I have been dissing the racket of posthumous albums for years, and taking a lot of flak for doing so. This was especially the case when I wrote the following from “More Proof Michael Was Not ‘Gone Too Soon’,” June 20, 2014:
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When producers raised the curtain on Michael Jackson’s much-hyped performance, in hologram form, at last month’s Billboard Music Awards, far from being thrilled, I was just creeped out. But it occurred to me that, if they could make Michael appear to have risen from the dead to perform live on stage, they could make him appear to have risen to record new songs in studio too.
Which of course would put a deep-fake spin on the dubious practice of selling ‘previously recorded but unreleased songs’ after a singer’s death that is too perverse for words. After all, the reason most songs remain unreleased is that the singer thinks they suck. …
The problem of course is that … it can only be a matter of time before executors of the estates of other dead singers begin producing performances, in hologram form, and releasing new, computer-generated songs marketed as previously recorded but unreleased.
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Sure enough, those executors have established a veritable cottage industry of posthumous releases. Most notable among them are those by Freddie Mercury, Leonard Cohen, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, XXXTentacion, and Prince.
That’s why I was so heartened by this note of vindication – as reported in last Thursday’s edition of Variety:
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Some performers end up having more lively discographies posthumously than they ever did in life. Anderson .Paak does not mean to be one of them. And whereas some artists might just put a ban on post-death releases in their wills, .Paak isn’t just waiting for the executor of his estate to get the message — he’s taking more extraordinary measures to make sure that his current fans and his future coroner all see it, too.
The singer posted a photo to Instagram Monday that made a key part of his last testament perfectly clear: ‘When I’m gone,” it reads, “please don’t release any posthumous albums or songs with my name attached. Those were just demos and never intended to be heard by the public.”…
.Paak is known for being fairly prolific in life, which may be reflected in his contention that he’s already issuing anything he thinks is good enough to meet a release standard. The debut album from Silk Sonic, his duo project with Bruno Mars, is due for release later this year.
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Was I right or what seven years ago?!
After .Paak’s tattoo went viral, Lana Del Rey revealed that her will expressly prohibits the posthumous release of any of her music. Whatever the case, I suspect .Paak will inspire many others to make a similar stipulation in their wills – even if they don’t feel the need to tattoo it on their arms.
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MJ gone too soon…