History DiedDuringProduction / Music

** These new songs - which [[BrokenBase rather split the fanbase]] - were parodied by Music/MitchBenn in "Please Don't Release This Song" in which John Lennon pleads for his unfinished music ''not'' to be re-recorded and released after his death.

* Music/MilliVanilli was planning a comeback with '''Rob Pilatus''' and Fab Morovan as the actual lead singers, with the "Girl You Know It's True" vocalists as back-up singers. Their album, "Back and In Attack," was cancelled when Rob suddenly died of a drug overdose in 1998.

* Music/MacMiller died of a drug overdose in September 2018, while preparing for a tour to promote his then-recent album ''Swimming'', and while working on the followup to that album, which was finished and released as ''Circles'' in early 2020.

DiedDuringProduction in {{Music}}.

* Music/{{Alphaville}} keyboardist '''Martin Lister''' died on May 21st, 2014, just three weeks after he and singer Marian Gold participated in a fan forum chatroom. During that chat they announced that the next Alphaville album, ''Strange Attractor,'' would release on September 27th of that year. Although new keyboardist Carsten Brocker joined the band later that June, ''Strange Attractor'' was delayed two and a half years to April 7, 2017.

DiedDuringProduction in {{Music}}.
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* Depending on who you ask, there are between ten and two hundred unreleased Music/KurtCobain and/or Music/{{Nirvana}} songs (the truth, likely, is somewhere in between the two extremes). How "finished" the hypothetical tracks are is also a subject of some debate, with Music/DaveGrohl, Krist Novoselic, Music/CourtneyLove, and any number of other people often contradicting one another, and occasionally, more often than that in Love's case, contradicting themselves. The only thing they all seem to agree on is that there are Kurt Cobain tracks the fans have not heard, and probably never will until Love dies, and even then only maybe. The massive 2004 box set ''With the Lights Out'' which contains many unreleased Nirvana songs and demos alongside previously released rarities, is considered merely the tip of the iceberg of the Nirvana cache to fans. A previously unreleased but well-known late period Nirvana recording, "You Know You're Right", was attached to a greatest hits album in 2002 and (along with already released contemporaneous tracks like "Sappy") merely hinted at what directions a fourth Nirvana album could have gone.
* Swedish DJ Tim Bergling, better known as Music/{{Avicii}}, whose music helped define mainstream EDM in the 2010s, committed suicide in 2018, leaving his third studio album unfinished. Said album was [[PosthumousCollaboration finished by several collaborators and released posthumously]] as ''TIM''.
* Music/JohannSebastianBach rather famously failed to finish the fourteenth fugue in ''The Art of Fugue'', cutting off right at the point where he introduced his own name as the subject (B♭-A-C-B, which, in the German way of naming notes, where B♭ is B, and B is H, is B-A-C-H), although this was more a case of setting it aside for a while and not getting back to it before his death rather than dying while working on it. There's also a convincing argument for the possibility that Bach actually left ''The Art of Fugue'' incomplete on purpose to serve as a musicological exercise, encouraging people to come up with their own completions. The fugue specifically cuts off after the first entrance of the "B-A-C-H" subject in counterpoint to the first and second subjects; the order in which the first three subjects appear in each of the four voices has led to speculation that Bach intended to make the final fugue a ''quadruple'' fugue, with the main subject from the previous fugues as the fourth subject. Some of the speculative completions of the fugue include the fourth subject (most notably that of Hungarian musicologist Zoltán Göncz), others only use the three already introduced by Bach.
* Music/LudwigVanBeethoven's Symphony No. 10 in E♭ major had a similar fate. Beethoven was already laying the groundwork for the symphony while composing his famous Symphony No. 9 and planned it as a sort of purely instrumental answer to the choral finale of No. 9. However, he only completed a few hundred bars' worth of sketches for the first movement before setting it aside, and he never returned to it. English musicologist Barry Cooper produced a speculative completion of the first movement and released a recording in 1988, but critics almost universally agree that the results are far less impressive than they would have been had Beethoven finished the symphony himself.
* Music/JohnLennon recorded a large number of demos before his death in 1980 that were not used on ''Double Fantasy'' (his 1980 album with recorded with his wife, Yoko Ono).

* Music/GeorgeHarrison died while working on the album ''Brainwashed''; it was completed by his son Dhani Harrison and former Travelling Wilbury bandmate Jeff Lynne. They made it considerably more lavish than George would have if he had lived -- we have WordOfGod on that; Lynne felt that doing otherwise would've dishonored his memory. George Harrison was also one of the producers of Creator/CirqueDuSoleil's ''Love''; in the making-of special his wife and son are seen watching the troupe's dress rehearsal some months after George died, and it's eerie seeing Dhani (with [[WhatBeautifulEyes wide, bright eyes]]) looking through a giant projection of [[StrongFamilyResemblance his nearly-identical father.]]
* On the subject of Music/TheTravelingWilburys, the band averted this by continuing after Music/RoyOrbison died shortly after their first album's release, but it severely shortened their intended plans, and they released one more album in 1990 before splitting. Del Shannon was briefly considered as a replacement for Orbison, as Jeff Lynne was producing Shannon's comeback album, but he committed suicide before they could do anything together. The Wilburys paid tribute by covering his hit "Runaway".
* As mentioned above, Music/RoyOrbison was in the midst of a major comeback after almost 20 years [[TheWoobie and a really tragic life]] (including a tour with the aforementioned Music/TheTravelingWilburys)... when [[ShaggyDogStory he suddenly died of a heart attack]] in 1988.
* Music/AvengedSevenfold were in the early stages of recording their 2010 album ''Nightmare'' when their drummer (and one of the founding members), Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, was found dead in his home in December 2009 of an overdose of painkillers combined with alcohol, and the coroner noted that he suffered from cardiomegaly (an enlarged heart) which may have also been a factor in his death. Production on the album was suspended and the drummer of [[Music/DreamTheater Dream Theater]], Mike Portnoy, stepped in to fill the remaining tracks on the song before temporarily touring with the band. The entire album is dedicated to The Rev's memory. Portnoy was not only The Rev's favorite drummer, but his inspiration and idol. Even ''years'' after his death, the members of the band ''still'' show signs of mourning him.
** The last song The Rev wrote was the piano ballad ''Fiction''. He sings the majority of the song, with M. Shadows only offering vocal accompaniment. [[WordOfGod The band]] have stated in various interviews that The Rev recorded the song in secret just three days before his death and turned in the finished track, stating, "this is it. This is the last song." It is written from the perspective of a person that has very recently passed on and is assuring their loved ones not to worry about them. Many of the fans and some of the band members themselves are convinced [[SwanSong the song itself]] is [[GoodbyeCruelWorld his suicide note.]]
* Music/JimiHendrix died before completing a planned double album provisionally titled 'First Rays of the New Rising Sun'. It was subsequently released over three posthumous albums; ''Cry of Love'', ''Rainbow Bridge'', and ''War Heroes''. When the Hendrix family regained control of his estate in 1997 they withdrew these albums and released a re-compiled ''First Rays...'', based mostly on Jimi's notes, as an 'official' Hendrix album. The "non-family" posthumous albums featured various session guitarists overdubbed and intermingled with Hendrix's work, and given that Hendrix's guitar is pretty much why people listen to him, fans were not amused in the slightest.
