Posthumous Popularity Potential / Music

Posthumous Popularity Potential in the musical field; perhaps its oldest and best-known domain.

• Aaliyah was a rising star in the R&B genre and it was predicted she would become even bigger after her film debut in Romeo Must Die. But she had a growing Hype Backlash that said she owed more to her beauty and Timbaland's production than to real musical merit. Since her death at the age of 22 in a plane crash, she's been remembered as a great singer who died too soon. In fact, many R&B singers who became famous in the 2000s like Beyoncé, Ciara, Zendaya, etc. cited her as their idol. She's still glorified to this day.
• Swedish DJ and producer Avicii had initially hit it big with songs such as 2011's "Levels" and 2013's "Wake Me Up", with even more songs such as "Addicted to You", "Seek Bromance", and "Hey Brother" becoming very well-known songs in the electronic music world. However, Avicii's career and reputation had hit a low point after the release of his sophomore album Stories, with few artists mentioning him, and with outspoken critics such as deadmau5 criticizing his lack of variety in his work. After his tragic suicide at the age of 28 in April 2018, however, Avicii's popularity skyrocketed once again, with many people praising his influence in the dance music industry (in particular, the way he combined electronic music styles with country music on his debut album), and how he passed away too soon. In late April of 2018, "Levels", "Wake Me Up" and "Hey Brother" re-entered the UK Top 100 Singles Chart.
• Johann Sebastian Bach was a respected organist during his lifetime, but he was not widely recognized as a skilled composer until after his death. Few of his works were even published while he was alive.
• Paul Baloff of Exodus was often considered a poor singer with too much anger and no control over his voice during his lifetime. After his death, having sung on only one studio album and one live album, he was widely praised for his raw, chaotic vocal style, as well as his enthusiasm for thrash metal.
• The Beatles:
  • Since his tragic assassination in 1980, John Lennon has become acclaimed. His album Double Fantasy, did go gold before Lennon died, as David Geffen told John when Geffen dropped by the recording studio on the night of Dec. 8, but it is possible that it wouldn't have won that Grammy — reviews published in the three weeks between the album's release and Lennon's murder were lukewarm. Ironically enough, he often spoke of this reaction in interviews prior to his death. After his so-called "lost weekend" Lennon took in LA, where he was separated from Yoko and went on an alcoholic binge, leading to some embarrassing behavior around 1973-75, he reunited with Yoko, straightened himself out, and took a five-year hiatus from the music industry to raise his son Sean. Lennon commented in interviews that the fact he did not die in Los Angeles meant that critics were free to take shots at his music, but had he died, everyone would be praising him and feeling empathy with his music and messages. Following the news of his death, Lennon's single "(Just Like) Starting Over" topped the charts in the US and the UK.
  • Paul McCartney's late wife Linda Eastman had often been ridiculed by members of the rock press and certain music fans as a mediocre talent in both music and photography, a punchline in many sexist "jokes" like "What do you call a cow with wings", etc., right up until the time of her death from breast cancer in 1998. Since then, and especially in the light of the Heather Mills drama, she has been reassessed as a songwriter and performer and a critical force in the band Wings and Paul's solo groups; her solo efforts as compiled by Paul on the posthumous album Wide Prairie has received critical acclaim. Her photography and environmentalism have been better appreciated as well.
  • George Harrison has also been a beneficiary of this effect since his death in 2001. Suddenly people remembered why songs like "My Sweet Lord" and "Crackerbox Palace" had been so popular in their day. Additionally, George had been an object of frequent derision for his unabashedly religious music and for the red tape issues surrounding The Concert for Bangladesh. After his death, his spirituality became a point of respect, and he was hailed as being compassionate enough to "invent" the benefit concert. (Incidentally, his death made front-page news in Bangladesh itself.)
