The last time Prince released a new album, the world barely noticed. Hit n Run Phase Two came out to thundering indifference on December 12, 2015. The follow-up to the no less obscure Hit n Run Phase One was initially exclusive to Jay-Z’s Tidal streaming platform. It would not be available in a physical format until May 2016, two weeks after the mercurial singer suffered a fatal painkiller overdose.
Prince’s latest record, Welcome 2 America, has received a more enthusiastic response. The first “new” Prince LP to be shared with the world since his passing, it has received a bells and whistles roll-out. There are multiple formats: CD, vinyl, clear vinyl. And, for diehard fans, a €150 vinyl deluxe edition featuring exclusive poster and “embossed vellum envelope of limited edition memorabilia”.
The critical consensus has been largely upbeat. The New York Times praised Welcome 2 America’s “hard insights with visceral joys”; the NME heralded it as a project that “speaks to today’s problems and demands to be heard”. Yet amid the acclaim and impressive sales remains a knotty moral conundrum. Should Welcome 2 America have seen daylight in the first place?
Prince recorded it in 2010, ostensibly as a tie-in with his Welcome 2 series of tours. He then shelved the album and did not include any of the material on his Welcome 2 setlists. For a musician not shy about putting out new songs — he released more than 35 studio LPs in his lifetime — it feels reasonable to conclude that Prince had his reasons for keeping it under wraps. Is it ethical for his estate and his record company to go against his wishes?
This is not a new debate. The rapper Tupac Shakur put out four studio LPs when he was alive and six after his fatal shooting. For as long as rock stars have been shuffling off this mortal coil, labels have looked on death as a once-in-a-lifetime marketing opportunity. Isn’t it time they stopped making seance?
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It would be easy to regard the practice as another case of the music business at its tawdry, exploitative worst. There is, however, a counter-argument: that posthumous records can put a new gloss on an artist’s legacy. One example is Cork-raised blues guitarist Rory Gallagher. On his death in June 1995, the Leeside icon’s old-school blues rock had fallen out of fashion. Gallagher, 47, felt like a musician trapped in another place and time. He was as cutting edge as Babycham or fluffy dice on a Ford Capri.
Three decades on, Gallagher has been thoroughly rehabilitated and is regarded as one of the great virtuosos of his generation. Slash from Guns N’ Roses and Johnny Marr from the Smiths are fans. Gallagher’s sales have flourished too. In 2019 Blues, a compilation of unreleased recordings and “lost” radio sessions, debuted at No 4 in the album charts. In March 2020, a Gallagher live LP, Check Shirt Wizard, peaked at 26 in the UK. An equally enthusiastic reception will no doubt be afforded to the forthcoming 50th anniversary deluxe version of his 1971 solo debut, Rory Gallagher.
Everything comes back into fashion eventually. Perhaps it was inevitable Gallagher would one day be rediscovered. Yet it is equally undeniable that the resurgence in his popularity is, to some degree, a result of the steady stream of fresh Gallagher material. Had his estate shuttered the vault in 1995, it might not have happened. Not every artist has the chance to make an impact while alive. And not every posthumous release is shameless grave-robbing.