* Music/GustavMahler dreaded the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_ninth "curse of the Ninth"]], so snuck in an unnumbered symphony (aka the song cycle ''Das Lied von der Erde'', although referring to it as a symphony is contentious) after his Symphony No. 8, thought he'd beaten the curse by finishing his Symphony No. 9 which was, in fact, his tenth... and died before completing his next symphony. The drafts of the 10th symphony at least were worked through to the end, but they were only partially orchestrated and a little sketchy. Deryck Cooke's completion of the symphony was the first and remains the most popular, but even this is bitterly contested since so much of the appeal of Mahler's symphonies lies in their orchestration.
* Music/AntonBruckner planned for his Symphony No. 9 in D minor to be his last and grandest contribution to the form. However, he had only completed the first three movements at his death in 1896, and although he left enough sketches for the finale that several speculative completions have been produced, performed, and recorded, it is more usually performed as a three-movement work. Knowing he may not live to finish the piece, Bruckner suggested that his setting of the ''Te Deum'' prayer be used as a finale, but as it is in C major rather than D minor (or D major), this idea has never been popular.[[note]] Although the three-movement version likewise ends in a completely different key (the "concluding" Adagio is in E major).[[/note]]
* Music/HidetoMatsumoto (better known as "hide") from the band Music/XJapan died before completing his third solo album, ''Ja, Zoo''. It is still debated today whether his death was an accident or suicide, though most agree it was an accident. hide and Yoshiki had also planned, up until hide's death, to reunite Music/XJapan with another vocalist than Toshi or with hide on lead vocals in 2000.
* Former Music/XJapan and Music/{{Loudness}} bassist Music/TaijiSawada has also died (of a likely homicide covered up as suicide), becoming the second person out of both the original Music/XJapan and the third formation of Music/{{Loudness}} to die.
* The other from Music/{{Loudness}} was Music/MunetakaHiguchi, the drummer and creator of the band, in 2008 from liver cancer.
* After the breakup of 90s alt-rock one hit wonders School of Fish, the band's singer Josh Clayton-Felt began an acclaimed solo career as a singer/songwriter and the success of his second solo album led to him touring with the likes of Tori Amos. While working on his third album, to be called ''Center of Six'', he was diagnosed with cancer, and died in 2000 before the album could be completed; he was 32. The songs eventually got released on two albums: one by Dreamworks Records in 2002 under the name ''Spirit Touches Ground'', and another under the ''Center of Six'' title by Talking Cloud Records in 2003.
* It is hotly debated just how much of his ''Requiem'' Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart managed to finish before his death, and how much was done by his assistant afterward. Süssmayr claimed to have composed the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei from scratch, though it's been speculated he used some Mozart sketches. For instance, the second half of the Agnus Dei, the "Lux Aeterna" section, is just the first movement with new words. Which is [[BookEnds a valid decision]], but does damage Sussmayr's claims of originality.
* Music/ModestMussorgsky died before he could finish his opera ''Khovanshchina''. The opera was completed, revised, and scored by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1881-1882. Music/IgorStravinsky and Music/MauriceRavel made their own arrangement in 1913 at the request of Russian art critic Sergei Diaghilev. And in 1959, Dmitri Shostakovich revised the opera based on Mussorgsky's vocal score; it's Shostakovich's version that is typically performed today. The Stravinsky-Ravel orchestration has been mostly forgotten, except for Stravinsky's finale.
* Music/GiacomoPuccini died before completing the opera ''Theatre/{{Turandot}}''; he had finished up to about the point of [[spoiler: Liu's death]] and the rest was finished by Franco Alfano (not Puccini's first choice). At its premiere at La Scala, the famed conductor Arturo Toscanini laid down his baton here and said, "Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto" ("Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died"). Another recollection of Toscanini's statement is "Qui, il maestro fini" (Here, the master finished). This is more in keeping with Toscanini's terse, no-nonsense character. Puccini also died before deciding on an ending for ''La rondine''. This has contributed to it being performed so infrequently afterwards.
* Jacques Offenbach left his opera ''Theatre/LesContesDHoffmann'' (''The Tales of Hoffmann'') unfinished when he died in 1880. In addition, much of the music he ''did'' complete for it was long mislaid or omitted from performances, especially in the Giuletta Act. The original edition of the opera was completed by Ernest Guiraud, but editors and producers have continued to tinker with the work ever since; its acts are not even always performed in the same order. Two of the best-known numbers in the Giuletta Act, the aria "Scintille, diamant" and the Sextet with Chorus, were not composed by Offenbach at all but merely based on his work, and were first performed as part of ''Hoffmann'' in a 1908 production.
* Ferruccio Busoni left the opera ''Doktor Faust'' unfinished. Completions of it have been prepared by Philipp Jarnach, a pupil of the composer, and by Antony Beaumont using sketches by Busoni that were previously thought to have been lost.
* Alban Berg left his opera ''Lulu'' unfinished due to violinist Louis Krasner commissioning him to compose a violin concerto.[[note]]That, and the tragic death of Manon Gropius, which was the reason Berg fully put Lulu aside completely to compose the concerto.[[/note]] Berg accepted the commission, since the $1,500 Krasner offered for the concerto was desperately needed at the time since performances of his works were quickly becoming scarce due to the Nazis. He composed the concerto rather quickly, but he died of blood poisoning on Christmas Eve 1935 with the orchestration of Act 3 still incomplete.[[note]]The parts of the third and final act that had been orchestrated were the first 268 bars, the instrumental interlude between scenes 1 and 2, and the opera's ending, starting with the monologue of Countess Geschwitz. The rest of the act was still in short score.[[/note]] Although little work was needed to be done to complete it, the composer's widow, Helene, successfully vetoed any attempts to do so until her death in 1976, after which the orchestration was successfully completed by Friedrich Cerha in 1979.
* Music/DmitriShostakovich planned to write a set of 24 string quartets, one for each of the major and minor keys. However, he had only completed 15 (and had written a few sketches for a sixteenth) by his death in 1975.
* Liechtenstein-born composer Josef Rheinberger planned to write a set of twenty-four organ sonatas, one for each of the major and minor keys, but he had only completed twenty of them by his death in 1901.[[note]]The four keys left unused were B-flat major, F-sharp major, E major, and C-sharp minor.[[/note]]
* Near the end of his life, Swiss composer Joachim Raff began composing four symphonies inspired by the four seasons. Nos. 8-10 - ''Frühlingsklänge'' (''Sounds of Spring''), ''Im Sommer'' (''In Summer''), and ''Zur Herbstzeit'' (''To Autumntime'') - premiered between 1877 and 1880 to great acclaim, but No. 11 (''Der Winter''), the second on which composition began, was put in a drawer and forgotten about until Raff's death in 1882. His longtime friend and associate Max Erdmannsdörfer fleshed out the manuscript for a first performance in 1883, although how much of the result is by Raff and how much is by Erdmannsdörfer remains a matter of speculation.
* Sir Music/EdwardElgar produced 130 pages of sketches for a third symphony after accepting a commission from Creator/TheBBC in 1933, but he died of colorectal cancer the following year. Knowing he would not live to finish the symphony, he wavered between asking his friend W.H. Reed not to "let anyone tinker with it" and telling his doctor he expected someone would "complete it - or write a better one". Reed believed the sketches were insufficient to even attempt a completion, but in 1993, Creator/TheBBC commissioned English composer Anthony Payne (who had been interested in the sketches since 1972) to put together a performance version of the full symphony (over initial objections from Elgar's heirs). Payne's completion was first performed in 1998, and has been performed and recorded several times since then.[[note]] Since Payne's contributions are extensive, particularly in the finale (Elgar left few clues, if any, regarding its structure or how it would end), the symphony is usually credited to "Elgar/Payne".[[/note]]
* Music/BelaBartok was working on his third piano concerto and his viola concerto at the time of his death from leukaemia in 1945; he had finished all but the orchestration of the final 17 bars of the piano concerto, which his student Tibor Serly polished off before the work's premiere (and which are now accepted as canonical in performances of the work). The viola concerto was in a much more fragmentary state, with much of the instrumentation and texture still to be completed; although both Serly and, fifty years later, the composer's son Peter (in collaboration with Paul Neubauer and Nelson Dellamaggiore) produced performance versions of the work, they are much more speculative than the performance version of the piano concerto.
