‘Tis the season for rolling out ridiculous ‘scientific’ studies that for some reason continue to get funding despite dubious public interest or scientific protocol. Take this latest study to come out of British Medical Journal which set to debunk the infamous 27 club theory in music.

For those of you who don’t know, the 27 club is a group of famous young musicians who all died at age 27. Amongst their alumni are Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and most recently Amy Winehouse.

According to News Limited, a group of statisticians led by Adrian Barnett of the Queensland University of Technology here in Australia have put the “27 Club” hypothesis to the test. The group put together a database of 1046 musicians who had a number 1 album in the British charts between 1956 and 2007 and checked off a list of who died and when.

Of course anyone paying attention will see the immediate flaw in their data. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Robert Johnson, Richey Edwards of The Manic Street Preachers, and a raft of other members of the club were excluded from the data because they never had a British number 1 album during their lifetime.

However because of the parameters set by the researchers someone like Kermit The Frog was included in the list. 71 of the musicians included died during the data period, or somewhere in the vicinity of 7%, but the group found no peak of deaths at 27.

“The 27 Club is unlikely to be a real phenomenon,” said the study. “Fame may increase the risk of death among musicians, but this risk is not limited to age 27.”

We feel however that the jury is still out on a conclusive answer to the folklore until someone does a study that actually includes half of the members said to be part of the group. Until then you can enjoy our slideshow of the more famous members of the infamous 27 club.

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