After the sad death of Amy Winehouse last weekend, all the hacks in the media jumped on the fact that she was 27 to fill up some space on their papers, but is there any truth to it? I had a quick look at it, and used this web site to generate my list. There’s far more names on the list than I had ever heard of, so there is obviously a problem with what constitutes a rock star! This I sorted by only taking the names of people that I had heard before. Easy enough but pretty subjective, I will admit! My second assumption is that over 50 and you’re fair game for the Reaper. Only exception I made is John Denver, as a plane crash is always a good rock star death.

I would say that a lot of the names associated with the 27 club, just aren’t that famous! Of the names widely used, Brian Jones had a very small part to play in the history of the Rolling Stones, when was the last time you heard Janis Joplin on the radio and Amy herself only really had one good album! I won’t argue with Morrisson, Cobain or Hendrix though.

The most dangerous age to be for a rockstar? Well, it’s actually just past your 32nd birthday! Not quite as exciting as 27, but I guess some of the older rock stars dragged the average up a little. The most frequent number on the list? It’s 27, closely followed by 32 and 30, with a few at 21.

‘Better to burn out, than to fade away’ said Neil Young in his song ‘Hey Hey My My’. Neil Young was born in 1945, so is now 66!