This is probably just a superficial observation on my part but, with the recent death of George Michael at relatively young age of 53, it seems as though many of the major pop music stars of the 80s are making premature exits. We’ve already lost Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Prince. Granted, Madonna is still around and is in good health as is Bruce Springsteen (who came to public notice in the 70s) as are many artists who achieved lesser degrees of fame during the Reagan Era. Still, it seems rather odd that most of the top acts from the decade are already deceased.
I doubt it.
Barring a major pandemic there are going to be roughly the same number of people dying every year.
Some amount of famous people die every year but seeing as “famous” is a much smaller subset of “all people” it is a pretty much nailed on certainty that some years are going to see larger number of “famous” people die than in other years.
So that’s probably it. 2016 is simply a “cluster” of famous deaths in line with what we should expect and nothing strange is going on. The other thing to consider is that once you get a few high profile deaths in close proximity then the press may well promote c-class celeb deaths far more than usual.
Yeah, the difficulty is it’s impossible to truly measure fame. Rick Parfitt died a couple of days ago, but I’m sure most people, even of my generation, wouldn’t know who he was. A small percentage, however, would cite him as a huge celebrity in their world.
Similarly, when I read through the Death Pool game threads, I’d say a good 80% of those listed I have never heard of, but to some people they’re top level superstars.
Certainly Bowie, Prince, and George Michael were huge names in music, but it’s not the number of them who died or how young they were, it’s that in an unusual twist of fate they were especially high profile.
I think if you looked at it statistically the objective truth is that celebrities are dying no more frequently, and are no younger, than any other period in history. The difference in perception stems from the scale of the major generation - they are from the era of Gen X and Baby Boomers’ teenage years, so they hold special significance to a large section of the population.
This is just anecdotal obviously, but I always had the impression that pop stars from the 60s died very young in large numbers. At least our 80s stars are living into their 50s. And I can think of none who died in the same decade they got big. In the 90s there was Kurt Cobain, but we’re talking about 80s stars here.
As opposed to what other group?
Quite a few stars from the '60’s died at a considerably younger age, like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison… here’s a list of 20+ that died by 27
The 80’s were 30 years ago. The folks who were 30 back then are 60 now, and the rate of dropping dead of various causes (whether drugs, health problems or just plain accidents) starts to go up at that age.
While I don’t listen to popular music, I generally recognize most of the names that people bandy about, through simple osmosis, and if it weren’t for the joke about Wham! in the recent Deadpool movie, I’d have been a big fat zero on the “George Michael” scale. (Instead, I’m more like a 0.001).
Checking MIT’s fame ranking engine (and restricting to people born between 1950-2010):
It looks like he was #268, which puts him above Jodie Foster, Halle Berry, Britney Spears, Kevin Bacon, and several others.
I’m curious if the world conspired against me, or if his name is so bland that I just never happened to pick up on it?
I can’t think of a single member of the 27 Club from the 80s…
I just looked up the top 10 best-selling artists of the 80s, which seems like a good definition of ‘superstar’. All 4 you mention (which is a remarkably small number to build a theory around) are there. But…
Michael Jackson came to prominence in the 70s (His first solo album was in 1972, after being with the Jackson 5 for a couple years), and remained so for his music into the 90s, so he doesn’t count as a 80s superstar, IMO.
(Prince and Whitney Houston both also came to prominence in the 70s, but not near as early as Michael - both 1978, IIRC - nor did they have as much success, so they’d count just fine.)
The other 7 - Phil Collins, Hall & Oats, Lionel Ritchie, Stevie Wonder, Madonna, and Jon Bon Jovi - are all alive…although Bon Jovi isn’t looking at his best, and several of them fail to count as 80s superstars for the same reason Micheal Jackson does.
