Life delivers a bum note for vocalists who hit the big time.
Your Back Page scribbler is no great shakes as a singer.
While he could hold his own in the school choir many decades back, no sane person would hand over money nowadays to hear these vocal cords in action.
Which is just as well for all concerned, because according to research published this week in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, being a famous singer may be good for the bank balance, but it’s a different tune when it comes to life expectancy.
According to researchers at the German University Witten/Herdecke, being a European or American singer who has made it big can slice a whopping four years off the lifespan compared with vocalists who have not become celebrities.
You’d be forgiven for thinking, like I did, that the key reason for this would be all that money and adoration leading to lifestyle choices that heightened the chances of an early demise. We’re looking at you, members of the 27 club.
To test this supposition, our German boffins retrospectively compared the risk of death in 648 singers, half of whom had achieved celebrity status and half of whom hadn’t.
Each of the 324 stars was matched for birth year, gender, nationality, ethnicity, music genre and solo/lead singer in a band status with their lesser-known peers.
Most (83.5%) were male, and the average year of birth was 1949. More than half were from North America, with the remainder from Europe. Ethnically, most were white (77%), with only 19% being black and 4% being of other or mixed ethnicities. Rock music singers were the largest grouping at about two-thirds of those studied, and more than half of those were in a band.
After crunching the data, the researchers found that the famous singers, on average, survived until they were 75 years old. Less famous singers, on the other hand, averaged a lifespan of 79.
Moreover, it appears to be that “fame” itself does indeed play a key role in the fatality stakes.
“The analyses indicate that an elevated risk emerges specifically after achieving fame, which highlights fame as a potential temporal turning point for health risks including mortality,” the researchers said in a media release.
“Beyond occupational explanations, our findings suggest that fame adds further vulnerability within an already at-risk group.”
Having said that, as an observational study no firm conclusions could really be drawn about cause and effect.
But a possible explanation may lie in “the unique psychosocial stress that accompanies fame, such as intense public scrutiny, performance pressure, and loss of privacy”, the team said.
“These stressors may fuel psychological distress and harmful coping behaviours, making fame a chronic burden that amplifies existing occupational risk.”
So the upshot for budding rock singers seems to be “stick to the karaoke” – it may be stressful for the listeners, but nobody’s going to be leaving in a body bag.
Sending story tips to Holly@medicalrepublic.com.au is music to our ears.
