A song from a long time ago had the lyrics "live fast, love hard, die young, and leave a beautiful memory." For rock stars, the first three phrases have been found to be true, according to a study at Liverpool John Moores University.
An AP reports says "The team studied 1,064 stars from the rock, punk, rap, R&B, electronic and new age genres in the 'All Time Top 1,000' albums published. They compared each artist's age at death with that of European and U.S. citizens of similar backgrounds, sex and ethnicity."
The study concluded that in British and North American pop stars were over twice as likely to die prematurely than regular citizens in the same demographic. The average age of death for North American stars was 42, and for European stars it was even worse, dropping to 35.
Of the stars studied, 100 died prematurely, with 7.3 percent of women and 9.6 percent of men, of the 1,064 in the study.
The earliest years of fame were the most risky, with all musicians three or more times likely to die than the ordinary person during those times.
"The music business would do well to take the health risks of substance abuse and risk-taking behaviors more seriously," wrote Mark Bellis, the lead author of the study.
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