Liam Kenney Core Post 5

 Although not the main focus of the article, I was really interested in the discussion of the explosion of popularity and marketing around Selena after her unfortunate and horrific murder. Over the last few years, the topic of posthumous releases and money being made off of artists after their death has found its way to the hot seat. In Frances Aparicio’s piece on Selena, he uses the phrase “published like fast food,” in reference to how much media was released in the wake of Selena’s murder is perfectly emblematic of how messy the ownership of work and image is when a star dies. It’s tragic to read how the loss of Selena affected so many people who were attached to her as a trailblazer both in her specific genre of music and as a “ ‘Latina’ cultural figure,” and I think it points to why people were so quick to try and make money off the massive publicity attached to her death.

    Today, the moral quandary of releasing work after the death of an artist has been blurred, as it’s now commonplace to see re-editions or snippets of unfinished music being published to milk every last dime out of an artist’s catalog. Rappers Mac Miller and Pop Smoke, both saw successful albums release after their untimely deaths, even in the midst of controversy around the release of posthumous music. In 2018, Drake released a song with unreleased Michael Jackson’s vocals on it, paying an undisclosed but likely six to seven figure amount to secure the vocals for his song. 

If Selena was a modern artist I wonder how her death might have been handled differently, especially in the amount of content produced about her life. Even more recently, AI recreations of voices and images have become a new battlefield of debate, although seemingly one with an obviously correct side. For a musician, I think releasing work that they weren’t able to sign off on is a frankly inappropriate and immoral thing to do, and It was a little disheartening to see how grieving fans were taken advantage of in the years following Selena’s murder. 

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