The 27 Club—also occasionally known as the Forever 27 Club, Club 27 or the Curse of 27—is a meme regarding popular musicians who all died at the age of 27[1] often as a result of "precipitous lifestyles that made them candidates for early self-destruction."[2] The deaths of some prominent musicians at age 27, such asRobert Johnson,[3][4] Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, are the basis of this idea.[5]
The "club" has been repeatedly cited in music magazines, journals and the daily press. Several exhibitions have devoted to the Club of 27; distributed merchandising products, novels, films and stage plays captured this topic. There have been many different theories and speculations about the causes of such early deaths and their possible connections. 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."[5] However, a study published in the British Medical Journal in December 2011 concluded that the occurrence of famous musicians dying at the age of 27 was coincidental, and the risk of death from their lifestyle was increased, but not limited to the age of 27.[6]
