Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (2024)

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[BEST] Phife Dawg / "Forever" (2022)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (1)

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Prior to his passing in March 2016, the great Phife Dawg managed to complete his contributions to A Tribe Called Quest's final album, the instant classic that was "We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service". Yet while working with his old crew, he was also working on what would be his second-ever solo album, "Forever", which would finally see the light of day in 2022. Given his only other solo offering came in 2000 and seemed to take not-so-thinly-veiled shots at bandmate Q-Tip, it's a delight to hear the two work again on "Forever", which is filled with warm vibes and a love of old-school beats. Featuring a rogue's gallery of producers (9th Wonder, J Dilla, the always-underrated Potatohead People) and superstar guests (Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, Little Brother, Redman, Dwele), the sepia-toned memories of "Forever" point to an era of rap music that simply doesn't exist anymore. "Thought I'd chop you out, son, see how you're doin'," he says to the late J Dilla on "Dear Dilla", "Come back to earth, homie / Hip-hop is in ruins." There's smart samples, funky beats, and even some light orchestration to give buoyancy to Phife Dawg's rhymes. It feels like a perfect final act from one of rap music's all-time greats.

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[WORST] Prince / "Welcome 2 America" (2021)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (2)

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As always, Prince's posthumous legacy is something that's difficult to wrestle with. While Prince would have disapproved of having his entire videography available on YouTube, his music has managed to reach a whole new generation of listeners, and it's hard to be mad about that. While his estate has done a surprisingly extraordinary job of unleashing a torrent of thoughtfully-curated rarities (like the excellent "Originals" disc, featuring the demos he recorded of songs that were given to others), the announcement of the unheard new studio release "Welcome 2 America" was a surprise to many. Recorded in 2010 with bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, keyboardist Morris Hayes, and drummer Chris Coleman, this laid-back, surprisingly understated record remains a bit of a head-scratcher, as no one is unclear if the released record was "finished" or not. Upbeat numbers like "Hot Summer" felt like they were ready to be shipped to radio, but wannabe anthems like "Stand Up and B Strong" feel surprisingly sparse and undercooked. It's not so much a bad record as it is deeply unengaging, sounding sonically indistinguishable from latter-day Prince full-lengths like "20Ten". Completionists can sort through these dozen songs for some gems, but an essential entry into Prince's discography it is not.

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[WORST] Michael Jackson / "Michael" (2010)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (3)

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Holy moly, this is a bad record. While it was rumored that Jackson was working on material for a new record before his passing in 2009, tracks "in the can" didn't necessarily mean they were worthy of release. Heck, even the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am, who himself worked on some remixes for the 25th-anniversary re-release of "Thriller," said in interviews that "I don't think that should ever come out. How you gonna release Michael Jackson when Michael Jackson ain't here to bless it? ... That's bad." He wasn't wrong: The resulting album, with dated Akon collaborations (Akon saying his own name is the first word you hear on this record), subpar ballads and guest verses that make no sense (50 Cent sounds just as confused as to why he's here) all add up to a record that simply shouldn't have been released. A saving grace came with the Jackson estate's second stab at a posthumous record, as 2014's "Xscape" at least featured some raw takes of songs like "Love Never Felt So Good" that rank among his greatest recorded works.

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[BEST] Dave Matthews Band / "Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King" (2009)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (4)

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While Dave Matthews is the chief songwriter and figurehead for the Dave Matthews Band, even he knows the "Band" part of the equation is what made the group what it is today, as DMB is a tight, eclectic unit of profoundly talented musicians who often elevate Matthews' songs to new heights. LeRoi Holloway Moore was one of the band's founding members and a dynamite saxophonist whose fingerprints are all over DMB'd discography. Yet when he was in an ATV accident in 2008, his healing and re-hospitalizations are what ultimately led to his passing in August of that year. Matthews and Co. were crushed by the news, which is why "Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King" was designed as a tribute to Moore, as "GrooGrux" was a made-up word to describe the kinetic energy shared among Moore, Tim Reynolds, and Tim Wicks. Although reviews were mixed and the album was a bit more rock-based than jam-based, fans still embraced it, and although the Grammys failed to include Moore on the In Memoriam reel that year, "Big Whiskey" still ended up getting a nomination for Album of the Year.