• Linkin Park was an enormously successful and influential band, but they were frequently mocked for their Nu Metal roots and their emotional lyrics, which became synonymous with overblown teen angst to the point where the phrase "crawling in my skin" became a meme used to mock Emo Teens. What's more, their latest album, 2017's One More Light, was suffering major critical and fan backlash due to their more pop-influenced sound, and lead singer Chester Bennington took the brunt of it for his defense of the album and angry retorts at fans. Bennington's suicide in July 2017, just two months after his close friend Chris Cornell's (on the latter's birthday, no less), led to vindication of the new album (especially its title track, whose lyrics rang Harsher in Hindsight) and former fans reevaluating the band as a whole, as well as increased activism for mental health issues.
• Big Star would probably never have become one of the most influential Power Pop bands if founding guitarist Chris Bell, half of the driving force of #1 Record, hadn't died at the young age of 27. This was further reinforced when Alex Chilton (the other guitarist and songwriter) passed away in March 2010, with original bassist Andy Hummel also passing away 3 months later.
• Big L's second album The Big Picture, published a year after his death in 1999, went Gold and was L's most successful album, especially compared to his first album Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous, the only one released when he was still alive.
• Legendary British singer Cilla Black got her first number one album after dying of injuries after falling from her balcony in 2015.
• Jeff Buckley's death has caused an enormous interest in his music and made his first posthumous album Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk sell far better than it would have in normal circumstances.
• Cliff Burton, the dead bassist of Metallica, has achieved legendary status within the heavy metal world. Probably because, back in 1986, he died when the tour bus slid on black ice, flipped over, and crushed him. The fact that, when they were lifting the tour bus up with a crane after the accident, they accidentally dropped it back onto him did not help.
• Although the brother-and-sister duo The Carpenters were one of the biggest-selling acts of the early seventies, they were consistently savaged by critics for allegedly making bland, whitebread pop that was hopelessly out of step with the times. After the tragic death of Karen Carpenter in 1983, and the release of a tribute album by several alternative rock bands in the mid-nineties, the group's reputation improved, with Karen in particular being recognized as an exceptionally talented singer and an inventive drummer.
• Eva Cassidy may have never actively sought out fame and a stable career in the music business, she nonetheless was relatively unknown outside her home state of Washington D.C. when she passed away from skin cancer in 1996 at the age of 33. She released a collaborative album with Chuck Brown entitled The Other Side in 1992 with her own arrangements of classics like "God Bless the Child" and "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and won a couple of local music awards, but nothing else. Two years after her death, a compilation album, Songbird, was made, which sold over 100,000 copies over the following months. A British music show then aired a poignant, Deliberately Monochrome video of Cassidy singing "Over the Rainbow", and Songbird shot up the charts. Eight million copies of her album have now been sold as of this writing, and her music has topped international charts.
• After Captain Beefheart's death, his discography, amazingly enough, started selling better than ever before.
• Kurt Cobain was valued before he died, and they did have several hit singles at the time, but Nirvana probably wouldn't have sold 50 million albums and been considered such a genre-defining band without his dramatic suicide. (Pearl Jam, for instance, was easily outselling Nirvana at the time).
• Natalie Cole briefly got this after her sudden death on New Year's Eve 2015. Sadly, her passing was completely overshadowed by a number of celebrities with even greater media prominence who died in the weeks and months since she did.
• Singer/songwriter Connie Converse, who despite having good names in the business, never received the fame that others felt she deserved. After 10 years of trying to get her foot in the door, she quit just as Bob Dylan came on the scene. When Connie turned 50 she disappeared in her car and despite her letters to her small circle of friends and family suggesting that she wanted a fresh start, her brother believes she quite possibly had ended her own life. In 2004 one of her friends played some of the recordings she made in a kitchen on a radio show, two listeners then tracked down the archive of recordings and released them giving Connie the following she never had in life.
• Soundgarden were very popular in the '90s, but they were never given the same recognition as Nirvana. Things changed with Chris Cornell's suicide in May 2017 and their reputation greatly improved.
