Joey Ramone

popular name: France Gall

date_of_death: January 7, 2018

age: 70

cause_of_death: Severe infection complicated by cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: France Gall was a French yé-yé singer who first rose to fame in 1965 when, at the age of 17, she won the Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg. What little did she know at the time was the song that she won the Eurovision Song Contest, Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son, was later adapted for the song My Way made famous by Frank Sinatra. Between 1973 and 1992 she collaborated with singer-songwriter Michel Berger who she later married. Although she had a long and successful career, it wasn't without it's troubles and tragedies. Serge Gainsbourg later plunged Gall into controversy when she had a massive hit with his sexually suggestive song, Les Sucettes (Lollipops), complete with promotional images of her dressed in a skimpy bikini and licking a lollypop. She said later she had been too young to understand the double entendre of the lyrics, and refused either to perform it or to work with Gainsbourg again. She had another major international hit in 1987 with the album Babacar – including the song Ella, elle l’a, her tribute to Ella Fitzgerald – with music and lyrics by her husband and musical partner Michel Berger, who died in 1992 aged 44. She retired from recording and performing in 1997, following the death from cystic fibrosis of their eldest child, Pauline. She devoted herself largely to humanitarian work until a comeback performance in a 2015 stage show based on her and her husband’s songs.

popular name: Melvin Franklin

date_of_death: February 23, 1995

age: 52

cause_of_death: Multiple health issues including rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, necrotizing fasciitis, seizures and heart failure

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: It has been over five decades since The Temptations were first founded and in that time there have been 22 different members of the group, but it is the ‘Classic Five’ (and the post-Classic Five, Dennis Edwards) line-up that most fans consider the best. Central to that line-up was the incredible bass voice of Melvin Franklin, dubbed by the group and by their fans as ‘the world’s greatest bass singer’.

popular name: Falco

date_of_death: February 6, 1998

age: 40

cause_of_death: Automobile accident

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: His name was Falco, and the image of sharp suit and slick-back hair already set him apart from the glam rockers and post-punks of the late 80s. He was a musician; a singer; a rapper. A gentleman, a womanizer; he hated garden gnomes and loved chaos. He was honest, plain, but one in a million. With the hit song (and matching music video) "Rock Me Amadeus" etched into our very brains, the infectious chorus of 1986 hit went on to become the only number one on the Billboard Hot 100 spoken in German. It became an international hit, climbing the charts of countless nations. Proving that he was no one-hit wonder, Falco had several international hits including "Der Kommissar" (1981), "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home (Jeanny Part II, One Year Later)", and posthumously "Out of the Dark". But it was "Rock Me Amadeus" that reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1986, making Falco the only artist in history whose principal language was German, to score a vocal number-one hit in the United States. According to his estate, he has sold 20 million albums and 40 million singles, which makes him the best-selling Austrian singer of all time. Sadly his life was cut short when his rental car collided with a bus outside of the resort town of Villa Montellano.