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[WORST] Jim Morrison/The Doors / "An American Prayer" (1978).

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (5)

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There are few things linear about The Doors' career arc, and that's largely because Jim Morrison was assuredly not a linear person. Although he died in July 1971, no less than three Doors albums were released after that: 1971's "Other Voices" and 1972's "Full Circle" each featured the other members doing their own songs and vocals without Jim. However, 1978's "An American Prayer" is credited to both Jim Morrison and The Doors as separate entities, as the band simply provides musical accompaniment for Morrison's detailed and sometimes hypersexualized spoken word poetry. Although the music is certainly engaging, there is little harmony between the various tracks, save for a gimme-gimme add-on in the form of live cut "Roadhouse Blues," which reminds us of the power and the chemistry that the band had together when doing songs and not backing a poetry reading. Is it a good full-length record? It remains up for debate even to this day. Yet as a rock music curiosity, well, few albums are as curious as this.

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[BEST] Jeff Buckley / "Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk" (1998)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (6)

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While Jeff Buckley's signature song will always be his dramatic rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," the album that track comes from, 1994's "Grace," had an even bigger impact, with its assured, pop-rock sound and winsome poetry anchored by Buckley's yearning, powerful vocals. Following news of his sudden and tragic drowning in 1997, the music world was shocked, losing such a bright young talent at age 30. Prior to his passing, Buckley was at work on his sophomore effort, to be titled "My Sweetheart the Drunk." Released in 1998, "Sketches from My Sweetheart the Drunk" is aptly titled, presenting a mix of finished or at least close-to-finished studio songs and four-track demos that Buckley was recording on his own. The end result is striking and powerful and showed where Buckley's sound was progressing, with tracks like opener "The Sky Is a Landfill" and the pummeling "Nightmares By the Sea" showing how much more comfortable Buckley was getting with the rock side of his sound, pushing his sonic well outside of balladeer territory. It may be unfinished, but while there have been countless releases of his live shows, studio demos and other ephemera since his passing, "Sketches" sounds a lot like a finished full-length, and goes to show how great a musician Buckley was, even when he was raw and unguarded.

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[BEST] Sublime / "Sublime" (1996)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (7)

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In all likelihood, you heard of the band Sublime when everyone else did: After it had become defunct. While the group's first two albums endeared them to the Cali ska-punk scene, their early efforts were notoriously immature despite showing some real promise. Their sophomore album, "Robbin' the Hood," showed the group expanding its musical knowledge with an increasing fascination with dub music, but it was 1996's "Sublime" that was the group's major-label debut and what was aimed to be its breakthrough moment. As it turns out, bolstered by the immediate connection people had with songs like "What I Got", "Santeria," and "Wrong Way," "Sublime" was a bon afide smash, even as the band was reeling from the tragic overdose of lead singer and guitarist Bradley Nowell two months prior to the record's release. "Sublime" is so easily the band's best album that remaining members Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh were left with few options, soon forming the Long Beach Dub Allstars and even revisiting their past glories with the outfit Sublime with Rome later on. No matter what iteration they take, the truth is that their legacy will always live on in the form of that stoner-slacker classic that is "Sublime."

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[WORST] Tupac Shakur / "The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory" (1996)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (8)

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In February of 1996, 2Pac put out "All Eyez On Me," a positively overwhelming double-album of new material that would go on to become one of the best-selling rap records of all time. In September of that year, a drive-by shooting ended his life, shocking the entire nation. Eight weeks later, Death Row Records released "The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory," and it proved to be one of the most polarizing, divisive records of his career. Had Tupac lived, he would've seen the harsh reaction to it, wherein the political aims of his early work had been abandoned for aggressive gangster rap posturing, especially on the firey, name-calling opener, "Bomb First (My Second Reply)."

