Stairway to hell: life and death in the pop music industry 通向地狱的阶梯：流行音乐界的生与死 作者：Dianna Theadora Kenny @2014-10-27

译者：Horace Rae（@sheldon_rae） 校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）

来源：The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/stairway-to-hell-life-and-death-in-the-pop-music-industry-32735 [caption id="attachment_6070" align="alignnone" width="300"] Musicians such as Amy Winehouse die young at much higher rates than the rest of the population. EPA/Andy Rain 像Amy Winehouse这样的音乐家英年早逝的几率比其他人大。EPA/Andy Rain[/caption] Art is a cry of distress from those who live out within themselves the destiny of humanity … Inside them turns the movement of the world; only an echo of it leaks out – the work of art Arnold Schoenberg, 1910. “艺术是毕生实践人类命运者的痛苦呐喊……世界在他们的身体里流变；只有一丝回声流露出来——那就是艺术品。”——阿诺德·勋伯格，1910年。

Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg , like many gifted artists throughout history, suffered for his art. Popular artists of the modern era have kept this tradition alive. For all the superficial glamour of the pop music world, let us not delude ourselves - today’s popular music scene is brutal.

就像历史上许多天赋异禀的艺术家一样，奥地利作曲家阿诺德·勋伯格因其艺术而遭受痛苦。现代流行艺术家仍保持着这个传统。不要因为流行音乐界的表面浮华而自欺欺人——当今的流行音乐圈万分残酷。

The “pop-cultural scrap heap”, to borrow journalist Drew Magary’s term , is piled high with the dead or broken bodies of young musicians whose personal and musical aspirations collided with the aspirations of those occupying the commercial edifices erected around them, which turn them into income-generating commodities whose role is to satisfy capricious and ever-changing consumer demands.

借用记者Drew Magary的词汇，“流行文化废料堆”已被或死或伤的年轻音乐家堆得高耸入云。这些艺术家的个人愿景和艺术抱负与占据他们周边商业帝国的人的愿望相冲突，后者将他们变成了创收的商品，唯一目的是满足反复无常、任性多变的市场需求。

Many of those musicians end up feeling suffocated, caged and possessed by their minders, exploiters and fans. And many end up dead.

许多音乐家最终发觉他们被自己的保镖、榨利者和粉丝所扼制、禁锢和控制。许多最终一死了之。 How big a problem is the pop music industry, really? 说实在的，流行音乐界的问题究竟有多大？ The rock scene is a volatile mix of glamour, instant wealth, risk-taking, rebellion and psychological distress accompanied by taken-for-granted assumptions that pop musicians will live dangerously, abuse substances and die early. Journalist Amanda Hooten, writing about RobbieWilliams, identifies the components of the “classic rock’n’roll script” as “sex, drugs, rehab and bitterness”.

摇滚圈子是一个不稳定的混合体，融合了魅力、一夜暴富、冒险、反叛和心理焦虑，以及公众对流行音乐家生活方式理所应当的猜测：生活危险、滥用毒品、英年早逝。在记述Robbie Williams时，记者Amanda Hooten把“传统摇滚剧本”的构成要素界定为“性、毒品、戒毒所、无尽痛苦”。

Blogger Jacob Katel expresses the same sentiments in a more forthright manner:

博主Jacob Katel表达了同样的感想，用词更加犀利： [d]ead rock stars are a dime a dozen. They usually drink themselves to death, overdose on narcotics, crash cars, or get on faulty aircraft with drunk pilots … “ 死掉的摇滚明星俯拾皆是。他们通常喝到烂醉如泥、过量吸毒、撞车，或者登上醉鬼驾驶的故障飞机 …… ” [caption id="attachment_6066" align="alignnone" width="300"] Gwar frontman Oderus Ungerus died earlier this year. crazybobbles/Flickr Gwar乐队主唱Oderus Ungerus今年早些时候去世。crazybobbles/Flickr[/caption] Previous research does not answer the question 过去的研究未能提供答案 Why do so many pop musicians die young?

为什么这么多流行音乐家英年早逝？

Few studies have systematically examined the popular musician population to ascertain the extent of the problems codified in the media comments above.

几乎没有研究曾系统地考察过流行音乐家群体来查明上文媒体评论提到的问题有多么严重。

Existing studies are limited in scope. Adrian Barnett, for example, tested the “ 27 club hypothesis ”. Tucker, Faulkner and Horvath only included a narrow sample of the population, that is, musicians who died between 1959 and 1967. A John Moores University study only looked at artists with top rating albums.

现存的研究往往范围有限。举个例子，Adrian Barnett检验了“27俱乐部假说”【译注： 指众多才华横溢的流行音乐明星死于27岁这一现象 】。Tucker, Faulkner和Horvath的研究只囊括了一个很小的样本——死于1959-1967年之间的音乐家。John Moores大学的一项研究只关注了有热榜专辑的艺术家。

At the other end of the scale, the study reported by Howard Sounes in his book 27 is over-inclusive as it covers not only performing musicians but also songwriters, record producers, managers and promoters.

而在另一个极端，Howard Sounes在其著作《27》中记述的研究则太过广泛：它不仅包括了表演艺术家，也包括了词曲作者、专辑制作人、经纪人和赞助商。 New research 新的研究 [caption id="attachment_6067" align="alignnone" width="195"] Jimi Hendrix, who died in 1970. AAP Photo Jimi Hendrix，死于1970年。[/caption]

I’ve undertaken the first population study of performing pop musicians (n=12,665) from all popular genres who died between 1950 and June 2014 of whom 90.6% (11,478 musicians) were male.

