re: How did an early death….

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What musicians “benefited” (strictly in terms of their long term legacy, of course) from an early death

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Instead of the usual names of people who ODed at 23 I'll throw a curve w/somebody I feel "died at the right time" (in the context of this thread):

Jerry Garcia

If he had ODed in 1970, he would have been lost among bigger drug casualties. If he had died this year, he would have been just another 80 year old rock star.

But Garcia died in the mid '90s, at a time when the media wanted to talk about the 1960s. Garcia became the symbol/starting place for this discussion, whether he deserved it or not.

Something similar happened w/Steve Jobs. When he died the media wanted to talk about computers and the cyber revolution, and Jobs became the symbol for every tech advance since 1985.

Truth----I didn't even know that Grohl was the drummer for Nirvana when the Foo Fighters came out. I also never really cared for Nirvana.

I like Pearl Jam, RHCP, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins and such. Liked early Green Day.

To me Grohl is a genius and did all the music for the first album and then hired a band.

What musicians do you guys feel had a lot of upside left in their career when they died?

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To me Grohl is a genius and did all the music for the first album and then hired a band.

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Foo Fighters is the Boston of grunge.

I have a blues rock/southern rock band as well, but I don’t have the right voice for country.

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Some say he would have steered the band from it's more commercial sound in the 90s, while others argue that Burton would've welcomed the change. We'll never know.

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I absolutely think he would have welcomed the change. Cliff was already experimenting with with different styles and was the one who brought more harmonies and melody to Metallica and Hetfield. He was also big into southern rock and that had an influence on James' writing during the 90s. A lot of people think Cliff would have kept them in thrash forever but he was much too diverse to be content with just writing Master of Puppets over and over for 40 years

Ian Curtis of Joy Division. We are still hearing the effects of his suicide. Created the modern music era. Post punk, dance music, goth, industrial, new wave, no wave, new romantics.....U2 and on. And all of their spinoffs and influences.

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John Lennon

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Yeah, he had been out of the music business for 5 years and Double Fantasy was getting very mixed, even negative reviews for being dull; the kind of music he accused McCartney of making.

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To this day I don't understand why Janis Joplin is revered.

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She was a true original and her peformance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 is legendary. Ball & Chain

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What musicians do you guys feel had a lot of upside left in their career when they died?

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Jan Berry. Technically died in that car crash

ETA: Pete Hamm. Died at 27. Badfinger could have been huge.

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Dying young can be a good career move, but only for your estate.

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Reminds me of the SNL skit from the 90's when the guy singing "Chopping Broccoli"s manager was trying to get him to kill himself so his career would take off.