None of the chief song architects on "Eyez" (of which there were several, including Daz Dillinger, Johnny "J", and Dr. Dre) returned for "Don," leaving a lot of the production work to relative upstarts — and it shows. "Toss It Up" sounds like a poor attempt at capturing the easy-breezy vibe of "California Love" and pales in contrast to its predecessor. While critics largely dismissed the album as shoddy, it has found a few supporters in rappers like J. Cole and 50 Cent, who praised the anger Shakur articulated here. (Plus "To Live and Die in L.A." is a pretty solid single.) While the release date so soon after his passing was seen as distasteful to some given the album's themes, the truth of the matter is that this would be far from the first time 2Pac's vaults were raided for material to craft yet another posthumous record.

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[BEST] Nirvana / "MTV Unplugged in New York" (1994)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (9)

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While MTV's "Unplugged" program was gaining in popularity — to the point that when a band was asked a band to do it, it was a real bad idea to say no — Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain, was going through a lot of personal turmoil, often with stories about him spilling into the press. After some loose rehearsals that had the "Unplugged" production staff wondering if the group was even going to show up, Nirvana ended up delivering a gorgeously rendered, heart-wrenching set that mixed its own catalog with a series of deliberate and pointed covers, with the band's version of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" becoming so ubiquitous it ended up sparking a surge of interest in Bowie's music. Initially airing in December of 1993, the actual album didn't become available until November of 1994, nearly six months after Cobain had taken his own life. In cold retrospect, many viewed Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" as a pained and veiled suicıde note via the songs he loved so much, but others felt that Cobain was simply rising to the occasion and giving us one of his best-recorded performances ever. Either way, it is a powerful document whose influence and legacy absolutely cannot be measured.

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[WORST] The Faith Evans + Notorious B.I.G. / "The King & I" (2017)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (10)

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Faith Evans is an undeniably talented vocalist whose career stands on its own outside of her relationship with The Notorious B.I.G. But "The King & I" is tantamount to robbing Christopher Wallace's grave — again. While she appeared on the ill-conceived 2005 record, "Duets: The Final Chapter," which gave us unnecessary reinventions of obscure B.I.G. cuts (it ends on a duet with KoRn, for example), "The King & I" basically amounts to a Faith Evans full-length that just so happens to have some Biggie verses scattered throughout. The album even cheats out at times, with Jamal Woolard, the actor who played Wallace in the 2009 biopic "Notorious," subbing in for the man himself during one interlude. As if that wasn't enough, this 25-track record has no less than seven official interludes, padding out an album that perhaps could've worked in some context but here just feels bloated, indulgent and shameless to the point of grave-robbing. Not only did "The King & I" have the lowest chart debut of Biggie's career, but it also had the lowest debut of Evans' as well. With any luck, time will forget this cash-in effort and remember only the certified classics Wallace intended to leave us.

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[BEST] Johnny Cash / "American V: A Hundred Highways" (2006)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (11)

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In the mid-'90s, Rick Rubin made a point to use all of his clout and production know-how to help create a comeback record for an artist who had long fallen out of commercial graces: the legendary Johnny Cash. The series of albums they created together, dubbed the "American" series, had Cash mix rare new songs with covers of artists from across the spectrum, Cash's aged and creaky voice imbuing other people's hits with a gravity that few artists could ever hope to achieve. The series reached its apex with 2002's "American IV: The Man Comes Around," which was anchored by Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," effectively reclaiming the song as one of his own and introducing The Man in Black to a whole new audience. Heck, he even scored an MTV Video Music Award nomination. Yet when Cash passed away in 2003, the world mourned the loss of a legend. "American V: A Hundred Highways", may not reach the lofty heights of its previous entry, but with the thundering "God's Gonna Cut You Down" and adept takes of songs from Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Springsteen, it still has the spark that defined the best of the "American" series.