Most of the artists I really associate with the 80s are still alive…though the list that comes to mind tells more about my taste than anything else… (Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Cyndi Lauper, both Petshop Boys, Joan Jett (who also fails to meet my qualifications for ‘80s superstar’), all but one member of Def Leppard, several of the above…)
Middle Age - mid 40’s to 60 has always claimed a lot of lives. Early genetic health problems like cancer and coronary disease begin to strike.
It used to be pretty common to hear about a 45 year old dropping dead from a heart attack. Now many of those patients are saved with modern procedures. Angioplasty saves so many lives.
Getting through middle age is a good indication of someone’s health. Whether they’ll make it to their senior years. Which brings its own health risks.
The 80’s stars are middle aged. A certain percentage will die.
I include myself in that group. I’ve already attended the funerals of two first cousins. One got overain cancer in her mid fifties and died four years later. My cousin Jerry got a stent in his heart at 53. He did great for several years. He collapsed and died unexpectedly at 59.
My mom’s dad and several of his brothers died in their early sixties from coronary disease. This was before the modern procedures we have today.
I’m looking forward to seeing my senior years. I had a full heart workup last year. Including a stress test and I wore a monitor for a couple days. Thankfully I’m OK.
I’m pretty sure George Michael had more fame globally than some of those American actors. For instance, my wife remembers the song Careless Whisper being very popular in China.
Richard Stallman is the 20th most famous person of those ~3 generations? WTF?
Nothing against the dude, I like what he is doing, but I would be surprised if half of computer geeks know who he is. Does he have some massive fan club in Europe ans Asia or something.
I think it’s also related to how news and pop culture has changed. If a superstar from the 50’s died in the 80’s at age 53, it might have been just a blip on the news. Stars today have more opportunities to stay relevant and fans have more ways to keep listening and staying fans. Also the news might seem bigger, since now it’s not just in the paper it’s online and on social media, so people can mourn together, while in the past you might have missed the news that a former superstar died.
Everybody has their pop culture blind spots. He’s a fairly big name to me–the “Faith” album was huge growing up–and then he had some notoriety for that “lewd act” in the park restroom in the late 90s, shortly after which he publicly came out as gay. For some reason, that was a big story.
Looking at record sales, at 80 million, his numbers put him in the same sales level as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, The Doors, Van Halen, and Tom Petty. 20 million of those George Michael records were sold in the US.
Well, there’s my blind spot. Never heard of him. Looking at Wikipedia, I do know his work, though. He also went to MIT, so I wonder if that’s some MIT in-joke or somebody screwing with the list.
And, for a real blind spot, Kevin Bacon. I know who he his, but I can never remember which one he is for some reason. I’m not terribly good with actors, but I generally know the famous ones on sight. He’s notorious for being everywhere, yet I couldn’t specifically tell you which movie or pick him out of a lineup like I could any of a hundred other actors. No idea why. ETA; ok, looks like I knew he was in Footloose. I had to double check, though, to see if I wasn’t mixing him up with someone. But that’s all I got.
That MIT list is whack! Wonderfully, terribly whack.
He totally counts as 80’s he was damn near ubiquitous in the 80’s, his biggest hits were in the 80’s, in the 70’s he was a young up and comer a cute kid growing into a teen heart throb, in the 80’s he was the king of pop, by the 90’s fair or not he’d become “that weird guy” more and more in the spotlight for the odd parts of his life than his music.
I’m going with increased drug use of drugs like cocaine and heroin being more prevalent amongst these “newer” generation pop stars than what came before. A couple decades or so of cocaine abuse will shorten anyone’s life. I believe it’s also what prematurely helped kill Bowie, a known coke freak in his heydey.
Yeah, Michael Jackson absolutely counts for the 80s. It wasn’t until “Off the Wall” in 1979 that he really separated from the Jackson 5 identity and really started forging his own voice.
Every year there are more stars so it leads one to assume that every year there will be more deaths.
One thing I forgot to mention in my OP is the fact that Jackson, Houston, Prince, and Michael have all died within seven years also seemed a bit odd.