It is fitting this time of year, with All Hallow’s Eve looming ahead, that the dead are rising from their graves.
And, it seems, they have come not to devour human flesh, but to release records.
“From A Basement On A Hill” is the title of the stunning new album from Elliot Smith, the brilliant, tragedy-stricken singer/songwriter who died just over a year ago. Smith either committed suicide, somehow stabbing himself twice in the heart, or was murdered by his girlfriend, depending on which story you believe. Either way, he is, in fact, no longer living.
Yet, somehow, a year later, the record he was working on until his death has been finished and released, thanks, in part, to the magic of digital editing.
In Smith’s case, those responsible for seeing the fruition of his creative effort have done so with due respect, giving the uninformed a clear reminder of why his work was so important to begin with.
So now, to them, I say simply: please stop.
“From A Basement On A Hill” is the final Elliot Smith record, and we know this, because he is now quite incapable of creating any more music. But, the skeptical curmudgeon in me knows that, somewhere down the line, someone will discover Smith’s “lost” recordings, and see fit to finish those as well.
I have plenty of reason to suspect this, because the trend is nothing new.
The leader of this movement is Jimi Hendrix, who has been extremely busy since his death in 1970, issuing a staggering 58 commercial releases from beyond the grave. Because of Hendrix’s lack of creative input, most of these have been shaky live recordings or sub-par studio alternates, neither of which do justice to the legendary axeman’s more than significant legacy.
Sublime has also been quite active since the 1996 heroin overdose of vocalist/guitarist/the-only-guy-in-the-band-who-writes-tunes Bradley Nowell. There have been six new Sublime collections since then, one of which audaciously combines half the songs from each of their two studio efforts onto one disc.
This is also the case with Johnny Cash, whose distastefully-titled “Cash Unearthed” set was released shortly after his death. This collection featured several songs recorded as sparse demos in the living room of producer Rick Rubin. However, with an artist as prolific as Cash, one would suspect that if he intended for anyone to hear them, he would have put them out himself.
However, these offenses are slightly forgivable. After all, producers of these collections aren’t really speaking for the dead, merely repackaging their work or exhuming, no pun intended, previously unissued recordings.
But, the hip-hop game is much different, since the cut-and-paste simplicity of the genre’s bare bones allows eager producers to do just about anything with a voice once it’s laid on tape.
Just ask the Notorious B.I.G., who died in 1997, but still turns up on rising rappers’ tracks, adding an often star-making cameo appearance alongside artists that, in some cases, he never even met while he was alive.
Tupac Shakur’s corpse has also been propped up behind a mic repeatedly since his death in 1996. No fewer than 11 2Pac releases have surfaced since he passed away, including a live disc released earlier this year. His ever-expanding catalog is always reliable for easy sale, so chances are his discography will continue to grow.If we consider how modern many of these posthumous hip-hop releases sound, it’s easy to determine that not only is the music being presented in a way that the artists never envisioned, but they probably never even heard most of the tracks their vocals appear on.
For too long, we have endured record companies’ greed-induced pillaging of our favorite passed musicians’ graves. These shoddily constructed collections have been assembled without creative input from the artists named on the package, yet are solicited as genuine releases.
Even with Elliot Smith’s record, which was reportedly largely finished when he died, further work has been done to the songs to prepare them for release, so we have no guarantee that we are hearing this work the way he intended us to.
Smith left behind more than enough music to indicate his genius, and his fans are surely happy with the catalog they have to remember him by. Let’s not sully his good name like we have with so many other fallen stars.
We’re smart enough to know that dead men tell no tales, and they certainly don’t sing songs.
Ultimately, it probably is better that true fans get to hear the material, because, in Smith’s case, it only solidifies his reputation. But, I mean it, we better never get another new Elliot Smith record.
We all want our favorite artists to live on forever, but, even without a slew of crappy post-mortem knockoffs, the truly great ones leave us with enough to make that possible.
Although, it’s probably a bit hypocritical for the Campus Times to print this. After all, I died in 2002.
Taylor Kingsbury, a senior journalism major, is a columnist for the Campus Times. He can be reached by e-mail at happyendingrocks@hotmail.com.
