| Is
the music industry guilty of making money from the dead? |
| Posted: January 15th, 2002 |
| By:
Colin Coates |
 |
The unfortunate and untimely death of Aaliyah
some time ago was a tragedy that touched many people, may her soul
rest in peace, or will it? Her single currently tops the charts, there
are promotional posters all over the country and you could easily
forget that she has actually passed away. Is it right for the music
industry to financially clean up in these circumstances? |
It is never nice to hear that someone has passed
away in a tragic accident but when that person is a pop star or famous
person the tragedy is repeatedly magnified on the TV, radio and every
other media. In fact you see so much of the person that it’s sometimes
hard to believe that they are actually dead. It was only a matter
of time before some unscrupulous music producers capitalise off the
emotion garnered from the tragic passing away of one or more of their
signed artists.
For the most obvious and daring example we must look towards Death
Row records and their superstar rap artist 2Pac Shakur who for years
while still alive sold millions of CD’s.
His untimely and tragic death was a massive blow to the music industry
and fans alike but that obviously wasn’t good enough for his record
label. So what did they do? They simply carried on releasing his pre
recorded and unreleased tracks.
For all we know there could still be more album releases to come from
a artist that died years ago and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist
to work out who stands to pocket all the spoils of these unfortunate
deaths, that’s right the giant record label. They will say that they
are releasing these tracks in remembrance and I’m sure that most of
us will agree with that, we all want to commemorate and have something
to remember about great people that brought happiness into our lives
with their music.
What we don’t want to see is a media circus that disrespects their
deaths by pretending that they are actually still alive and kicking,
churning out No.1 CD’s like never before.
What I would like to know is where will the profits of the money go?
What will it be used for? Will the money go to a favourite charity
of the deceased artist? Or will it be used to reinvest in the community
from which they originated? We don’t know the true answers to these
questions so before we buy these tracks we really need to ask ourselves
“how will the profits be used to respectfully remember the dead artist?”
If we don’t ask this question we would be making a music industry
that wishes for the untimely deaths of artists that mean so much to
us alive. |
|
|
Search
The Web
Search
Amazon