• The Germs were a relatively popular L.A. area band mainly known outside of their devoted fanbase for being unbookable due to their shows frequently ending in riots. It wasn't until frontman Darby Crash died of suicide that the band was Vindicated by History and recognized for helping to kickstart the Hardcore Punk movement, although it took a while to set in due to Darby's death occurring the day before John Lennon was killed.
• Ian Curtis and Joy Division; while the band was already critically acclaimed during Curtis' lifetime, it was his suicide in 1980 that catapulted the band to legendary status (though some of the praise nowadays runs along the lines of "well, it's depressing but at least he meant it"). The rest of Joy Division became New Order and put out many more albums and hit singles, but tend to be overshadowed by Curtis' suicide. The biopic 24-Hour Party People focuses on Joy Division and moves on to the Happy Mondays with New Order appearing in the background, and Anton Corbijn's Control covers Curtis' life and finishes with his death, with no mention of what the other three did. Grant Gee's Joy Division documentary contains barely a mention of anything past 1980.
• Nick Drake achieved very little success in his life before his death, mostly attributed to the fact that never gave interviews and almost never performed live, attributed to debilitating mental illness (he died from an overdose of psychiatric medication, most likely unintentional as psych meds back in the '70s were notoriously dangerous). Afterward? People started discovering him, and his sales started increasing tremendously. Though he didn't achieve true success until almost forty years later when his song "Pink Moon" was used in a Volkswagen ad. In the ensuing months, his albums sold more copies than they had in the last 35+ years combined. In a haunting case of Harsher in Hindsight, Drake described this trope in "Fruit Tree" from his very first album, predicting his own posthumous fame: "Fame is but a fruit tree, So very unsound / It can never flourish 'till its stock is in the ground..."
• Richey James Edwards, the lyricist and guitarist for the Manic Street Preachers mysteriously disappeared in 1995 and has been presumed dead since 2008. The band has had much more commercial success since then. Of course, this could be because, without his unique vision, they've produced several more pop-friendly albums (an album using lyrics left by him was released in 2009).
• Austrian singer Falco (of "Rock Me Amadeus" fame) supposedly said: "You've got to die in Vienna before the people will appreciate you." It happened in 1998, shortly before his 41st birthday/^note Though he died in the Dominican Republic instead of Vienna, the comment still applies.
• While he was highly valued throughout his life and was far from being forgotten, Mexican singer Juan Gabriel became the biggest example of this trope in Latin American music, surpassing Selena, after his sudden death in August 2016, just two days after giving a concert in Los Angeles and the same day the final episode of his autobiographic TV series premiered in Mexico. The reaction to his death was comparable to those of Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Michael Jackson.
• Serge Gainsbourg received his load of criticisms and mockery for his inebriated antics and disheveled looks as "Gainsbarre" in The '80s and was pretty much considered as washed up by that time, but after his death in 1991, he's been near-universally lauded as one of the biggest names ever of French chanson.
• When Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead passed away, not only was there increased demand for the albums, but also for his line of men's ties and even Ben & Jerry's "Cherry Garcia" ice cream, which had existed since the mid-'80s and went from being one of its better-selling flavors to the brand's biggest-selling flavor of all time.
• Although a certain reinterest in Lesley Gore and her work was already brewing in the last years of her life, particularly with Bridget Fonda's character Kelly Porter in Grace of My Heart being loosely based on her ^note Lesley co-wrote a song Kelly sang in the movie, "My Secret Love", but was unhappy with the experience and in not even being invited by the film's producers to the movie premiere, and "You Don't Own Me" being featured heavily in The First Wives Club, the death of the 1960s teen queen in 2015 to cancer seems to have further awakened interest in her music, with Australian pop singer Grace covering "You Don't Own Me" (using Lesley's '60s producer, Quincy Jones) with an assist from rapper G-Eazy for a hit popularized by a trailer to Suicide Squad (2016) and Lesley's original recording being inducted in the 2017 Grammy Hall of Fame. Labels like the London-based Ace Records and American label Real Gone Music have reissued her back catalog, and a biography based on her life, also titled You Don't Own Me, was released in 2016.
