Whenever a singer dies, the question inevitably comes up of what will happen to any songs recorded by the singer that haven’t received a public release. It’s typical for singers to have loads of unreleased songs: tracks that didn’t make an album or demo recordings, for example. Some singers who unfortunately die do so while in the process of recording an album and will have the full thing ready to go, or have it partially done. In any case, fans are always keen to hear new music – should a singer’s death get in the way of fans getting what they want?
Yes – The Fans Have a Right to Hear it
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Take Amy Winehouse, for example. She died at the very young age of 27 and since then, various songs of hers that she recorded have been released; there’s even been a full album, Lioness: Hidden Treasures that has gone on to sell 2.4 million copies. There was clearly a demand for new Winehouse songs after the singer’s untimely passing. It’s clear that fans don’t really care whether songs are unfinished or they were scrapped from albums for whatever reason – they just want new material and they’ll accept any new material whether the singer themselves intended to release it or not. Without fans, singers wouldn’t have careers, so an argument is that fans are entitled to hear music, even if the singer isn’t around to have the final say on what songs get released to the public.
No – The Singer Should Have a Say in Its Release
While there will always be fans keen to hear new music, there will always be those who are prepared to accept no new songs. They don’t think it’s right as such that songs are released after a singer’s death. They see it as various people cashing in or milking the singer’s death. They respect the singer’s wishes and are only bothered about songs and albums that were released when the singer was alive and able to have their say. Once a singer’s died, they can’t have a say in what songs they would have released, so songs that are posthumously released may not have got their approval when they were alive. Ultimately, for some fans only songs the singer was able to approve are the ones that matter.
What do you think?
If a record company released an album of a late singer’s material, would you listen to it? If you did and you actually enjoyed it, would you listed to it again? Or would you decide against doing so, since the artist had no actual say in the creation of this album? Does the singer’s approval on what goes public really matter? If a song’s good, does it matter if the singer gave its release the go-ahead?
