Bottom Of The Barrel

Tell me something I don't know

A study of more than 1,000 mainly British and North American artists, spanning the era from Elvis Presley to rapper Eminem, found they were two to three times more likely to suffer a premature death than the general population. Between 1956 and 2005 there were 100 deaths [more than a quarter of all the deaths were related to drugs or alcohol abuse] among the 1,064 musicians examined by researchers at the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University. "The paper clearly describes a population of rock and pop stars who are at a disproportionate risk of alcohol and drug related deaths," said Mark Bellis, lead author of the study.

As Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler would say during weekend update, Really? You mean struggling artist who suddenly become popular and wealthy are more apt to die from drugs and alcohol than the average citizen, really? God I hope so, or we are all doomed to kick in the next three years from a hard living life style. Oh wait, the rest of us have to get up for work in the morning, really.

In all seriousness, over the years we have witness far too many deaths in the music world [and entertainment in general]. We have lost the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Steve Clark and Bon Scott [this of course does not include those who may have died from other causes like Cancer, Heart attack or Suicide which roots of the death are actually drugs and alcohol]. Who's knows where music would be today if these artist could have throttled in back some and lived out a more average life span. Let's hope the research done by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University can lead to one less day we will remember as the day the music died.

posted by TheWino @ 8:59 AM