Theses artists are gone, but their musical legacies live on — sometimes with a little help from fellow artists. Here are the best and the rest of this year’s posthumous albums (and one that might as well have been):
TINNITIST’S PICK
Leonard Cohen
Thanks For the Dance
WHO IS HE? Field Commander Cohen. Your man. A ladies man — hell, THE ladies’ man. See also: The Buddhist who dressed like one of The Blues Brothers. The folk-poet laureate of Montreal. And the singer-songwriter who parlayed his former manager’s egregious embezzlement into one of the most celebrated and successful involuntary comebacks in music.
WHAT IS THIS? The golden-voiced master’s stunning 15th studio album and first posthumous release, featuring leftover vocal “sketches” that have been fleshed out into exquisite songs by son Adam Cohen and a VIP cast including Beck, Jennifer Warnes, Damien Rice, Leslie Feist and longtime sideman Javier Mas.
WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE? Far more coherent, consistent and complete than you might have thought. As the younger Cohen explains, he and his father had discussed these songs before Leonard died in 2016. Cohen’s penchant for simple melodies, sparse arrangements, sombre moods and repetitive lyrics surely didn’t hurt either. But even so, unless you knew the backstory, you could very easily assume these were fully finished tracks he left behind.
READ THE FULL REVIEW AND HEAR THE ALBUM HERE
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Avicii | Tim
Glenn Branca | The Third Ascension
JJ Cale | Stay Around
Cassius | Dreems
The Cranberries | In The End
Lil Peep | Everybody’s Everything
Nils Lofgren | Blue With Lou (Don’t worry, Nils is fine, but he wrote these songs with Lou Reed)
Harry Nilsson | Losst and 
Founnd
Prince | Originals
Prince | 1999 Super Deluxe Edition
Purple Mountains | Purple Mountains (Released three weeks before the death of singer-songwriter David Berman)
XXXTentacion | Bad Vibes Forever
TO FIND REVIEWS OF THESE ALBUMS, PLEASE USE THE SEARCH WINDOW AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE
