Nick Drakes Five Leaves Left

Music Quiz: Musicians Died Under 30

Congratulations to Tony, who scored a highly credible 23/24 in last week’s Albums with Title Tracks Removed quiz.

This week your challenge is to identify 22 rock and pop musicians who died prematurely.

https://www.sporcle.com/games/Peacemaker/musicians-died-under-30?t=music

I scored 22/24 – I was cruising along nicely until I flubbed a couple at the end.

We’ve had floods in New Zealand this week – in the upper part of the North Island (I live near the bottom). Well-known local musician Anna Coddington has been in the news after she had to be rescued from her second-floor window by a kayak.

The 2023 RRHOF nominations have just come out. This class looks a lot more promising, and I respect most of the nominees.

  • Kate Bush
  • Sheryl Crow
  • Missy Elliott
  • Iron Maiden
  • Joy Division + New Order
  • Cyndi Lauper
  • George Michael
  • Willie Nelson
  • Rage Against The Machine
  • Soundgarden
  • The Spinners
  • A Tribe Called Quest
  • The White Stripes
  • Warren Zevon

I like how they combined Joy Division and New Order into one entity, as I did in my post last year:

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40 Comments

    • The artists I’m a little dubious of for the rock and roll hall of fame are Cyndi Lauper, who’s mainly famous for one album, and Sheryl Crow, who just doesn’t feel like a major artist to me. They both have songs I really like – Sheryl Crow’s ‘My Favourite Mistake’ is a terrific riff-rocker IMO – but it feels like they’re trying to shoehorn more women in. It’s good to have more women, but the lack of women is more a reflection of women not getting as many opportunities in a sexist music industry in the 1960s and 1970s than about talented women getting overlooked.

      • I see your point about Lauper to a certain extent. I thought she had done more than that rock-wise. I give her credit for the ‘Kinky Boots’ soundtrack. I’ll disagree on Crow. Maybe there are others who should get in before her, but I think she’s had a good run.

  1. That’s awful about the floods where you live. I’ve just been through the worst blizzard ever recorded in the United States, outside of the Sierra Mountains that is. About five feet of snow and hurricane strength winds, and a lot of people died. People froze to death in their cars and stuff. And it happened exactly a month after the worst lake effect snowstorm ever. With six feet of snow in some places!!! This is the most unbelievable weather I’ve ever been through, and I’ve actually been through a hurricane!!

    • The floods are the other end of the island from me so I wasn’t personally affected. I haven’t been hearing much about the blizzards here – I guess our floods are dominating our headlines.

      • No, it’s over with now. It was about a month ago. It started on Christmas Eve as a matter of fact and just kept going for like 3 days. Couldn’t leave my building and ran out of food. no heat, no hot water. I was lucky though cuz my electricity didn’t go out like most people, so I could use my stove for heat cuz it’s electric.

  2. Those nominees aren’t too bad. At least most of them aren’t. Kate Bush and the Spinners are my favorite ones there.

  3. I got 20/22. I couldn’t get that one that looked kind of like a hippie biker. All I could think of was the guy from Canned Heat, but I never would have guessed who it really was.

  4. 21/22 and out of time staring at some bloke called ‘Pigpen’ and wondering who the hell he was.
    The RRHOF is starting to feel a bit daft at this point – at least from this geographical remove. The real surprise on that list is The White Stripes… they are barely eligible (their first single was released in March ’98) and yet straight on the noms list vs artists of more renown and impact waiting decades beyond their eligibility to nominated.
    I just finished Neil Young’s book and he laments it becoming a televised event as a) speeches will become less ‘setting the record straight’ and b) it’ll become more about ratings than a musician’s impact.

    • Pigpen was from The Grateful Dead.

      I think The White Stripes are a good shout for the hall, even if they maybe shouldn’t get in on their first ballot. They were original-ish, very much rock and roll, and enjoyed acclaim and fame. The hall of fame is a bit bloated and out-of-control at this point.

  5. 16/22. I couldn’t get the modern one word name ones. I should have known the hippy as he was in my brain somewhere. I wanted to guess a similar-looking band mate of his, but I knew he died much later.

  6. SCORE
    21/22

    I got Pigpen…the one I didn’t get and never would is Tim Bergling… I also had to google how to spell one of the female singers that start with an A…I got close and Google finished it but I knew who she was… I was hoping Pete Ham would be on there but he wasn’t popular enough I don’t guess.

    I want to see Zevon in the Hall of Fame but I doubt if he makes it.

    • I missed Avicii too – no idea what he looked like. Pete Ham is pretty obscure in the scheme of things, I think – I had no idea what he looked like.

      I think Zevon has a chance sometime. He’s acclaimed and has songs people know.

  7. I got 10/22 with 4:13 left. I don’t know what’s more strange: the fact that so many musicians died at age 27, or that I’m 24 now and there are quite a few people that died at age 24!

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Graham Fyfe has been writing this website since his late teens. Now in his forties, he's been obsessively listening to albums for years. He works as a web editor and plays the piano.

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