Anyone who is privy to the goings-on of pop culture is familiar with the phenomenon known as the “27 Club.” Notable members include Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain. The most recent inductee is the late, great Amy Winehouse, the tragically neglected yet overly publicized neo-soul messiah of the 21st century. It was relentlessly inevitable, yet terribly sudden, when she prematurely left this mortal coil; still, at her meticulous age she unwillingly entered an elite club of similarly ill-fated artists that met an equally unjust and cruel demise. At the same time, however, it seems that 27 is the magic number; a number that has the power to immortalize the famously doomed.
The question is: who gave this irregular number such unadulterated influence?
There are countless influential artists whose deaths, though notable, have been unfairly overlooked due to their unremarkable age. At 26: we lost Nick Drake, and the incomparable Otis Redding; at 28, we saw the demise of Tim Buckley, Sublime’s Brad Nowell, and Blind Melon’s Shannon Hoon (found dead before a show at New Orleans’ Tipitina’s nonetheless). Even younger were R&B princess Aaliyah (22), Sid Vicious (21), and the famously assassinated rap powerhouses Tupac Shakur (25) and Notorious BIG (24) – not to mention the victims of the notoriously star-crossed plane crash that killed Richie Valens and Buddy Holly. So what makes these 27 year-olds so special?
We immortalize these people not for their age, but for what they stood. Each and every one that belong to this unfortunate alliance have all demonstrated an innate ability to transform the idiom in which they refused to be confined within. Jimi re-defined artistic expression in the form of electric guitar; Janis became the first (and only) woman to be able to sing two notes at once; Kurt Cobain shaped a generation with the formation of the terribly relatable grunge scene. The newest addition, Ms. Winehouse, re-introduced the lost art of painful and beautiful soul, revived with refreshing ingenuity and newfound capacity, which may be why our hearts droop lower in lieu of her loss. She reminds us of those that have paved similarly brilliant and tattered paths; those who have unknowingly been trailblazers through dark and uncertain patches barricading traditional paths of modern music. She and the other few that have been both fortunate and unfortunate to join
the famed “27 Club,” have a place forever burned into the delicate skin covering the face of musical progress.