* Sergei Prokofiev was working on multiple compositions when he died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1953. The concertino for cello and orchestra was left with an unfinished finale, but Prokofiev had indicated to the work's intended performer, Mstislav Rostropovich, how he planned to complete it, and Rostropovich put together a performing version with help from Prokofiev's fellow composer Dmitri Kabalevsky. Less fortunate were his Piano Sonata No.10 and sonata for solo cello, each of which was left with a single half-finished first movement, and the concerto for two pianos and string orchestra, of which only a few measures were completed.[[note]] Russian musicologist Vladimir Blok assembled a complete single-movement version of the sonata for solo cello in 1972; it was performed by British cellist Steven Isserlis (who also made the first recording of the work in 1984) at the funerals of both Prokofiev's first wife Lina in 1989 and their son Oleg in 1998. A speculative version of the concerto for two pianos by University of Toronto composition professor Norbert Palej, with input from Oleg Prokofiev's son Gabriel, was premiered in 2016.[[/note]] He was also planning an eleventh piano sonata and a substantial revision to his Symphony No.2,[[note]] The original version is in two movements, a sonata allegro and a theme with six variations, but Prokofiev was never entirely satisfied with the results and planned to re-work it as a three-movement symphony.[[/note]] but had not even begun work on them when he died.
* In 1989, Music/LeonardBernstein began a series of audio and video recordings of Music/LudwigVanBeethoven's five piano concerti with Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman and the Vienna Philharmonic. However, after recording Nos.3-5, Bernstein was forced to announce his retirement from conducting due to declining health; he died five days later. Zimerman completed both the audio and video cycles in 1991 by conducting Nos.1 and 2 from the piano.
* Marc Blitzstein was working on the operas ''Idiots First'' and ''Sacco and Vanzetti'' when he was murdered. Both were subsequently completed by Leonard Lehrman.
* Music/TupacShakur has become incredibly prolific after death. After a stint in prison and making a deal with the devil in the form of signing with infamous record label Death Row, Tupac churned out a mammoth number of songs (mainly by way of recording the vocals for said song in marathon recording sessions) prior to his death. The logic for this was to both make up for lost time after spending a year in prison at the height of his career and get his Death Row label contract fulfilled ASAP due to him realizing what a huge mistake it was to sign with the infamous label. Since then, a good number of posthumous albums have been made and they've even constructed a lifelike hologram of him for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg to perform tracks featuring Tupac alongside them in concert. Naturally, a common {{Epileptic Tree|s}} is that Tupac is [[HesJustHiding still alive]] and producing new material.
* Music/FranzSchubert left no less than ''four'' unfinished symphonies upon his death, including his 7th, 8th (the ''Unfinished'' symphony), and 10th. He also left around half a dozen piano sonatas in partially completed states, most of which have been speculatively sketched to completion by some performers but all of which are generally either performed in their incomplete states or simply dropped from the repertoire. Schubert generally sketched pieces to the point where he could easily complete them if he found a publisher for them, but his success rate at finding publishers for his work during his lifetime was rather modest, meaning he left many unfinished manuscripts at his death.
* In 2002, rising Canadian metalcore band Compromise was put to a halt when the band's two guitarists were killed in a car collision.
* After Music/{{Pantera}} broke up, the Abbott brothers (Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul) formed a new band named Damageplan, which had a minor hit on rock radio with "Save Me". Tragically, any hope at a Pantera reunion was destroyed when Dimebag was murdered on stage in 2004, followed by Vinnie Paul's death in 2018. Damageplan left behind a cover of Music/PhilCollins' "I Don't Care Anymore", which was never released but the guitar recording was sampled in a cover by Hellyeah (Vinnie Paul's third band).
* The day before Brazilian satirical band Mamonas Assassinas were to start an international tour (which would be followed by a break to record their second album), they were killed in a plane crash.
* The VisualKei SymphonicMetal band Music/{{Versailles}} had gone major in 2009, was recording their second full-length album, and was about to embark on its first world tour as a major band when, on August 9th, bassist Jasmine You, one of the most notable names in the VK scene, suddenly fell ill and died (with the exact cause of his death never announced publicly). Understandably, the band's activities were halted and the album release postponed. Unlike many of the examples on this page, however, they didn't break up; they went on their world tour the next year with Masashi (who later became a permanent band member) on support bass, and guitarist Music/{{Hizaki}} [[FakeShemp filled in Jasmine's missing bass parts for the album]].
* Music/MichaelJackson died in 2009, weeks before the scheduled start of his planned ''This Is It'' concerts in London. He had been working on new songs in the last few years of his life as well; some were completed posthumously (with infamous [[FakeShemp Michael soundalike Jason Malachi reportedly handling vocals on several tracks]]), bundled together with unused songs from older albums, and released as ''Michael'' in 2010. Most of Jackson's unused material was released in his lifetime to fill out reissues and a box set; as of April 2015 the only post-''Michael'' releases with more "vault" stuff were the ''Music/{{Bad}}'' reissue in 2012, ''[[Music/XscapeMichaelJacksonAlbum Xscape]]'' in 2014 and a 40th anniversary reissue of '''Music/{{Thriller}}'' in 2022. ''Xscape'' is comprised entirely of previously-unreleased tracks, some having been recorded long before Michael's death[[note]]the regular edition of the album contains the remastered versions of the songs, while the deluxe edition adds the original versions[[/note]]. The title track was first created during the recording of Michael's 2001 album ''Music/{{Invincible}}'', and "Love Never Felt So Good" (a duet with Music/JustinTimberlake) came from a demo made with Paul Anka in the early 1980s. Michael was known for having an impressive amount of artistic input during album recording sessions and due to his efforts, it is believed that there are dozens (possibly hundreds) of unreleased/unfinished tracks recorded throughout his career, including songs given to other artists and early versions of other Michael Jackson songs. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unreleased_songs_recorded_by_Michael_Jackson The Other Wiki has a running list of the known tracks and their fates.]]
* It didn't take Music/LedZeppelin long to decide to break up after John Bonham died. Bonham's death was particularly ill-timed: it happened on the day Zep were rehearsing for a new US tour.
* After their brief reunion at Live 8, it seemed like we might finally hear a new Music/PinkFloyd album. Then Music/SydBarrett and Richard Wright died...
** David Gilmour had flatly squashed the idea of any new work before the Live 8 show took place. And Syd Barrett, who sadly became increasingly mentally unstable due to his drug abuse while in the band, had left the music business for good by the mid-1970s.
** Gilmour and Mason decided in 2012 to get the rest of Wright's recordings during ''The Division Bell'' two decades prior and make an album out of it. The result, ''The Endless River'', was released in the fall of 2014. Fans whipped out the EpilepticTrees theory again that Waters would be involved in a new Floyd project like the chatter post-Live 8, but the pair again put that quickly to rest.
