BY MIKEY MIGO
It's always weird to me to buy an album, hear a song, or see a video of a musician who just passed away. Once the initial human thoughts come like feeling for the family, their kids, and all of the important stuff another natural thought comes to mind. You begin to think about how this musician will not be releasing any more music. You think about the potential music as great or as lame as it is that you'd be missing out on.
You greedy bastard.
Yet now a days it seems that your greed for more music from a dead guy can be used else where. Now more than ever can we have the experience of hearing new music from deceased musicians. I'm not just talking a Greatest Hits, a Career Retrospect, or a Remix and/or Duet album either. Maybe it was unreleased and locked in a vault for years before the artists passing or maybe it was the last album they were working on. It doesn't matter. I'm talking new material; new songs and some in some cases a few albums worth of bits and pieces.
Why this music is sometimes delayed? I think it's mainly because the families or controlling parties need money, want attention, or "finally find it in their hearts to share it with us". It's really a lot of bullshit. What it seems is that these people want more money and magically "find unreleased recordings" that they feel the "fans deserve to finally hear". Yet, it can also be the band themselves wanting to capitalize on the death of a band mate and revitalize their career or namesake.
I'm not going to dig deep into the psyche of everyone involved with these posthumous releases because I'm pretty sure all the details aren't out there to cite sources. Some of it's pretty obvious that it relates to greed and some actually have a bit of honest merit to them. All of that is for you to decide.
The most prominent "after death" releases of our generation came from some of the iconic stars of the 90s. If you've not heard Nirvana's "Unplugged in New York" album or saw it on MTV then you're probably reading the wrong column. I can still listen to "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" and hear Cobain's voice grasp out for any soul to listen. There are certain performances that define a musician's legacy. I want to believe that was one of them. It might "define" in so many words what Nirvana was all about, but it's definitely a spiritual bitch slap. The only thing worthwhile to come after that has been the track "You Know You're Right". The rest; not so much.
On the other side of the 90's icon spectrum are the hip hop legends The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Both of them were taken from us too early and are still missed, but it's hard to really miss them when they're still dropping albums. There have been only a few Biggie albums, but there has been about a half dozen Tupac albums put out since his untimely death on September 13th, 1996. About a dozen years later and we're still getting new mixes, covers, duets, and all of that. I respect everything both men did for hip hop, but it's hard to hold a career in retrospect and hold up against time when we're still having new albums shoved down our throats. From the way they were taken from us, lets at least hope they have peace in their next life.
Really as I write and think about it, a lot of 90's musicians died and/or overdosed. The vocalists of Blind Melon, Alice in Chains, and Sublime all overdosing. The last Sublime album, originally titled "Killin' It" but later changed to be self titled, was released after Bradley Nowell's fun with heroin. Thanks to tracks like "What I Got", "Santeria", "Wrong Way" and "Doin' Time" it ended up being one of the band's most popular and successful albums.
The same thing happened at the end of the 60's and early 70's with the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Morrison, Janis, and others. It's been said and slowly given to us that the majority of Hendrix's work has never been released. It's crazy to think that the whole time he was with us he only released three albums. More was definitely to come from Led Zeppelin as they released "Coda" a few years after the death of drummer John Bonham. Even the Beatles fell into this trap in the 90's. They reworked, overdubbed, and made the tracks "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" from old Lennon recordings.
One thing that's often debated is about acts like Nirvana, Hendrix, The Doors, and the higher iconic status alike is that how their careers would of turned out if they'd of not passed on. Would Nirvana of been as iconic if Cobain was alive today? Would Hendrix of faded out? Would The Doors of sold out? Would Tupac of given up music to be an actor? Would we of seen the rise of Jay Z or Diddy if Biggie was around? Would of Led Zeppelin lost its substance and sizzle like Aerosmith or others have? There's so many "What if?" type of questions that can be asked.
Maybe that's why we're always curious and greedy to get that last demo reel out there once one of these legends pass on. A lot of us look to music to be the background sounds to our lives and some of use look to it for all of lives answers. Maybe hidden away in the Hendrix family vault is that one song Jimi made that can still change the world. Then again, maybe these tracks weren't released on purpose. Everything does happen for a reason. Finding out what that reason is is the truly the answer.
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