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[BEST] Manic Street Preachers / "Journal for Plague Lovers" (2009)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (12)

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The Wales alternative rock titans known as Manic Street Preachers started with a far more punk-styled sound, but as they grew and moved more into radio rock waters (with their own spiky twist, of course), they started gaining a true cult following. Yet following the release of their angry opus, "The Holy Bible," in 1994 — itself inspired by guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards' personal struggles — Edwards simply disappeared one night in 1995. His body was never found, leaving the band in mourning and the 1996's "Everything Must Go" as the last record with Edwards' contributions. That album was a hit, but the band went on its own path for years. Yet after Edwards was declared dead in 2008, the group reconvened for a new album that featured nothing but Edwards' last-known lyrics, performed by the band and given a gritty sheen by Edwards' favorite producer, Steve Albini. The end result? "Journal for Plague Lovers" became one of the Manic Street Preachers' most critically lauded efforts, effectively setting them off on a new arc that not only established them as elder statesmen of the U.K. rock scene but also showed that they were as relevant as ever.

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[WORST] Avicii / "Tim" (2019)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (13)

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The world was stunned on April 20, 2018, to learn that Tim Bergling, better known to the world as the giant crossover DJ Avicii, had taken his own life at age 28. His acoustic-EDM hybrid single "Wake Me Up" was a global smash only a few years prior, and it allowed Avicii to carve out a distinct niche in the increasingly crowded bro-DJ scene. While he was working on a new album by the time of his passing, the end result, simply named "Tim," was cobbled together by friends and fellow musicians, and it is a pale imitation of what people thought Avicii was.

Going hard into the radio pop side of his sound, what's missing from "Tim" is the edge, because while he never leaned too hard into full bro-step histrionics, his songs at least had a strong basis in the dance realms first before even touching on pop considerations, which is why earlier tracks like "Waiting for Love" and "Street Dancer" were weird, sometimes even bordering on goofy. And therein lied the charm. "Tim" is extremely serious both in its tone and in its aim to make hits, as contributions from Coldplay and Imagine Dragons only further highlighted how much the record was moving beyond the Avicii sound that everyone fell in love with in the first place. That isn't to say there are some classic Avicii moments on here (we're looking at you, "Ain't a Thing [ft. Bonn]"), but it's certainly a disappointment to find out that Avicii's last record is the one that sounds the least like Avicii.

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[BEST] Gram Parsons / "Grievous Angel" (1974)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (14)

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Passing away from an overdose at age 26, Gram Parsons left the world far too soon, but even in his short quarter century of life, he managed to change the course of country music. From his early efforts with the International Submarine Band to founding The Flying Burrito Brothers to pushing The Byrds to create their masterpiece with 1968's "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," Gram Parsons was a rocker who just so happened to have a deep love of country music and pushed the two genres together at a time when such a hybrid was unthinkable. Although he didn't see a lot of success in his life, his solo debut, "G.P.," came out in early 1973 and was beloved by critics even if it failed to move units. Sadly, by the end of that year, Parsons would pass on, meaning he never got to see the world react to his 1974 masterpiece, "Grievous Angel". Expanding on his debut's dusty and tragic sound with deepening tales of loss and regret — aided once again by a pitch-perfect Emmylou Harris -- "Grievous Angel" would go on to be regarded as one of the finest country albums ever made and a reminder of a talent we lost far too soon.