• Christina Grimmie was hardly a household name, mostly known for her stint on The Voice, but she had a sizable following on social media. Her shocking murder at an Orlando theater in 2016 made national and international headlines, largely due to the circumstances that were not unlike those of Selena's death (a Loony Fan shot and killed her at an autograph signing before turning the gun on himself), and also the fact that she was only 22. Even though it would be overshadowed by the mass shooting of a gay nightclub the next night, she still received a brief popularity boost.
• Sarah Harding spent the last few years of her life being considered the Lesser Star of Girls Aloud - with a solo EP failing to chart and only having a four-episode guest stint in Coronation Street and win of Celebrity Big Brother in 2017 to her name. She was best remembered for her Hard-Drinking Party Girl persona in public and being estranged from the other members of the group. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and released a subsequent autobiography Hear Me Out, knowing she wouldn't live much longer, it caused their slightly obscure 2004 song of the same name to re-enter the UK charts. And her tragic passing in 2021 at the age of 39 saw an outpouring of tributes from celebrities and fans alike; re-evaluating her position in the group, her bold public persona, and her fashion sense. Her book naturally topped the charts too.
• Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens would almost certainly not have gotten their Biopics had it not been for the fateful Winter Dance Party flight. Averted in the case of The Big Bopper, though it's arguably due to the effects of this that he even gets mentioned at all nowadays.
• Film composer James Horner has gotten this treatment following his June 2015 death in a plane crash. Prior to his death, Horner had a Vocal Minority of detractors accusing him of ripping off pieces of music from other artists, though he was still respected overall.
• Whitney Houston did sell over 170 million records in her career, but she was ridiculed by the media constantly for her problems with drugs and alcohol, her increasingly erratic behavior, and her tumultuous relationship with Bobby Brown during the last decade of her life. Shortly after her death, sales of her records soared, tributes to her began to pour out, and jokes about the problems she had were largely forgotten.
• Singer/actor Pedro Infante became one of the major icons of Mexican popular culture after he died in a plane crash in 1957 at the age of 39.
• J Dilla, while very popular due to his work with notable acts (including A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu, The Roots, The Pharcyde, Madlib, and Common), wasn't known for his solo career. While very successful and admired in the hip-hop community while he was alive, his largest first-week sales as a solo artist occurred because of the re-release of his EP-turned-album Ruff Draft (heck, the original release was unsuccessful) in 2007, one year after his death.
• Michael Jackson sold over 270 million albums and helped define a generation, but he also spent pretty much the last decade of his life as a pop-cultural punchline, almost universally dismissed as a walking train wreck and a reclusive freak whose Glory Days as an artist were long behind him. After his death in 2009, the media coverage and tributes completely reversed his reputation almost overnight, to the point of posthumously winning four AMA awards for a 2003 Greatest Hits Album. This renewed popularity would take a major hit, however, with the release of the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which detailed two specific child molestation accusations against Jackson. The documentary would end up prompting a widespread re-evaluation of the man's life and legacy and reignited the debate of whether or not it should be socially acceptable to separate art from the artist, although his overall popularity was not affected in the long run.
• James Jamerson was Motown's first-call bassist in its classic era. He wasn't very well-known to the public and had a long struggle with alcoholism that led to his death at age 47 in 1983. Years later, as interest in the careers of session musicians grew, Jamerson was rediscovered and is now usually considered to be one of the most important bassists of all time. One unintended side effect is that Jamerson sometimes gets erroneously credited with bass work on songs that were actually done by other Motown bassists like Bob Babbitt.
