The Ethics of the Music: Should Your Legacy Live on?

Post date: May 5, 2023

By Ashley Pierson

Nowadays, music is more than an expression, it is a multi-billion dollar industry that expands far beyond the beauty of a song. With this, quotations of ethics surrounding the ownership of works after an artist's passing are murky. 

Often called “posthumous albums”, are collections of unreleased works compiled and packaged into a single entity for fans to get a final insight into the minds of their favorite artists. This can create a gray area of intentions, as it could simply be a label trying to exploit the name of the favorite money makers. This can be seen with Amy Winehouse, who worked for many years on her third studio album only to pass away, openly hating the work she had done. To try to preserve her legacy, Amy's producer destroyed many of the tracks, knowing she was very dissatisfied with the work and would not have wanted it in the world. Well, despite these wishes, the album was recovered and released later, disappointing many close to Winehouse. A similar problem was seen in the legacy addition of Jeff Buckly’s album Grace. Grace was a short studio album deliberately curated by Buckly to display only the best of his skills, with many works being cut. Despite this, the legacy edition of the album contained many studio outtakes which may have never been designed to see the light of day. Many still point of monetary greed as the catalyst for these albums, and they leave a bad taste in the mouths of many fans

However, as with anything, there are two sides to every story, and in some situations posthumous albums are seen as tasteful. A prime example of this is Mac Miller, an artist with one released posthumous album and another to come. Considering the conditions of the works, and his feelings towards the album prior to his passing, many see these works as more of a tribute to the talents of the artist. All this considered, many feel that the ethics of posthumous albums are up to interpretation on a case by case basis, however, the correct answer for what to do with unreleased works is to listen to what the artist would have wanted. Musicians such as Lana del Rey have outwardly put in their wills that works not released prior to their passing were not to be released at all, and this is a wish which should be granted.