After the shock of losing four icons within two years, you would think musicians smartened up a bit. Nah, not so much.
There were still many musician deaths in the 70s, its just that none of the more famous were the infamous age of 27. Cass Elliot, known as Mama Cass, rose to fame with the Mamas & the Papas, a folksy pop group from the 60s. After the group broke up, she had a successful solo career until 1974, when she was found dead in her hotel room at the age of 32. She didn’t choke on a ham sandwich as the urban legend goes, but did die of a heart attack, possibly brought on by weight fluctuation and previous drug use.
Sid Vicious died as he lived – very hard. Sid rose to fame with the punk band The Sex Pistols. He died at the age of 21 of an overdose while awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend Deborah Spungen. Like Janis Joplin, Sid got an exceptionally pure dose of heroin, one that many think his own mother may had administered to him. Then, there is the Who’s Keith Moon. He died of an overdose of Clomethiazole, a drug that was oddly enough supposed to save his life by helping him wean off alcohol. He died in 1978, just having celebrated his 32 birthday. So maybe people thought the 27 curse was over. No, it would claim yet one more well-known voice.
Kurt Cobain was just a toddler when Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison died, but he was on the brink of being just as famous, if not more so, than any of them were. It only took two years for his band Nirvana to become a fixture on the Seattle music scene. In fact, their 1991 single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is often seen as the song that moved the music focus from heavy metal and pop towards the new grunge and alternative rock movement. Cobain was often seen as a spokesperson for his generation. That can put a lot of pressure on a singer, especially one that was only 24 at the time.
Well, that and Cobain had a drug problem. In fact, Cobain overdosed at least once, perhaps twice during his career. Many think he used drugs because it was the only way he knew to medicate himself for depression and an undiagnosed chronic stomach condition, which cause intense physical pain. Whatever was causing the emotional or physical pain caused Cobain to end his life on April 5, 1994. His death was ruled a suicide due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was 27 years old.
And so another spokesperson of a generation was dead.