Are Posthumous Albums Ethical?

With the second posthumous album from Juice WRLD now released to the public, I along with plenty of Juice WRLD fans are prepared for the young legend to dominate our music listening diets once again as he did a year ago. The release of Fighting Demons, the second posthumous album in Juice WRLD’s discography kicks off what fans are calling Juice WRLD Week as the documentary, Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss is set to be released December 16th on HBO Max. With all the new Juice WRLD content, the fan within me is ecstatic however, the music analyst and idealist sides of me constantly weigh the pros and cons of releasing an artist’s work posthumously.

This is an interesting topic as we’ve seen lots of music from deceased artists be released recently. On one hand, discographies can be boosted by posthumous albums with Pop Smoke’s Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, undoubtedly standing as the most successful within the late Drill rapper’s discography. On the other hand, when labels don’t know when to quit fans are stuck with unsavory albums like Faith, the second posthumous album in Pop Smoke’s discography. Unfortunately, fans have routinely witnessed impressive discographies of now-deceased artists such as XXXTENTACION’s become soiled by poorly curated and ultimately poorly received posthumous projects such as Skins. 

The concept of a posthumous album is interesting because it can provide fans a glimpse of what an artist was planning before their untimely passing. Behind every work of art is a vision and a posthumous album may be fans’ last serving of whatever tangible amount of the artist’s vision. However, the varying amounts of output before the artist ultimately passed has a huge influence on how much work may need to be put into creating a full concrete album by others who may not fully understand the artist’s vision. If we’re being honest nobody aside from the artist fully understands the vision until it becomes real. This can make the concept of posthumous albums dangerous. What is the appropriate amount of skepticism to have when diving into a new body of work from a deceased artist?

With Juice WRLD being a well-known studio rat able to finish tracks in one take, there’s a high chance that many of the tracks being released by the Chicago rapper’s team were finished by him. The number of unreleased Juice WRLD tracks was reported to be a towering 2,000 at the time of the rapper’s death, which can give his team a lot of flexibility when compiling his posthumous albums. While finished tracks equate to an artist completing their vision for the span of two to five minutes, it doesn’t equate to the artist’s vision being tangible throughout an album.

The sequencing of an album is the difference between an album being considered in the running for album of the year or being forgotten in two weeks. With this being the case, the great artists understand how important creating a cohesive body of work is and are immensely tactful in their selection of songs. The sequencing of Juice WRLD’s Goodbye & Good Riddance makes the album a modern classic before you introduce the existence of megahits like ‘Lucid Dreams’ and lesser-known but quality tracks like ‘Used To.’

So, does that high level of sequencing carry on throughout Juice WRLD’s catalog? I’d say yes, arguing that both Legends Never Die and Fighting Demons are two of the best sequenced posthumous albums I’ve heard. Through this, it’s clear that Juice WRLD’s team has enough understanding of how to compile a quality posthumous album that mirrors the vision Juice WRLD placed on display for his fans throughout two solo projects and one collab project with Future.

Recentering around the thesis of whether posthumous albums are ethical, I’d say the answer is a case-by-case basis. With every posthumous album comes a new chance for fans to collectively mourn the death and celebrate the legacy of their favorite artist. However, the key distinguishing trait between an ethical posthumous album and an unethical one is taste. Was the album clearly done with good taste or was it treated as a money grab by greedy labels trying to squeeze every nickel and penny out of their once-living cash cow? 

From the outside looking in, I feel confident in saying that the Juice WRLD albums have been handled with tremendous amounts of care, with Juice WRLD’s team starting and scrapping projects with the idea of quality in mind. From the fan perspective, it sucks for something you’ve been waiting for to be canceled, leading to moments of fan outrage directed towards Juice WRLD’s team. However, with Legends Never Die and Fighting Demons, Juice WRLD’s team is now two for two with posthumous albums and that’s all that should matter at the end of the day.

The second posthumous album from Pop Smoke, Faith is an example of what an album from a deceased artist being treated as a money grab looks like. With lots of unreleased Pop Smoke verses being featured on the tracks of other artists throughout 2020, there wasn’t much left in Pop Smoke’s discography to tastefully compile another posthumous album for the Brooklyn Drill icon in 2021. The lack of Pop Smoke verses can be pointed to as the reason Faith was so saturated with features as the number of artists making cameos throughout the album’s original twenty tracks stood at around twenty. Additionally, with Pop Smoke being so open in past interviews about how picky he was with who he worked with, the inclusion of names like Dua Lipa ultimately left a bad taste in the mouths of Pop Smoke fans. With all the issues surrounding Faith, what was supposed to be another celebration of Pop Smoke’s legacy quickly shifted into outrage that Pop Smoke’s posthumous tracks weren’t curated with the care the young Drill legend deserved.

Posthumous music will continue to remain a touchy subject for music fans and rightfully so. When the decision is made to honor the legacy of a widely loved figure, the emphasis on care and tact must come with it. When the emphasis on care and tact are present throughout the process of compiling posthumous music, fans can fully appreciate the artist’s genius, taking the energy they would’ve spent on making the labels feel their wrath and placing that energy into the collective celebration of the now-deceased artist.