  • Interest in Jamerson seems to have led to most interest in general in the "Funk Brothers" (Motown's in-house session musicians), many of them deceased as of 2014, and the documentary movie about them, entitled Standing in the Shadows of Motown received much acclaim.
• Blues singer Robert Johnson died in obscurity back in the 1930s. His reputation only grew a few decades later, when his music was rediscovered by collectors of authentic American folk music. Those collectors later introduced mainstream audiences to his music when his sides were compiled on the bestselling albums King of the Delta Blues Singers and the Grammy-winning Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings.
• While Davy Jones of The Monkees was hugely popular in The '60s, he fell out of mainstream exposure in the mid-'90s despite continuing to be musically active, got a brief resurgence in popularity after his unexpected February 2012 death. Jones' death also caused fellow Monkee Michael Nesmith to reunite with his former bandmates for touring, having separated from them since 1996.
• Mexican singer José José's passing rivaled Juan Gabriel's (see above) in terms of media exposure and public reaction, especially after he spent his last decade as a sad shell of his former self.
• Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole was popular and acclaimed within Hawaii during his lifetime, but was generally unknown everywhere else. However, after his early death from complications of obesity, he became one of the most beloved indigenous artists worldwide and an icon for other indigenous Hawai'ians.
• Ladies' Code was a mid-level Korean pop group that enjoyed some success but nowhere near the top tier. However, in 2014, members Rise and EunB died in a tragic car crash that also injured the other members. An outpouring of public support resulted in their song "I'm Fine Thank You" reaching #3 on the major national music chart and #6 on the Billboard World Songs Digital Chart. Their last EP as a quintet, Pretty Pretty, ended up with nearly twice the sales of any of their other EPs. Proving that this trope can be ephemeral, Ladies’ Code released more music after a hiatus but ended up with somewhat less success than before the crash, and went on "indefinite hiatus" in 2020.
• After his death, Motörhead frontman Lemmy got massive media coverage. Although his death was late in 2015, he is remembered as the start of the series of tragic deaths in 2016.
• Bob Marley was already popular during his lifetime, but only after his death did his fanbase expand beyond a cult reputation. Today he is perhaps the most well-loved musician in the Third World. And even in the United States, his fan base has grown considerably.
• Although Dean Martin always had some measure of popularity, he seems to have gotten much more attention in death than in his life, which was spent somewhat overshadowed by Jerry Lewis and Frank Sinatra. It is almost as likely that posthumous compilations of his greatest hits will turn up on record shelves as Frank's.
• Mayhem:
  • The band has had countless singers throughout their history. One of them, Dead (real name Per Yngve Ohlin), in addition to being pretty unhinged in life (starving himself to "improve" his voice, burying his clothes in the ground, and wearing them onstage while cutting himself), ultimately blew his head off with a shotgun while leaving a note that only said "Pardon the mess." The guitarist, Euronymous, then took a picture of his body before calling the police, the picture of which appeared on one of their album covers. He then, according to legend, made a stew out of the pieces of his brain and ate it (which Euronymous confirmed as false, though he apparently thought about it), and collected fragments of his skull and made necklaces out of them (Euronymous confirmed this one as true.) Now, guess which of their many singers was traditionally called the best?
  • Euronymous himself was murdered shortly after recording for the band's proper debut album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, was completed. This album has effectively become the yardstick against which all subsequent Mayhem albums have and must be measured. His murderer, Varg Vikernes, was playing bass on that album. Varg's releases as Burzum later became entry-level black metal music for unrelated reasons.
• While Freddie Mercury was far from an unknown by the time he died, Queen experienced a major popularity boost after his death. After their fall from popularity in the USA in The '80s after the less-than-stellar reception of Hot Space, Mercury told Brian May: "Guess I'll have to fucking die before we're big there again" — which sadly was the case. Their album sales in 1992 were significantly better than sales in the '80s; about half of all album sales to date have been since Mercury's death. The AIDS benefit concert dedicated to him certainly helped as well. His bandmate Brian May mentioned in many interviews that Freddie encouraged Brian to release the latter's solo single "Driven By You" after Freddie's death, as the singer knew that public interest in Queen would skyrocket at that point and it would help the song get big.
