Some of The Best Songs By Recently Dead People

I say "recently" because there are a ton of dead people throughout time, and I doubt I will be writing about some singing bard from the Middle Ages.

I was supposed to do this before Halloween. Sorry!

Let's start with Amy Winehouse and her melancholic break-up anthem, "Back to Black."

What makes his gut-wrenching is the decision to film it at a funeral. So watching it now when Amy has been dead for two years is unsettling, to say the least. Classic tale of substance abuse destroying a person full of potential. 

Wilco's Jay Bennett-

It's easy to gloss over Jay's death now, but Wilco is a great American rock band and Jay deserves to be remembered.

Ah, man. Learning of Adam from the Beastie Boys' death was quite a shock. Hopefully, he's kicking it in the afterlife.

There are a myriad of dead musicians, you know. So I'm trying to stay away from people like John Lennon and Kurt Cobain. Albeit, they are legends, it's just- you kind of expect me to post about them, you know?

Oh my God do I love Laura Branigan. I know, she's so cheesey and 1980s-tastic. But do I care? NO. Her voice was fantastic, her songs were catchy as fuck and produced fabulously, and back in the 1980s she was hot! Actually she aged well- her husband died in 1996 and in 2004, Laura succumbed to cancer at the age of 47.

If you vaguely like Britpop, you MUST get your hands on "Draw." Matthew Jay's career ended before it began- in 2003, just as he was starting to pick up buzz, he fell out of a window to his death. 

Lou Reed recently left us- but man, did you see that obit Laurie Anderson wrote for him? Anyway, I know I have been posting about him a lot, but I'm still shocked he's gone. Some people you never think will die. 

Jay Reatard...was an interesting guy, to say the least!

I know I didn't even really hit the tip of the iceberg on deceased musicians, but these guys all brought to us some joy (or something!) for some time and therefore, are awesome- and dearly missed.

Feel free to comment on what your choice(s) would have been!