Ranking dead musicians, decade by decade

The Game Room
1

This is partially inspired by this thread, but also by a Village Voice article I remember from 1981.

That article gave scores to all the major musicians who had died from 1971-1980 and ranked the results in a chart. As I recall, it allowed 10 points for past contributions, 10 points for potential future contributions, and 5 points for mode of death. Higher scores are better, so the guy who was electrocuted on stage would get the full 5 points while someone who died of old age would get fewer.

The article gave the maximum 25 points to only 2 musicians - Jimi Hendrix and Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd. John Lennon was ranked, but fell short on the “future potential” ranking. I don’t believe the Voice ever followed up with a '80s or '90s chart.

So. let’s assemble our zombie musicians first, then we can figure out their point totals.

I’ll tip a toe in with one obvious nominee from each decade.
1950s: Buddy Holly

1960s: Otis Redding

1970s: If we should do this over again - Jim Morrison

1980s: Bob Marley

1990s: Kurt Cobain

2000s (so far): Michael Jackson

We can proceed if someone cares to make a full list from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll. I’m just an idea man.

2

I like most of the entries, but I’ll go with Marvin Gaye for the '80s. He definitely would get the full 5 points for “mode of death”–shot to death by his paranoid, strung-out, cross-dressing dad.

3

1960s: Former Rolling Stone, Brian Jones “death by misadventure”, drowned in a swimming pool.