• Charles Mingus was a respected jazz bassist and bandleader but really only considered a genius after his death from ALS in 1979.
• The Notorious B.I.G. has been hailed by many as the greatest rapper of all time...after he died, and with only two albums, Ready to Die and Life After Death completed during his lifetime. On top of that, his untimely death in 1997 is likely one of the major reasons his second album Life After Death went Diamond in 2000 long before any albums by his more popular rival Tupac Shakur did, even though Biggie was already very popular to begin with.
• Sublime had some popularity in alternative rock circles when frontman Bradley Nowell was alive, even getting a co-headlining spot on the first Warped Tour, but they were just barely getting started by the time Nowell died of a drug overdose. They didn't truly blow up until the release of their self-titled third album, which was released without a lead single two months after Nowell died. The third album is by far their most commercially successful one and contains most of the songs that get played on alternative rock radio. That album was already going to be their major-label debut, but Nowell's premature death added a somewhat mythical quality to it and, by extension, the band.
• Yukiko Okada was a popular idol in the '80s, but had only number-one hit in her lifetime. But the reason why she's so well-remembered and cherished today is because of, well, her suicide at such a young age.
• It's difficult to tell whether the reputations of Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and John Coltrane would have been so enormous if they hadn't passed away at such a young age.
• In June 2018, Pantera lost its second key member in the form of drummer Vinnie Paul (who is also the long-deceased Dimebag Darrell's brother). Following Paul's passing, many fans and critics reevaluated certain parts of Paul's discography^note most notably his work with Damageplan and Hellyeah. Tributes were poured in by many iconic bands in the hard rock and heavy metal community. News about Paul's passing was also covered by mainstream news sites such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.
• Elvis Presley. It was once said by a handler that death was the best thing to happen to his career. In fact, he sold more albums and merchandise in the three years after he died than in his entire career! Also, it is not widely remembered that Presley's career and popularity were in uncontrolled freefall in the last couple years of his life; he could only score moderate hit singles (and even then they were generally relegated to the country western charts), critics savaged his new albums, and his fading physical condition and erratic live performances did not go unnoticed, with only blind loyalty (or perhaps an innate desire to watch a train wreck in action) selling tickets. His death made even his most critically lambasted recordings financially lucrative again and drew people to seek out even his worst movies.
• Lou Reed was already appreciated and respected for his music and influence on many bands, but when he died in October of 2013, tributes and accolades were given by a huge number of people in the music industry. In fact, his death ultimately led to his induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2015 (it was too late to add him in 2014 and he had already been inducted as a member of the Velvet Underground in 1996).
• The Rev from Avenged Sevenfold's recognition as a drummer increased greatly when he passed away from a drug overdose in December 2009 at age 28 and is now commonly cited as one of hard rock/heavy metal's greatest drummers.
• Ozzy Osbourne has had nearly a dozen guitarists join his band, with varying levels of success, but which of them is considered the greatest? Randy Rhoads, of course, the one who died in a plane crash in 1982 and left a legacy even Zakk Wylde lives in the shadow of after playing on only 2 Ozzy albums, if you don't count the live Tribute album released in 1987 and was a very influential guitar player during his time with Ozzy (it helps that Rhoads was also Ozzy's first guitarist, and had achieved some fame beforehand as the guitarist for Quiet Riot).
• Jenni Rivera, a Mexican-American Banda singer largely unknown outside of the genre (although considering banda is practically the most-listened genre in Mexico, she was known by almost everyone there, even by the ones who didn't like her music) got a popularity boost after her December 2012 death in a plane crash. Shortly before her death, she was in the news not because of her music, but due to her scandalous divorce from baseball player Esteban Loaiza, who allegedly cheated on Jenni with her own daughter. However, as of 2019 this seems to have been averted, she is not more popular than she was before her death, and she's mostly forgotten in the media except when talking about her daughter (also a banda singer) or her past scandals. Two biographical series about Rivera also emphasize the many troubles she went through throughout her life.