* Music/{{Queen|Band}}'s ''Music/MadeInHeaven'' was made with this in mind. After the release of ''Music/{{Innuendo}}'', frontman Music/FreddieMercury anticipated that he wouldn't live to see a follow-up, and recorded as much lead vocals as possible for his bandmates to flesh out into actual songs. However, due to his failing health, he only managed to record three. Of those three, only "A Winter's Tale" was actually completed in a way that could be fleshed out without altering or adding to the lead vocal track. Music/BrianMay had to sing the last verse of "Mother Love" because Freddie realized he wasn't fit to continue recording when they got to that verse; despite planning to finish the song later, he never made it back to the studio. Meanwhile, "You Don't Fool Me" was essentially scraps {{MacGyver|ing}}ed into a coherent song by producer David Richards. The other ten tracks were put together from past outtakes and side-projects.
* There's been speculation that Music/OtisRedding intended "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" to be part of a ''[[Music/TheBeatles Sgt. Pepper]]''-like concept album, but he and four of his bandmates were killed in a plane crash a mere three days after recording it; it ended up being the last song he ever recorded.
* Music/BuddyHolly [[http://www.buddyhollyonline.com/apttapes.html wrote a bunch of new songs]] in the months leading up to his death (including "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "Crying, Waiting, Hoping") and recorded acoustic guitar demos of them. We'll never know how he intended to arrange them, but that didn't stop his label from overdubbing and releasing them on two separate occasions.
* Former La Bouche singer Melanie Thornton died in a plane crash before her solo album could be completed. The vocals from two of her unreleased songs were used in a PosthumousCollaboration with the rest of the group.
* Music/PeterSarstedt, mostly known for his song "Where did you go to my lovely" wrote a sequel to it called "Last of the Breed". However, "Farewell Marie-Clair", continuing the story of Marie-Clair, unfortunately did not materialize due to this trope.
* Keyboardist Dwayne Goettel of Music/SkinnyPuppy died of a heroin overdose while the album ''The Process'' was in the works, and the rest of the group disbanded for several years. Cevin and Ogre reformed the group in 2003 with Mark Walk.
* Music/JoyDivision were in the process of putting together two new songs, "Ceremony" and "In a Lonely Place", before frontman Ian Curtis hanged himself after a long battle with depression and epilepsy. The surviving bandmates would reconvene as Music/NewOrder and finish the songs without Curtis, releasing them as their debut single. Joy Division's remaining non-album work would see various re-releases on a number of compilations.
* Satirized by Peter Schickele in ''Unbegun Symphony'' (included in the ''An Hysteric Return'' concert but not attributed to Music/PDQBach), which only has a third and a fourth movement; in his monologue describing the piece, he explains that he was born too late to write the first two movements.
* When Music/JeffBuckley drowned in the Wolf River in 1997, he was in the middle of putting together ''My Sweetheart the Drunk'', a planned follow-up to ''Music/{{Grace}}''; the producers had to guess the order of the songs that were going to appear. The double album ''Music/SketchesForMySweetheartTheDrunk'' was released the following year, reflecting the album's TroubledProduction -- the first disc contained the basically finished songs he and his band recorded with Music/{{Television}} frontman Tom Verlaine as RecordProducer, and the second disc is home demos made on a 4-track recorder.
* Music/TheExplodingHearts were a punk-revival band from Seattle best known for their catchy songs and melodies. They probably could have made it big if it weren't for the fact that in 2003 their van rolled over, killing three of the members. This left behind [[OneBookAuthor only one completed album]], ''Music/GuitarRomantic'', and several unreleased songs for a scheduled album for the following year, and very little live footage of the band. ''Shattered'' was released in 2006 with the songs and several remixes along with a DVD of probably the only recording of a live Exploding Hearts performance in existence.
* When Music/RonnieJamesDio (formerly of Music/BlackSabbath) died of stomach cancer in 2010, his main band, Dio, was in the middle of making two follow-ups to the ConceptAlbum ''Magica''. Said follow-ups were left unfinished and unreleased as a result
* Randy Rhoads died at the age of 25, after just two albums with Music/OzzyOsbourne. Although Ozzy continued to record and perform (obviously) the sound of the band changed after Randy's death since he made significant contributions to the songwriting of the band at the time.
* Music/MilliVanilli was planning a comeback with Rob and Fab as the actual lead singers, with the "Girl You Know It's True" vocalists as back-up singers. Their album, "Back and In Attack," was cancelled when Rob suddenly died of a drug overdose in 1998. A few years earlier, Rob and Fab (who had already recorded as Empire Bizarre before the creation of Milli Vanilli) released a new album of their own performances, without the Milli Vanilli moniker. Despite a promotional appearance on ''Series/TheArsenioHallShow'', the album fell afoul of distribution problems, and very few copies made it to stores. Since Rob's death, Fab Morvan has recorded as a solo artist and has made European TV appearances singing Milli Vanilli's hits. Obviously, his renditions sound absolutely nothing like those of the original vocalists.
* In another case of Author Existence Failure making an album possible, a Linda [=McCartney=] collection called ''Wild Prairie'', which contained everything that she ever professionally sang lead on, was released in 1998 or 1999 after she died. Paul wanted the world to know she was a great musician, regardless of the evidence... The Music/{{Wings}}-era works are mixed at best, but her most recent songs are excellent if you can get past the lyrics. "The White-Coated Man" (a collaboration with [[Music/{{Pretenders}} Chrissie Hynde]]) is especially haunting.
* Music/GeorgeGershwin died after writing five songs for the movie ''The Goldwyn Follies''; when he died, he was intending to compose a ballet for the film's dancing star Vera Zorina to choreography by George Balanchine. After Gershwin's death, Vernon Duke supplied the additional music necessary for the film.
* Hardcore punk band Music/{{Snot}} was receiving a lot of attention in the late nineties from their major label debut ''Get Some'' and their infamous antics on the 1998 Ozzfest tour. They were working on a second album until singer Lynn Strait was tragically killed in a car accident. Because Lynn died before he recorded vocals for most of the album, the band used the recorded instrumental tracks for the tribute album ''Strait Up'' with guest vocals. One of the only tracks that had Lynn's vocals, "Choose What?", was later released as a bonus track on the live album ''Alive,'' while the other, "Absent," appeared as a track on ''Strait Up.'' The band broke up immediately following his death, but a couple of the members started a new revision of the band ten years later called [[SdrawkcabAlias Tons]].
* Music/TypeONegative frontman Peter Steele died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm in April 2010, just as he was due to begin writing and recording for a followup to ''Dead Again''. With his passing, the band ceased to exist as well.
* A year after her [[OneHitWonder only top-10 hit]], "Lovin' You", Music/MinnieRiperton was diagnosed with breast cancer, and passed away three short years later at age 31. Her daughter, Creator/MayaRudolph, has found success in Series/SaturdayNightLive.
* Music/HankWilliams died quite young (29), leaving plenty of unreleased material behind and inevitably having several posthumous hits. Music/HankWilliamsJr even overdubbed one of his dad's unreleased songs as a "duet". Furthermore, Hank Sr. is one of the most respected and best-loved artists in the genre despite his short life.
* Music/ESPosthumus' Franz Vonlichten died in May 2010, effectively stopping the group.
* Kino frontman Music/ViktorTsoi died in a car crash in 1990, and the last act of his band was to release ''The Black Album''.