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[WORST] Miles Davis / "Doo-Bop" (1992)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (15)

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Miles Davis is nothing short of a trailblazer, building up entire subgenres of jazz and tearing them down with equal fury, forcing jazz into rock music, funk music and other places where it seemingly didn't belong. His catalog has been dissected, analyzed, sampled and stolen from for decades, and in the later years of his life, he was still highly regarded even if his recorded output ranged from interesting to flat-out misguided. While some of his latter efforts made pop concessions, nothing feels as utterly wrong as hearing Davis play side-musician on his own album, which is exactly what happens on "Doo-Bop," his ill-advised hip-hop collaboration with rapper/producer Easy Mo Bee. Over staid and familiar rap beats, Davis' trumpet jumps in and out of drum hits without much force or care — it's mere coloring on the rest of the tracks. Sure, drum beats and some Miles Davis sax don't sound bad on paper, but when Easy Mo Bee starts rapping — and many of his raps are about how he's with Davis in the studio right now — the conceit gets real annoying real fast. Not every album has to be a masterpiece, but it's disappointing that for his final studio effort, Davis had his name attached to a record that frequently oscillates between bad and forgettable.

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[BEST] Roy Orbison / "Mystery Girl" (1989)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (16)

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No one would dare question Roy Orbison's status as a rock 'n' roll pioneer, but after his early success in the '60s, the years that followed were less kind to him commercially. Random covers of his classics from the likes of Don McLean and Van Halen introduced him to a new audience in the '80s, but the prominent placement of "In Dreams" in David Lynch's 1986 bizarro masterpiece "Blue Velvet" made Orbison cool in a brand new way. Soon, he's re-recording his hits, joining the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys and working on a comeback album — until he passed away from a heart attack at age 52. The music world mourned the loss of a mythological figure in the rock realm, and that grief soon turned into an outright celebration when his new record was previewed with a hot new single: the Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty co-write of a pop nugget that is "You Got It."

Featuring assistance from Bono and The Edge of U2, Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and the legendary T-Bone Burnett, "Mystery Girl" didn't so much attempt to chase trends as much as lovingly pay homage to Orbison's sound and influence, the record eventually moving a million copies and even netting a Grammy nomination for "You Got It." Some of the production may sound dated to today's ears, but Orbison's trembling vocal performances on tracks like "A Love So Beautiful" reminded us all why he is and will always be considered a legend.

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[BEST] Prince / "Piano and a Microphone 1983" (2018)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (17)

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Prince fans have eternally been torn as to how to deal with Prince's legacy following his passing in 2016. On one hand, despite reports of great infighting within his estate and rumors that his legendary vault didn't preserve his unreleased recordings as advertised, the expertly curated sets of material that have been unleashed upon the world are nothing short of extraordinary, ranging from deluxe editions of all-time classics like "Purple Rain" and "1999" to suddenly having his entire catalog available on streaming services. On the other hand, this isn't what the notoriously copyright-conscious Prince would've wanted at all. To point: There is no way he would ever authorize the release of a record as intimate and deliberately unpolished as "Piano and a Microphone 1983."

Off-the-cuff in a way Prince never was in public, "Piano" features just The Purple One and his keys, riffing through classic B-sides like "17 Days" and doodling around with tracks like "Purple Rain" and "International Lover," sometimes singing along with them, sometimes not. He even dotes around with covers of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" and the traditional "Mary, Don't You Weep," to say nothing of the other included songs that had never been released prior in any form. He sings through his teeth at points, hits stadium high notes at others, and he dances his hands around the scales like he's doing the piano a favor. We have never heard as deliberately enigmatic a figure as Prince sound this unguarded, and the result is nothing short of a revelation. We can only hope that his estate continues its dive into his archives to grant us glimpses into his genius as powerful as this.