• Fishmans was an underground-famous dub/rock band with a dedicated cult following in their home country of Japan before their lead singer Shinji Sato's sudden passing in 1999 at the age of 33. In the ensuing decades, they would amass a worldwide cult following on the Internet, who would push two of their albums to the top spots of review aggregating website RateYourMusic^note Long Season is voted the #1 album of 1996; 98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare is voted the #1 Live Album of all time. Said their drummer in an interview: "We got good reviews, but in sales terms it was pretty laughable. Our name didn't really get out there until after Sato died."
• Although Selena was a pretty big deal in Latin America and among the US's Latin American diaspora at the time of her death in 1995, she was unknown elsewhere until the circumstances of her shocking murder made headlines all over the world. Her anticipated English-language crossover, Dreaming of You, was released just a few months later, and the residual media interest is at least partly responsible for the album's record-breaking commercial success. Nearly all of the critical acclaim for that record seems to be influenced in some way by the tragedy and imagining what could have been. The successful biopic and Selena's status as a folk hero/borderline religious icon in the Mexican-American community continue to fuel interest in, and admiration for, her life and musical legacy.
• Seo Ji-won was a rising star in Korea during 1995, but he gained national attention after his suicide in 1996. His posthumous album, Tears, which was planned to release before his death, hit it big, and its principal track "Gather My Tears" earned him his first music show win. Following that, his company released a second posthumous album and a Greatest Hits Album. To this day, he's remembered well in Korea as a talented ballader whose life ended too soon.
• Sulli, formerly of the K-pop girl group f(x), had her fair share of fans when she was alive, having been praised as having the archetypical maknae persona (despite being technically the second youngest, after Krystal), but she also had a very vocal hatedom that only got worse as she tried to shift to a more adult image as she grew older. The relentlessness of her antis is believed to have been a factor in her taking a hiatus in 2014 that turned into a permanent departure the following year. Following her suicide in 2019, she has been hailed as one of the group's strengths and recognized as a tragic victim of cyberbullying. Tellingly, Sulli was the only f(x) member to make the list◊ of the 100 most-searched idols in the first half of 2021. She didn't even have her own TV Tropes page until after she died.
• This can also be said for '70s disco queen Donna Summer. Her reputation took a nosedive in the '80s after she allegedly made negative comments about the LGBTQ+ community, who made up a significant portion of her fanbase up to that point. Her passing from cancer just three months after Davy Jones' passing (see above) reminded people why songs like "Hot Stuff" and "Last Dance" were so popular.
• Sid Vicious didn't play on any of the Sex Pistols' albums, didn't write anything, and his amps were turned off live (the man couldn't even play). Still, he's the most famous "member" of the band because he died at 21 (and because he allegedly murdered his girlfriend, though that's a surprisingly small part of it).
• Viola Beach were an up-and-coming British indie rock group whose career was tragically cut short when all its members, along with their manager Craig Tarry, died in February 2016 when their car fell from a bridge in Sweden. After a social media campaign from fans (which was backed up by notable people including Liam Gallagher and Ian Brown), their debut single "Swings and Waterslides" reached #11 on the UK Singles Chart, while "Boys That Sing" reached #50 after Coldplay covered it at their Glastonbury 2016 set. Their debut album was released posthumously in July of that year and topped the UK Albums Chart upon release.