* Rich Mullins died in a car accident in 1997 while working on ''The Jesus Record''. It was released the following year as a double album -- one disc of Rich's home demo recordings, the other disc featuring the same songs (plus one extra) given the full band treatment by Mullins' "Ragamuffin Band".
* Rolf Kohler, the lead singer of Systems in Blue, died of a stroke in September 2007 before the group could finish their second album, ''Out of the Blue''. The rest of the group completed it as a PosthumousCollaboration.
* 1980s Austrian pop singer Music/{{Falco}} was working on a comeback album when he died tragically in a car accident in the Dominican Republic in 1998.
* ''Music/BackToBlack'' is the last album we'll ever hear of Music/AmyWinehouse. She was working on her third album when she died in 2011. Her last song, a duet with Music/TonyBennett called "Body and Soul", was released not long afterward.
* The lead singer of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, Charles Haddon, [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] just before the release of their first ([[OneBookAuthor and likely last]]) album.
* Music/{{TLC}} member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was killed in a car crash in 2002, during the recording of the group's latest album ''3D''. The album was eventually finished by T-Boz and Chilli (they were determined to finish it in Left Eye's honour), in some cases [[PosthumousCollaboration using Left Eye's previously-recorded rap solos]]. There was also a posthumous album of unfinished solo material that was released in 2009 and was finished with contributions from many artists, including Missy Elliot, Chamillionaire and the remaining members of TLC, T-Boz and Chili, as well as Left Eye's sister Reigndrop.
* Mark Linkous, leader/only constant member of cult indie rock band Music/{{Sparklehorse}}, had dealt with depression for most of his life and had notably attempted suicide in 1996 while his band was touring as Music/{{Radiohead}}'s opening act. It caused damage to his legs which never quite healed. Linkous eventually took his own life in 2010, shortly before the wide release of his ''Dark Night of the Soul'' collaboration with Danger Mouse and Creator/DavidLynch. Another project, Sparklehorse's fifth album, was left in a near-complete state after his death and has not yet seen the light of day.
* Music/TheB52s began recording their ''Bouncing Off The Satellites'' album in 1985. The album was originally recorded early in this year, but the record company rejected this version. The band starting rerecording the album with producer Tony Mansfield. Unfortunately, guitarist Ricky Wilson died during the sessions for the second version of the album, which meant that the songs he hadn't recorded parts for had to be overdubbed by session musicians. They were so short on material that one of the songs on the album ("Juicy Jungle") is an outtake from Fred Schneider's 1984 solo album. Whilst ''Bouncing Off the Satellites'' and several singles from it were released in 1986, the remaining band members were too upset due to Ricky's death to tour or promote it. Luckily, it got better for the band: drummer Keith Strickland had learned how to play Wilson's unique guitar style and took his place as the band's guitarist after his death. The band eventually began recording a new album, ''Cosmic Thing'', which became very successful after its 1989 release. They have been together ever since.
* Bradley Nowell, the singer, songwriter and guitarist for Music/{{Sublime}} died a few months before the release of his band's breakout third album. This meant their label had a hit album, no band to send out on tour and no chance for a follow-up album. Instead, the surviving two members and Brad's dog Louie starred in a series of music videos released for each of the three singles released for the album. The label proceeded to fulfill the rest of the band's record deal with a continuous (and morbid) series of rarity and greatest hits albums that continue to be released to this day. The two other members went on to a series of other bands of varying success before reforming as Sublime with Rome, which is legally not the same thing as Sublime due to Nowell's estate owning the copyright on the name.
* Similar to the Shostakovich example, Music/ClaudeDebussy planned a collection of six instrumental sonatas, but only completed three before he died.
* Music/HarryNilsson, who hadn't released an album since 1980 (and that album wasn't even issued in the United States), began recording a comeback album starting in 1993. He died on January 15, 1994, and it's been reported that he finished the album shortly before his death (mere hours before, according to one account). His passing apparently scuttled any release plans (though some of the songs were eventually leaked). The material eventually came out in 2019 as the album ''Losst and Founnd''.
* Music/KeithWhitley died of alcohol poisoning in 1989 at the age of 33, three months before the release of his most successful album, ''I Wonder Do You Think of Me''. This album produced #1 hits in its title track and "It Ain't Nothin'", plus the Top 3 hit "I'm Over You". After that, he charted the Top 20 duet with his widow Lorrie Morgan on "Til a Tear Becomes a Rose", which appeared on a GreatestHitsAlbum. Creator/RCARecords released ''Kentucky Bluebird'' in 1991, which included several unfinished demos fitted with new instrumentation and other previously-unreleased tidbits ranging from already-finished songs to ''Radio/AmericanCountryCountdown'' interviews. Two of the songs on this album, "Somebody's Doing Me Right" and "Brotherly Love" made the charts, with the latter (a duet with Earl Thomas Conley) going to #1 on ''Radio & Records''. It was followed in 1994 with a tribute album featuring various artists' covers of Keith's songs (most notably Music/AlisonKraussAndUnionStation's cover of "When You Say Nothing at All", which was a Top 5 hit), and a couple other previously-unreleased tracks, including a PosthumousCollaboration with Morgan. A year later, the same label released ''Wherever You Are Tonight'', also composed of demos with new instrumentation dubbed in.
* A rather extreme case happened with BlackMetal band Music/{{Mayhem}}, as during production of their debut album singer Dead killed himself (only his lyrics remained) and guitarist Euronymous was murdered by the bassist.
* Just as Music/{{Slayer}} would embark on a tour in 2011, Jeff Hanneman contracted necrotizing fasciitis, forcing them to bring in [[Music/ExodusBand Gary Holt]] as a replacement. Kerry King stated that if he recovered from his health problems, he'd be welcome to return to the studio, but then Hanneman died of liver failure. He had left one song with the band, "Piano Wire", though the version included in the band's eventual and final album ''Repentless'' had King performing all the guitar parts.
* KMD was a hip hop group in the early 90s that had success with an album titled ''Mr. Hood.'' However, shortly before the release of the controversial album ''Black Bastards'', member DJ Subroc died in a car crash, leaving the album unreleased until 2001. KMD broke up, and member Zev Love X, brother of Subroc, was deeply affected by his death, put on a mask, and started rapping as the mysterious Music/{{MF DOOM}}.
* When Music/{{MF DOOM}} passed away in 2020, he had multiple planned projects languishing in DevelopmentHell, including a sequel album to ''Music/{{Madvillainy}}'' and a collaborative album with [[Music/WuTangClan Ghostface Killah]]. [[https://www.nme.com/en_asia/news/music/flying-lotus-reveals-he-and-mf-doom-were-working-on-an-ep-before-the-rappers-death-2847710 He was also working on a collaborative EP with]] Music/FlyingLotus at the time of his passing. It is unknown if they will be scrapped altogether or if any material related to the planned projects will see the light of day.
* While Music/RebaMcEntire was on tour in 1991, most of her touring band was killed in a plane crash. Reba had decided to spend the night in California with her stylist and then-husband. Her album ''For My Broken Heart'', which was released seven months later, was dedicated to her backing band.
* Cali Swag District is an UsefulNotes/LosAngeles-based rap group that recorded the 2010 DanceSensation "Teach Me How to Dougie". One of their members, Montae "M-Bone" Talbert, was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Inglewood, California in May 2011. They released the song "How to Do That" three days later in his honor. Their first album, which they were recording at the time, was released in July 2011 and they have only released one mixtape since. Although most {{dance sensation}}s are {{one hit wonder}}s anyway, the death of one of their members only a year after their hit song was release couldn't have helped matters. Cahron "[=JayAre=]" Childs died in 2014, the year their second mixtape was released.
