this research and timing (recent but with enough time since polling for new artists to potentially experience some mortality) made it the most suitable choice [because we felt like using it and not doing our own or using a different one]. Our definition of date of fame was objective [fame is subjective at best] but had no established epidemiological criteria for fame on which to draw [indeed]. However, as earliest date of chart success was used for most artists [but not all, so really we’re grasping at straws here], this will tend to produce more conservative estimates of the effect of fame on mortality, with a choice of later dates of fame potentially exaggerating its immediate impact.”

Then of course, there has to be some cherry picking of data. “Those from the music genre classifications of country, blues, jazz, vocal, celtic, folk, bluegrass and spoken word were also removed leaving only the mainstream popular categories of rock, punk, rap, R&B (rhythm and blues), electronica and new age.” Jazz out, new age in? Why? Electronica and not country? Would please someone tell these people that country is the most popular music form in the US?

Presuming that the study hasn’t assumed itself into irrelevance, the authors suggest, “From 3 to 25 years post fame, both North American and European pop stars experience significantly higher mortality (more than 1.7 times) than demographically matched populations in the USA and UK, respectively. After 25 years of fame, relative mortality in European (but not North American) pop stars begins to return to population levels. Five-year post-fame survival rates suggest differential mortality between stars and general populations was greater in those reaching fame before 1980.”

Their conclusion: “Pop stars can suffer high levels of stress in environments where alcohol and drugs are widely available, leading to health-damaging risk behaviour. However, their behaviour can also influence would-be stars and devoted fans. Collaborations between health and music industries should focus on improving both pop star health and their image as role models to wider populations.”

Or maybe there should just be a law saying the pop stars have to stay popular for 25 years to make the math come out right.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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