我已完成了第一个针对参与表演的流行音乐家的群体研究（n=12665），他们来自所有流行音乐流派，死于1950年到2014年6月之间。他们中有90.6%（11478名音乐家）为男性。

Data on age, circumstances and manner of death were accessed from over 200 sources, including The Dead Rock Stars’ Club; Nick Tavelski’s (2010) Knocking on Heaven’s Door: Rock Obituaries, Pop star mortality; R.I.P. Encyclopaedia Metallicum ; Voices from the Dark Side for Dead Metal Musicians; Wikipedia’s List of Dead Hip Hop Artists and Hip Hop obituaries;

我从超过200个来源获得关于死亡年龄、原委和方式的数据，其中包括“已逝摇滚明星俱乐部”，Nick Tavelski 2010年的《敲开天堂之门：摇滚明星讣告集》， “金属百科：已逝艺术家”， “来自另一个世界的声音：已逝金属音乐家”，“维基百科已逝嘻哈艺术家列表和嘻哈艺术家讣告”。

I went to rapper death websites , Dead Punk Stars and similar sites for all popular music genres. The genres I covered included African, ballad, bluegrass, blues, Cajun, calypso, Christian pop, conjunto, country, doo-wop, electroclash, folk, funk, Gospel, hard rock, hip hop, honky tonk, indie, jazz, Latin, metal, new wave, polka, pop, psychedelic, punk, punk-electronic, rock rap, reggae, rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, rockabilly, ska, soul, swamp, swing, techno, western and world music.

我访问了说唱歌手死亡网站、朋克明星死亡网站以及所有流行音乐流派的相似网站。我论及的流派有非洲音乐、民谣、蓝草、蓝调、卡津、卡利普索、基督教流行音乐、康芬特、乡村、杜沃普、电音撞击乐、民族乐、福音、硬摇滚、嘻哈音乐、酒吧音乐、独立、爵士乐、拉丁、金属乐、新浪潮、波尔卡、流行乐、迷幻、朋克、电子朋克、说唱摇滚、雷鬼、节奏蓝调、摇滚、山区乡村摇滚、SKA、灵魂、沼泽摇滚、摇摆舞音乐、高科技舞曲、西方音乐和世界音乐。 Longevity, suicide, homicide and accidental death rates in pop musicians 流行音乐家的寿命、自杀率、他杀率和意外死亡率 I examined four outcomes – longevity and the proportion of deaths by suicide, homicide and non-intentional injury or accident. Longevity was determined by calculating the average age of death for each musician by sex and decade of death. These averages were then compared with population averages by sex and decade for the US population (per 100,000) (see Figure 1, below).

我检测了四个结果：寿命、自杀率、他杀率和意外伤害或事故死亡率。寿命按性别、死亡年代分类，取每个音乐家的平均死亡年龄。之后将这些平均值按性别、年代分类与美国人口的平均值比较（每100000人）（见下表1） Figure 2 (below) provides a graphical summary of percentages of musicians who died by decade from each of the three causes of death studied; these are juxtaposed with deaths in the US population from the same causes by decade. All comparisons shown in these figures were highly statistically significantly different from the US population.

表2（下表）按年代图示总结了音乐家们死于上述三种原因的频率。这些频率与美国人口因相同原因死亡的频率并列比较。所有对比都显示，流行音乐家的数值与美国人口数值之间存在统计上非常显著的差异。 The pop music scene is toxic and needs rehabilitation 流行音乐圈深受毒害，需要修复 The results of this study are disturbing. Across the seven decades studied, popular musicians’ lifespans were up to 25 years shorter than the comparable US population. Accidental death rates were between five and 10 times greater. Suicide rates were between two and seven times greater; and homicide rates were up to eight times greater than the US population.

这一研究的结果令人忧虑。在7个被研究的年代中，流行音乐家的平均寿命与同时代美国人口相比最多短了25年。流行音乐家的意外死亡率是同时代美国人口的5-10倍；自杀率达2-7倍；他杀率最多达8倍。

This is clear evidence that all is not well in pop music land.

很明显，流行音乐圈情况不妙。

Why is this so? The pop music “scene” fails to provide boundaries and to model and expect acceptable behaviour. It actually does the reverse – it valorises outrageous behaviour and the acting out of aggressive, sexual and destructive impulses that most of us dare only live out in fantasy.

这是为什么呢？流行音乐“圈”没有底线，没有树立典范，也没有要求适度的行为。事实上，它做的事情完全相反：它为粗暴、斗殴、性欲和暴怒抬高价码——我们只敢在幻想中过这种生活。

The music industry needs to consider these findings to discover ways of recognising and assisting young musicians in distress. At the very least, those who make their livings from these young people need to learn to recognise early signs of emotional distress, crisis, depression and suicidality and to put some support systems in place to provide the necessary assistance and care.

音乐界需要思考这些发现，以找到办法来辨识和帮助陷入困境的年轻音乐家。至少，那些依靠这些年轻人为生的人需要学会辨识精神痛苦的早期征兆、恶化期、抑郁和自杀倾向，然后建立支持体系以提供必要的帮助和关爱。

（编辑：@whigzhou）

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