* Hi-NRG magnate Patrick Cowley died of complications brought on by AIDS just months after releasing his third album, ''Mind Warp''. His last production overall was the single "Do You Wanna Funk?" with Sylvester, who himself succumbed to AIDS a few years afterwards. Sylvester's final recordings were posthumously compiled as ''Immortal'' in 1989.
* The day before Richey Edwards, lyricist and driving force of the Music/ManicStreetPreachers, was due to fly to America to promote the band (and potentially crack the market) he vanished, with [[DrivenToSuicide all signs showing that he jumped off a bridge]], being declared legally dead 13 years later. Although the rest of the band went on as a three-piece and still perform to this day, they acknowledge that they have never reached the creative apex of ''The Holy Bible'', the album released six months before Richey's death and considered a [[NightmareFuel reflection of his mental state at the time]].
* Latin Tejano superstar Music/{{Selena}} had recorded six songs for her first English-language album, ''Dreaming of You'', before she was shot and killed in March 1995. Her family and record company paid their respects by releasing the album with four of the songs she recorded and a mix of previous hits.
* Music/SidVicious died of an overdose at age 21, leaving only a few singles behind. A posthumous album, ''Music/SidSings'' was released in the wake of his death. Seeing that the singing and production on it was horrible, not much else has been released ever since.
* Metal band ''After the Burial'' lost their one of their founding members and rhythm guitarist, Justin Lowe, to a car crash on June 21, 2015. Justin was suffering from a massive CreatorBreakdown beforehand and it is unknown if the crash was intentional or not. The band opted to continue on as a four-piece.
* CountryMusic ChildPopstar Amie Comeaux died at age 21 in a car crash in Louisiana. She had two albums' worth of material in the can at the time despite not having been on a label at the time (her previous label, Polydor, had closed a couple of years prior), and she ended up with two posthumous albums.
* In April 2013, when Music/StoneTemplePilots frontman Scott Weiland was struggling with his heroin addiction, his bandmates effectively dropping him from the group and pressed on in performing, [[BrokenBase an act that upset many fans]]. Hopes of reconciliation ended with Weiland's death in December 2015 while touring with his new band The Wildabouts (who immediately disbanded), though STP would pay tribute to him. After second lead singer [[Music/LinkinPark Chester Bennington]] left in 2016 (and committed suicide in 2017), STP had to recruit a new singer from ''Series/TheXFactor''.
* Music/{{Motorhead}} had no choice but break up after Lemmy Kilmister's death on December 28, 2015.
* While Music/DavidBowie recorded ''Music/BlackstarAlbum'' as a reflection on his battle with liver cancer, which ultimately killed him just two days after the album's release, producer Tony Visconti stated that Bowie was planning to make a follow-up and had already presented five demos to him. Because of Bowie's death, these songs were left unfinished and unreleased.
* Terry Jones, founding member and frontman of the seminal DoomMetal band [[http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Pagan_Altar Pagan Altar]], passed away after a battle with cancer in May 2015. They had recorded most of the album ''Never Quite Dead'', and news on the fate of the band in the wake of Terry's death was scarce until April 2017 when Terry's son Alan announced they would re-record the instrumental parts of ''Never Quite Dead'', now retitled ''Room of Shadows'', which was then released later that year. Brendan Radigan of Magic Circle has been the acting frontman in their live shows since 2017 as well.
* On October 30, 2015, Romanian metalcore band Goodbye to Gravity was celebrating the release of their second album Mantras of War. However, the use of pyrotechnics in Colectiv nightclub for this occasion turned out to be fatal - the place got caught on fire, which eventually killed 63 people (and injuring 164 more), including four out of five band members: guitarist Vlad Telea died at the place, second guitarist Mihai Alexandru followed a couple of hours later and a few days later, drummer Bodgan Enache and bass guitarist Alex Pascu died as well from their injuries, leaving only vocalist Andrei Galut alive.
* Shortly after the ''Music/HighwayToHell'' tour ended, Music/{{ACDC}} guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young showed singer Bon Scott some music they were writing for the follow-up, with him accompanying on drums. Then Scott died after a wild night of drinking. The Youngs considered disbanding, but instead recruited Brian Johnson and made ''Music/BackInBlack'' as a tribute to Scott, with great success.
* CountryMusic duo Joey + Rory, consisting of CreatorCouple Rory Lee Feek (who had been a prominent Nashville songwriter/producer since TheNineties) and his wife, Joey Martin Feek, continued to record up until Joey died of cancer at age 40 in March 2016. Their last album, ''Hymns That Are Important To Us'', was a project that Joey had always wanted to do, and it became their first #1 album. What a way to go out.
* The death of Glenn Frey in January 2016 seems to have put a permanent end to the on-again-off-again career of the Music/{{Eagles}}... until [[http://ultimateclassicrock.com/glenn-frey-son-eagles/ it was announced]] that they would be playing two festivals the next year, with Frey's son Deacon and country singer Music/VinceGill.
* Music/{{Negativland}} lost three of its founding members in two years.
** [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ian-allen-negativland-dead-at-56-20150122 Ian Allen]], who with Mark Hosler and Richard Lyons [[https://post-punk.com/ian-allen-of-negativland-has-passed-away/ started it all]], died of infection January 17, 2015, while hospitalized for routine heart surgery. He was only fifty-seven.
** Seven months later, on July 22, sound collage master and cultural jammer [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/don-joyce-negativland-sound-collagist-and-radio-dj-dead-at-71-20150723 Don Joyce]] succumbed to heart failure, taking with him Crosley Bendix, C. Elliot Friday, Izzy Isn't and dozens more of the group's familiar characters. He was seventy-one. Don had hosted the avant-garde program ''Over the Edge'' on KPFA for over thirty years and there was serious talk of ending the show with him. Listeners called in asking surviving members to keep and evolve OTE in Don's memory. Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker and Rob "K-Rob" Cole are now in charge ([[https://kpfa.org/program/over-the-edge/ hear their shows here]]), and a [[https://archive.org/details/ote near-complete library of Don's shows]] is preserved at the Internet Archive. Don's final appearance is on the group's October 2016 CD, ''[[http://www.negativland.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=87 Chopping Channel]]''. The first few hundred buyers also received a small container of Don's ashes.
** In April 2016, founding member [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/richard-lyons-negativland-founder-dead-at-57-20160421 Richard Lyons]], whose mellifluous voice portrayed radio preachers and '70s media moguls, and whose dark sarcastic wit gave birth to one of the group's [[https://thedailywrazz.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/we-dont-have-enough-data-negativlands-helter-stupid-20-years-later/ biggest scandals]], died of cancer on his 57th birthday. One of his last conscious acts was to sing in a final recording of his "Nesbitt's Lime Soda" song and the newly copyright-free "HappyBirthdayToYou" with his family. [[http://pitchfork.com/news/64974-negativlands-richard-lyons-dead-at-57/ Hear it here.]]
* In July 2015, Music/{{Vocaloid}} artist Powapowa-P (also known as Siina Mota, real name Ryou Mizoguchi) died at the very young age of 20. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBGvm_sXMzQ "Please Give Me a Red Pen"]], his final song, was uploaded just ''half an hour'' before his death. As with The Rev above, "Please Give Me a Red Pen" is believed to be [[GoodbyeCruelWorld his suicide note]].