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[WORST] TLC / "3D" (2002)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (18)

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When it initially came out, TLC's fourth full-length "3D" was greeted with acclaim, due in part to the fact that world was still grieving the tragic loss of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who passed away in a traffic accident in spring of 2002. While the group was going through some tension at the time — Lopes was working on a solo record following the "FanMail" world tour -- Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas finished the album to pay tribute to her and even featured some unreleased recordings, particularly on "Over Me", which includes a full "Left Eye" rap verse. Yet nearly a decade later, it is astonishing how utterly forgettable "3D" is. While "Girl Talk" was a minor hit, the rest of the album runs into a rut of bland, could've-been-recorded-by-anyone productions from Timbaland, Babyface nd Dallas Austin. Although the talent involved with "3D" is top-notch, the result is an upsettingly anonymous record, as there is no "TLC sound" here — just the sound of "2002". While the group was going through a lot at the time, it had the chance to make an impact or even a statement and ended up putting out their safest and blandest full-length.

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[BEST] The Notorious B.I.G. / "Life After Death" (1997)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (19)

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Chillingly titled, The Notorious B.I.G. was murdered less than three weeks before its release, giving many of the songs and narratives a whole new, harrowing meaning. (The opening title track literally ends with the sound of a flatline.) Yet since the rising rapper Christopher Wallace couldn't have possibly predicted his fate, "Life After Death" retains a swagger, a looseness and a celebratory vibe that won the world over, his lyrical skills and charisma nothing short of undeniable. Overflowing with samples from soul and rap greats (think the Ohio Players, Public Enemy, Diana Ross, and even Rod Stewart) and peak-era Puff Daddy production, "Life After Death" featured The Notorious B.I.G. at the absolute height of his powers, giving us rap staples like "Hypnotize," "Mo Money Mo Problems" and the most underrated single of his career, "Sky's the Limit." Radio hits are one thing, but this record also contained classic album tracks like "Notorious Thugs", "Playa Hater," and the eerie-beyond-words closer "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)." Deemed a classic the second it dropped, the only thing we could wish for this record was that Wallace himself got a chance to see how it changed the rap game forever.

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[WORST] Marvin Gaye / "Dream of a Lifetime" (1985)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (20)

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"Masochistic Beauty" is a song so ugly in tone and intention it's astonishing it was even released at all, upsetting even if given the half-hearted guise of a consensual S&M relationship. While 1982's "Midnight Love" saw Marvin change his sound to match with the times, netting a massive hit with the sultry "Sexual Healing," Motown struggled to figure out what to do following Gaye's tragic killing at the hands of his father in 1984. "Dream of a Lifetime" was assembled from a variety of sessions — some fully formed, others not — and the result is a jarring, upsetting send-off for the soul legend. Outside of the half-rapping on "Masochistic Beauty," there's odd tonal shifts from synths-and-drum-machine vibes to orchestral throwback Motown balladry, giving the record a feel of being cobbled together in a haste. Vocoders? A song so crude that it had to be retitled "Sanctified Lady"? A meandering seven-minute epic about religion called "Life's Opera"? Any love you have for Gaye and his work all but evaporates in listening to "Dream of a Lifetime," a meandering mess that does more to ruin his legacy than add anything to it.

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[BEST] Janis Joplin / "Pearl" (1971)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (21)

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While Big Brother & The Holding Company's 1968 record "Cheap Thrills" immediately established Janis Joplin as a vocal powerhouse who could cover any song and make it her own, it was "Pearl" that cemented her status as a true legend, even if she didn't live long enough to see it. Recorded with her new group, The Full Tilt Boogie Band, there's a lively nature to "Pearl," as guitarists toss in fun little bonus riffs and organ trills with the band doing its best to capture the emotion in the moment. Yet at the end of the day, it's Joplin's name on the cover, and here she does not disappoint.