• Amy Winehouse was a very successful artist before her untimely passing at the age of 27. Her album Back to Black sold over 20 million copies worldwide (even more impressive when you consider that record sales were at an all-time low at that point), had 15 charted singles, many of which were international hits, won numerous awards — including 5 Grammys in one night — and by their own admission directly inspired and paved the way for the likes of Adele, Lady Gaga, Florence Welch and Duffy. However, in the later years of her life, she was ridiculed by the media for her substance abuse problems and dismissed as a terrible role model.^note NME voted her "Villain of the Year in both 2008 and 2009. After her death, the focus was not only on her music but also on her charitable activities which had never been mentioned before.
• Richard Wright was the main keyboardist for Pink Floyd and instrumental in defining the band's signature sound, even leading it for a while following Syd Barrett's exit. His work was generally overshadowed though by the more prominent members like Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and the after-mentioned Syd, and in general just seen as 'there' by the general public. It wasn't until after his death in 2008 (and the tribute album the band put out for him) that his role in the band's success became officially recognized.
• X Japan:
  • Guitarist hide, who also had a solo career. Very popular in life (and arguably could have been the person to break the "barrier" between Japanese rock and metal and Western rock and metal had he lived) but far more popular after his death.
  • Bassist Taiji Sawada (also a member of Loudness and The Killing Red Addiction and lots of other bands) has also experienced this - in a more understated way. He's nowhere near the Cash-Cow Franchise or wide publicity hide is, but his solo work did get lifted out of relative obscurity on Youtube (and with people who will happily reupload the now out-of-print stuff every time it's deleted) and his bass virtuosity and lyrical skills (along with some of the opinions he expressed in his autobiography, which finally got a full English translation because of his death) became Vindicated by History.
• XXXTentacion was a rapper who grew popular in the mid-to-late 2010s for his dark lyrics and unique beats, yet was heavily scrutinized for his criminal record, including abuse allegations from his pregnant wife. After he was murdered in 2018, a wave of posthumous support came in, declaring X as one of the best rappers of the new generation and a pioneer in mumble rap.
• Frank Zappa once said that he didn't care whether he was remembered at all and bitterly assumed that this would be the case after he died. Though he will never become a mainstream favorite his music is now far more popular and acclaimed than during his lifetime.
• The year 2016 was marked by the deaths of three prominent music stars and their subsequent reactions:
  • First, David Bowie's death in January almost approached Michael Jackson levels in terms of media exposure. Bowie was widely admired at the time but was seen as something of a Reclusive Artist because he spent nearly a decade out of the limelight following a severe on-stage heart attack in 2004, and eschewed public appearances when he resumed recording again in 2011, refusing to tour and deferring interviewers to producer Tony Visconti. His last album, ★, was released just two days before his death, and while it sold well and earned critical acclaim upon release, posthumous sales skyrocketed (even knocking Adele off the top spot in most areas), mainstream interest in Bowie was renewed to levels not seen in roughly 30 years, and the album quickly came to be regarded as one of Bowie's greatest works.
  • Next was Prince, who had fallen out of the limelight for years until his death in April, upon which he became a media juggernaut to an even greater extent than Bowie did. At the time of his death, he was still a highly regarded live performer (his last live performance was only one week before his death), but his recent albums had received a less than stellar reception, and his stance on music streaming and YouTube hadn't helped his popularity with younger audiences. The fact that he died rather young and of an unnatural cause (he died of an opioid overdose at 57; Bowie was taken out by cancer at 69) and the masses of unreleased songs in his vault also helped feed his legend status. He even took over the entire top 10 of the iTunes chart afterwards and much of the Hot 100 as well.
  • Finally, George Michael, who died suddenly on Christmas Day, and who was younger than both Bowie and Prince, dying of heart and liver problems at 53. Owing to a protracted dispute with his record label, Michael's solo career ground to a halt in the early '90s, particularly in the United States. His last album of new music was released in 2004 and he spent much of the next decade touring to a dwindling audience and dealing with various run-ins with the law and paparazzi. After his death, his music returned to the charts. The revelation that he was heavily (albeit anonymously) involved with philanthropic causes and gave millions away to charities for terminally ill children and the homeless also greatly improved his reputation.

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