* Quorthon of renowned BlackMetal/Viking Metal band Music/{{Bathory}} passed away in 2004, on the second part of what was supposed to be a four-piece ''Nordland'' album series.
* Mary Hansen, the guitarist and backing vocalist for the British art rock band Music/{{Stereolab}}, was killed in 2002 when she was hit by a truck while riding her bicycle. A solo EP she had been working on, ''Hybrid'', wasn't released until 2004 when it was completed by her Stereolab band-mate Andy Ramsay. Hansen's harmony and counter-melody vocals were considered to be an essential part of Stereolab's signature sound, and many fans believe that they never musically recovered from her death. Over the next decade, the famously prolific band released just three more albums.
* Music/{{Soundgarden}} frontman Music/ChrisCornell died shortly after performing a concert with the band in Detroit in May 2017. The death was later determined to be a suicide by hanging, which shocked many given Cornell had tweeted very optimistic messages in the days and hours before his death. The band was in the middle of an American tour and in the process of recording their seventh album. The tour was canceled, and Soundgarden would officially disband in 2018. Cornell's death also ended the brief reunion of his other band Music/{{Audioslave}}, who had performed a one-off concert just a few months prior, and were strongly hinting that there would be more activity in the future. On January 16, 2019, the surviving Soundgarden members reunited for a tribute concert, "I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell", which featured the likes of the Music/FooFighters, Music/{{Metallica}}, Music/PearlJam and Music/PeterFrampton. The band also revealed they had been working on an album when he died, but any development is withheld as they don't have access to the master recordings with Cornell's vocals.
** Two months later, Music/LinkinPark frontman Chester Bennington also committed suicide (on what would have been Cornell's 53rd birthday). Like Soundgarden, they were also in the middle of an American tour which they cancelled the remainder of. Unlike Soundgarden, Linkin Park have [[TheBandMinusTheFace chosen to continue]] in some capacity, at least for the moment.
* Torsten Fenslau, writer-producer of Culture Beat's early material including SignatureSong "Mr. Vain", tragically died in a car accident shortly after its release.
* In TheFifties, an obscure CountryMusic duo called The Davis Sisters (not to be confused with the gospel group) had a #1 hit with "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know". Right after the song hit big, the duo (Skeeter Davis and Betty Jack Davis, who, despite their last names, [[NonIndicativeName were not actually sisters]]) were involved in a car accident which killed Betty Jack. Skeeter recorded some songs with Betty Jack's sister Georgia, but after these songs proved unsuccessful, Skeeter had a BreakupBreakout, most notably with the country-pop crossover "The End of the World".
* Music/MontgomeryGentry was working on an album for Average Joes Entertainment in 2016 and 2017, but group member Troy Gentry died in a helicopter accident on September 8, 2017 (incidentally, the same day that a retired Music/DonWilliams died of natural causes). After Gentry died, it was revealed that the album would be released anyway. Other member Eddie Montgomery (brother of Music/JohnMichaelMontgomery) continued to tour under the Montgomery Gentry name, using members of their touring band to cover Troy's half of the VocalTagTeam.
* Veteran EDM producer Paul Walden AKA Guru Josh, following a long struggle with depression and drug addiction, was finally DrivenToSuicide in December 2015, being found dead by his manager just before a scheduled flight home. Therefore, the 2013 single "Ray of Sunshine" was his last.
* Music/TomPetty died suddenly on October 2, 2017, only a week after he wrapped up his 40th anniversary tour with the Heartbreakers, who subsequently dissolved. In his last interviews, Tom said that the tour would probably be "the last big one". Although it's unclear if he was in the middle of working on anything right before he died, he did have plans for 2018 and beyond, including:

* When Joe Strummer died in late 2002, Music/TheClash had just been announced as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and the band's classic lineup was gearing up to reunite and perform at the ceremony. The band's co-leader Mick Jones has since confirmed that this reunion wouldn't have been a one-off, and they were planning to record a new album and go on tour as well. ''Streetcore'', the final album by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, was completed as a PosthumousCollaboration with members of the Mescaleros themselves and released in 2003 - many vocal performances are first takes, a few songs were sourced from a solo session with Music/RickRubin and might not have been originally intended for the album, and "Midnight Jam" is an instrumental that only features Strummer's voice via SpokenWordInMusic samples.
* Grant [=McLennan=], the co-lead singer and songwriter for the Australian indie rock band The Go-Betweens, died suddenly of a heart attack in 2006 on the night he was planning to propose to his girlfriend. At the time, the band had been in the early stages of putting together their tenth album and were also preparing a compilation of the solo music that both [=McLennan=] and the band's other singer-songwriter Robert Forster had put out between the band's break-up in 1989 and their reunion in 2000. Work on the compilation, ''Intermission'', was finished by Forster and was released in 2007. Some of the songs the two had written for a new album wound up on Forster's 2008 solo album ''The Evangelist''.
* Dolores O'Riordan of Music/TheCranberries died of an accidental drowning on January 15, 2018, in London, where she was doing some recording sessions, including featuring on a cover of her band's song "Zombie" by Bad Wolves. A month later, her surviving bandmates said that they would release her completed recordings as a final Cranberries album, ''In the End'', which was released on April 26, 2019. Bad Wolves' cover of "Zombie" was released without her vocals as a tribute.
* TeenPop singer and ''Series/TheVoice'' contestant Music/ChristinaGrimmie was working on her third album called ''Cliche'' that was apparently cancelled due to getting dropped from her label. After possibly losing motivation for a time, she started writing again and released an EP called ''Side A'' in early 2016. However, she would never see ''Side B'' due to being murdered in Orlando that June. ''Side B'', the album ''All is Vanity'', and a couple other singles have been released since then.
* Mark E. Smith, the leader of prolific post-punk group Music/TheFall, died of cancer in the middle of their 2017-18 tour. Several shows on that tour - including what would have been the band's first American tour dates in a decade - postponed or canceled due to Smith's rapidly deteriorating health. Although he performed his final few shows from a wheelchair and was [[{{Determinator}} still as lively and full of venom as ever]], video footage of those concerts show him to be exhausted, frequently out of breath or difficult to understand. Ultimately his health got so bad that the group had to scuttle several shows just before they were due to go on, including what would have been their final show on 17 November 2017. Mark had also hinted at an eventual second album for Von Südenfed, his electronic music collaboration with Music/MouseOnMars - with no indication of what, if any, material was completed before Mark's death, 2007's ''Tromatic Reflexxions'' is likely to remain the project's only release.
* Jeremy Inkel, keyboardist for Left Spine Down and co-writer/producer for Music/FrontLineAssembly starting with ''Artificial Soldier'', died of an asthma attack on January 13, 2018, while the latter band was producing ''Wake Up the Coma''. Said album was released on Inkel's birthday [[InMemoriam in his memory]] and includes his final contributions to the band, "Mesmerized" and "Structures".
* Jonghyun, the lead singer and primary songwriter for Korean boy band Music/{{SHINee}}, died by suicide in December 2017. His death came a few weeks before the release of his second solo album ''Poet | Artist''.
* Music/TheGratefulDead planned to release a new studio album in the early 1990s containing studio versions of the several new songs that had found their way into their concert setlists following the release of their ''Built to Last'' album in 1989. However, production dragged on for years, partly because frontman Jerry Garcia was apathetic about the new album and he did not record any lead vocals before his death in 1995. After his death, band members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh tried to compile an album from what had already been recorded but gave up in 1999 because there simply wasn't enough material to merit a release. The 2019 album ''Ready or Not'' contains live versions of nine songs from the Dead's final batch of new material, most of which were slated to appear on the never-completed studio album.