Featuring two new co-writes from Joplin (just like with "Cheap Thrills") and a series of pitch-perfect covers, "Pearl" shows Joplin not only stretching her scratchy vocal growl to new heights, but it also shows her pulling back and restraining herself when she needs to, with both ends of this spectrum captured perfectly on her definitive take of "Me & Bobby McGee." That song and "Pearl" itself both became chart-toppers, and it's clear to see why: There's a sense of joy and fun that radiates off this record. When she gets to the acapella "Mercedes Benz," it's clear that Joplin has crafted yet another standard, showing us there's almost no limit to her talents as a writer or performer. At the end of the original vinyl A-side is "Buried Alive in the Blues," a song that's instrumental only because she passed away right before she was going to record vocals for it. While it's easy to imagine what she would've done with the number, that track is still surrounded by more than enough examples of Joplin's incredible gifts.

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[BEST] Joy Division / "Closer" (1980)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (22)

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Two months before the release of "Closer," Joy Division's sophomore effort, singer and lyricist Ian Curtis took his own life at age 23, shocking the band on the day they it was about to start a tour of North America. While Curtis certainly had his demons, it's hard not to view the cryptic, brooding "Closer" as Curtis' way of working through his issues, confronting death and also his failing marriage amid the band's tight, paranoid backing. Arguably the most "post-punk" album there ever was (save, of course, for the band's 1979 debut, "Unknown Pleasures"), raw guitar fuzz and repeating bass lines create a terse atmosphere where Curtis pours (and shouts) his feelings out. "This is the crisis I knew had to come," he sings on "Passover,<" "Destroying the balance I'd kept / Turning around to the next set of lives / Wondering what will come next."

So deliberate in its pacing and tone, the band was even running high off the success of its poppy one-off single "Love Will Tear Us Apart," which explicitly wasn't included on "Closer" as it had no thematic place amid the rest of the masterfully chilling tracks. Following Curtis' passing, the rest of the band ended up moving on and forming New Order, and while that was a hugely successful outfit on its own, the boys' legacy still stands squarely on the shoulders of "Closer," one of the most influential albums of the '80s.

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[WORST] Queen / "Made in Heaven" (1995)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (23)

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Let's gather around and be honest with each other for a second: With only a handful of exceptions, Queen was never an album's band, 1975's "A Night at the Opera" withstanding. Its albums had a wild variety of styles contained within, largely because the group was comprised of songwriters of different castes. Yet at the end of the day, as disparate as the parts were, the band always knew how to release impactful, layered, striking singles that sounded like they were from a unified creative unit. Following frontman Freddie Mercury's passing in 1991 due to complications from AIDS, the rest of the band took some time off before coming back together and looking at the vocal and piano scraps that Mercury hadn't gotten around to finishing. The album that was crafted out of those pieces, "Made in Heaven," was comprised of an astonishing bland series of ballads, mid-tempo numbers and oddball experiments that showed how out of touch the band was with the current zeitgeist.

When Mercury seductively whispers the title of the moody, synth-based song "Mother Love" at us, it's a moment that's unintentionally hilarious, and points to the larger quality control issues the band ran into: Just because there were some performances laying around doesn't mean every one of them has to become a song. In a somewhat desperate move, the other members start taking lead vocals at times (they're adequate, but no Mercury), but this only ends up further diminishing the band's legacy. If you listen to this record straight through, you may leave the album not retaining a single melodic memory of what you just heard. Fear not: Queen has no less than 14 earlier albums you can indulge in at any time.

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[BEST] Elliott Smith / "From a Basement on the Hill" (2004)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (24)

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It's hard not to look at "From a Basement on the Hill," folk artist Elliott Smith's sixth full-length, through the prism of his passing. While he was never afraid to put his personal struggles in lyrical context, "Basement" is at times downright confrontational about its subject matter, the chorus of "Strung Out Again" even going as far as to say that "I know my place / Hate my face / I know how I begin / And how I'll end / Strung out again." Initially intended as a double album, Smith's estate helped put the finished recordings together with the help of producers and friends, resulting in a record that is certainly unfinished but still beautifully rendered. While he had been growing in his sonic confidence since 2000's "Figure 8." the thundering rock sounds of opener "Coast to Coast" (that's The Flaming Lips' Steven Drozd absolutely pummeling the drums) and the winsome pop of closer "A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free" showcased just how much Smith had grown in his artistry, even if a song as low-key catchy as "A Fond Farewell" freely associates with topics like suicıde. It's a harrowing, sometimes difficult document, but still a remarkable one. We could be sad about the loss of his spirit, but to hear him tell it on the album, "This is not my life / Just a fond farewell to a friend."

