Marley, Alliyah and LennonLONDON, (Reuters):
FROM R&B singer Aaliyah, to former Beatle George Harrison, the 2002 hit parade certainly has proved the pop cynics right -- death is a great career move.
Two years before his death from a drug overdose in 1970, legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix provided the ultimate epitaph for rock stars whose sales soar beyond the grave: "Once you're dead, you're made for life."
From John Lennon to Elvis Presley, from Jim Morrison to Kurt Cobain, the music really does live on. The cash registers keep ringing well after the bell has stopped tolling.
And the old adage is truer than ever today.
Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in the Bahamas last August, went straight to the top of the U.S. album charts. Now her single More Than A Woman is number one in Britain.
But on Sunday, she looked set to be toppled by My Sweet Lord, George Harrison's 1971 hit that has been re-released as a tribute to the Beatle, who died of cancer in November.
"I am not sure this has ever happened before -- two (posthumous) hits in a row," said Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for the HMV chain of music stores.
He challenged accusations that fans were morbid and the music business was jumping on the bandwagon.
"When you consider how music touches people's lives, it is a natural way to celebrate somebody," he said.
"EMI resisted attempts to bring something out immediately. They felt it would be properly reflective to bring it out in the New Year as a charity record," he said.
All proceeds are going to the Material World Foundation, set up in 1973 by Harrison to support agencies worldwide that support poverty-stricken
children.
Reflecting on the phenomenon, Hannah Verdier of the pop music magazine, Smash Hits, told Reuters: "There is nothing deep behind it. It's just a case of 'I remember that song and I really like it'. It reminds people of what good music it was."
A spokeswoman at the British Phonographic Industry trade body agreed. "It is nice to mark the fact that Harrison was such an influential artist. It was a fantastic song and a lot of younger people who weren't around will be exposed for the first time."
The trade paper, Music Week, listing the previous posthumous chart toppers in Britain, showed what an eclectic group they are - Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Jackie Wilson and Freddie Mercury.
"We know the dead sell. Jimi Hendrix still shifts 20,000 albums a week," said Mike Shalett, founder of the New York-based company, SoundScan, that helps to compile the U.S. album charts.
Bob Marley, who died of melanoma and brain cancer in 1981 at the age of 36, is still the best-selling reggae artiste in the world. Presley was reported to have sold 300 million albums in the first seven years after his death.
And now there is even talk of an album hit parade for the deceased. "But we don't know what to call the chart. It's a tough one," Shalett told the Scottish Daily Record
newspaper.
