# The 27 Club

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-27-club/401420>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 24, 2007, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-27-club/401420 "2007-04-24T05:04:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![madisonmax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@madisonmax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madisonmax)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-27-club/401420/1 "2007-04-24T05:04:10Z")

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Hi everybody, I’m posting after lurking for a few months. Looks like a very interesting group of people here.

I’ve always wondered about all the rock stars who died at 27. Here’s a partial list of the most famous–

Brian Jones  
Ron Pigpen McKernan  
Janice Joplin  
Jimi Hendrix  
Jim Morrison  
Kurt Cobain

It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think? All these people died at their musical peaks. Morrison and Jones died on the same date, two years apart.

So why 27? I bet if they’d lived, they would have gone on to create some truly astonishing music, in addition to what they already had done.

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**Author:** ![madisonmax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@madisonmax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madisonmax)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-27-club/401420/2 "2007-04-24T07:22:58Z")

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Anybody have any thoughts?

Time to call it a night.

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**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-27-club/401420/3 "2007-04-24T16:46:59Z")

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Basically, it’s just a coincidence.

Unless you like Star Trek, well, Voyager, which is kind of like Star Trek.

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**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-27-club/401420/4 "2007-04-24T17:17:50Z")

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That’s why I’ve decided not to start my rock career until next year (I’ll be 28). 🙂

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-27-club/401420/5 "2011-03-21T03:24:00Z")

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> **[27 Club](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club)**
>
> The 27 Club is an informal list consisting mostly of popular musicians, often expanded by artists, actors, and other celebrities who died at age 27. Although the claim of a "statistical spike" for the death of musicians at that age has been refuted by scientific research, it remains a common cultural conception that the phenomenon exists, with many celebrities who die at 27 noted for their high-risk lifestyles.
> Beginning with the deaths of several 27-year-old popular musicians between 1969 and...

> [@](#):
>
> Cobain and Hendrix biographer Charles R. Cross writes, “The number of musicians who died at 27 is truly remarkable by any standard. [Although] humans die regularly at all ages, there is a statistical spike for musicians who die at 27.”

I just heard about ‘The Curse of 27’ Friday on [Record Bin Roulette](http://www.recordbinroulette.com/).