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[BEST] Bob Marley / "Confrontation" (1983)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (25)

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When Bob Marley passed away in 1981, nearly a year after the release of his last album, "Uprising," there were several demos and overall unfinished tracks laying around that were in various stages of completion but certainly not anywhere near any sort of coherent or completed form. Thus, with various overdubs and the addition of backing vocals from the I-Threes, an album was cobbled together, but few knew if "Confrontation" would hold up to his other classic reggae records. As it turns out, "Confrontation" more than holds up to the rest of his discography, featuring some classic tracks like "Blackman Redemption," "Mix Up, Mix Up" and easily the set's most famous number, "Buffalo Soldier." The following year, "Buffalo Soldier" ended up making its way on to the compilation album "Legend," which went on to become the single best-selling reggae album of all time.

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[WORST] John Lennon / "Milk and Honey" (1984)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (26)

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Sometimes artists don't live to see their masterpieces. Other times, it's up to the business managers and friends to assemble a finished product out of the scraps that were lying around. Yet sometimes the passing of an artist completely alters the trajectory of the work, as was the case with 1980's "Double Fantasy," a record that was credited to John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono. Critics viewed Lennon's laid-back portrait of wedded bliss as awfully one-sided, but three weeks after its release, Lennon was murdered, and the outpouring of grief from the world was enough to not only embrace "Double Fantasy" but also give it Grammy for Album of the Year. "Milk and Honey" is basically the leftovers from the same sessions, and Lennon's vocal takes are unpolished, sometimes rambling and often backed by extremely cheap-sounding instrumentation.

Per tradition, the songs switch between John and Yoko's vocals almost every other track, but numbers like Yoko's short lament "O' Sanity" and Lennon's mawkish "(Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess" truly feel tossed off and hazily scrawled, the leftovers from sessions that were already uneven to begin with. In the context of his passing, there is a clear love of Lennon's body of work that helped fuel interest in "Double Fantasy" and "Milk and Honey", but decades removed from its release, we can say that "Milk and Honey," while well intentioned, is not a great record.

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[BEST] Gord Downie / "Introduce Yerself" (2017)

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (27)

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The Tragically Hip was Canada's rock band, full stop. Filling the airwaves with upbeat, thoughtful pop-rock numbers, the group crafted beloved, chart-topping albums starting back in 1989 with "Up to Here." Yet following a diagnosis of a terminal brain tumor in late 2015, frontman and songwriter Gord Downie decided to go out on his own terms, finishing one last album with The Hip, performing one last concert with them (that was viewed by over 10 million Canadians) and worked on what would be his final solo recordings. "Introduce Yerself", a double-disc set intended to have songs inspired by important people in his life, was released only 10 days after his passing in October 2017.

Produced by Broken Social Scene frontman Kevin Drew (who just a few years gave another Canadian treasure, Andy Kim, a similar assist), the sparse, tender and intentional "Introduce Yerself" is one part mournful, one part joyous and all parts relatable. Dramatic to a fault, it's a sweet love letter that feels carefully considered, even if a bit overlong. That didn't stop his fans from caring though, as following the album's release, it ended up going straight to No. 1, Gord's first time doing so as a solo artist. A perfectly fitting gesture for a life fully lived and fully loved.

Evan Sawdey is the Interviews Editor at PopMatters and is the host of The Chartographers, a music-ranking podcast for pop music nerds. He lives in Chicago with his wonderful husband and can be found on Twitter at @SawdEye.

Great (and not-so-great) albums released posthumously (2024)

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