* Controversial rapper Music/{{XXXTentacion}} was murdered in June 2018, just a few months after the release of his second album and while he was in the middle of a tour. After his death, his song "Sad!" rocketed up the Billboard charts and became the first posthumous #1 single in over 20 years.
* Music/LilPeep died of an accidental overdose on November 15, 2017, before a planned show in Tucson. He had several projects in the pipeline, including part 2 of his debut and ultimately final album ''Come Over When You're Sober'', which eventually saw a posthumous release in 2018.
* Music/BetterThanEzra was a quartet when guitarist Joel Rundell committed suicide in 1990. The band broke up for a few months, but reunited as a trio. Rundell has never been officially replaced, although Kevin Griffin and Tom Drummond have made numerous offers to touring guitarist Jim Payne (he's politely turned them down).
* Seattle-based alt-rock singer Shawn Smith, of the bands Brad, Satchel, and Pigeonhed, died of an aortic tear brought on by high blood pressure on April 5th, 2019, the anniversary of the deaths of fellow Seattle rockers Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. At the time of his passing, Smith was contributing to a new Brad album.
* Grunge band The Gits were working on their second album when their frontwoman Mia Zapata was slain on the Seattle streets. The killer wouldn't be found for a decade.
* When Keith Green died in a private plane crash in 1982; he had enough completed material in the can for two posthumously released albums; plus a number of demos appearing on varied compilation and tribute albums into [[UsefulNotes/TheNineties the 1990s]].
* Eddie Money died in September 2019, almost one month after publicly disclosing he had terminal esophageal cancer. By that time, he was working on a reality show called ''Real Money'' on Creator/{{AXSTV}}, which was in its second season (of note, the episode where he disclosed his cancer diagnosis aired ''one day'' before his death). The show's fate after his death is unclear at the moment.
* In July 2012, Music/MarvinHamlisch was selected to be the Principal Conductor for the Philadelphia Pops Orchestra. But on August 6, Hamlisch died suddenly, so Yannick Nézet-Séguin got selected in his place.
* Architects' lead guitarist and FaceOfTheBand Tom Searle passed away In August 2016 due to skin cancer. His last album with the band was ''All Gods Have Abandoned Us'' which was him coming to terms with his eventual death and the last song he wrote for the band was ''Doomsday.'' Architects have continued on, enlisting the help of longtime friend Josh Middleton (Sylosis) as a full-time member.
* We Came As Romans' clean singer and keyboardist Kyle Pavone went through a [[CreatorBreakdown bad breakup and turned to drugs]] during 2018 and it ultimately claimed his life in August 2018 due to a drug overdose. We Came As Romans decided to not replace Kyle and continue on with singer Dave Stephens taking up both harsh and clean vocals.
* Former Music/{{Volumes}} guitarist Diego "Yaygo" Farias joined the 27 Club in February 2020 due to a drug overdose. He left the band on good terms realizing that production was his true calling in music. Tragically, Diego's post-Volumes plans won't come to pass.
* Music/PenguinCafeOrchestra ended with the death of founder Simon Jeffes from a brain tumour in 1997. His piano sketches for the group's planned sixth studio album were released as a solo album instead.
* Music/JuiceWRLD had a fatal seizure at the Chicago airport in December 2019. He had at least one unreleased album at the time of his passing.
* Kyu Sakamoto, well known for his hit "Ue o Muite Arukō" (released overseas as "Sukiyaki"), died in the ill-fated Japan Airlines Flight 123 crash en route to a concert.
* New York rapper Pop Smoke was killed in a robbery before the release of his debut album, ''Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon''. The album was finished with the help of Pop Smoke's mentor, Music/FiftyCent.
* Eddie Van Halen of Music/VanHalen died in 2020 of throat cancer while the band was considering a "kitchen-sink" reunion tour with Sammy Hagar, Gary Cherone, and Michael Anthony rotating their respective vocalist and bassist duties with David Lee Roth and Wolfgang Van Halen. Unsurprisingly, his death put an end to the band.
* On July 4, 1984, singer-songwriter Jimmie Spheeris had just finished recording a comeback album. He was riding his motorbike back home when a drunk driver collided into him, hitting his head on the pavement. ''Spheeris'' was finally released in 2000.
* 90's rock band The Jody Grind ended in 1992, when the rhythm section (alongside eccentric poet Deacon Lunchbox) died in a van crash. Lead singer Kelly Hogan went solo soon afterwards.
* David Reilly, the lead singer of industrial rock band God Lives Underwater, died from a tooth infection in 2005. Two posthumous solo albums were released in 2013 (''Life After the So-Called God Lives Underwater Age'' and ''Inside''), featuring unreleased material.
* Music/GeorgeJones was planning a farewell tour which would have taken place in fall 2013, but died of respiratory issues at age 81 that April.
* Detroit-based producer and rapper Music/JDilla suffered from lupus and an incurable blood disease in his final years, but continued producing music until literally hours before his death in 2006. While he managed to finish ''Music/{{Donuts}}'', and lived to see its release, Dilla eventually got too sick to finish his other album, ''The Shining'', which was 75% complete, and entrusted his longtime friend and fellow producer Karriem Riggings to finish it for him.
* Japanese producer Music/{{Nujabes}} was killed in a car crash on February 26, 2010. Two projects he was working on at the time, ''Spiritual State'' and the "[=Luv(sic)=]" Hexalogy, were unfinished, and were eventually completed by his friends and collaborators.
* Spirit of Atlanta brass arranger Jim Ott was killed in a van crash in the middle of the 1980 season. The corps pulled together and repeated the previous year's 4th-place finish at the DCI Championships in August. Unfortunately, Ott's death slowed Spirit's momentum; they finished 9th the following season and other than a brief revival in the mid 80's, they have never returned to the top half of the standings.
* Music/{{SOPHIE}} released her debut album, ''Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides'' in 2018, and according to her brother (who was also her mixing engineer), she continued to stay busy, almost completing her follow-up album alongside hundreds of other unreleased tracks in her vault, but these were tragically halted in 2021 by her early death in a falling accident. Reportedly, the album was meant to be more {{pop}} than the [[AvantGardeMusic avant-garde]] direction of ''OOEPUI'', with the plan being to alternate between the two moods every few years, now sadly a massive case of WhatCouldHaveBeen (as of June 2021, her family has begun discussions to posthumously release her archived music).
* Music/ZZTop was the longest-running rock band with the same line-up (with Music/GoldenEarring and then Music/{{Rush|Band}} close behind them) from their 1969 founding until Dusty Hill's death on July 28, 2021. In accordance with Hill's wishes, the band [[https://ultimateclassicrock.com/zz-top-not-breaking-up/ will continue]] with their longtime guitar technician Elwood Francis in Hill's place.
* On August 5, 2021, Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}} announced that they'd go on tour again after being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but added that Charlie Watts would not be playing because he had to recover from a medical procedure, and a substitute drummer would fill in for him in the tour. But on August 24, Watts passed away at age 80. From 1963 until his passing, Watts had been the only member besides Music/MickJagger and Music/KeithRichards to have played on every Rolling Stones album and tour. Later that week, Jagger and Richards announced that the tour would go on with a tribute to Watts, however, the future of the band is uncertain.
* Music/{{Alphaville}} keyboardist Martin Lister died on May 21st, 2014, just three weeks after he and singer Marian Gold participated in a fan forum chatroom. During that chat they announced that the next Alphaville album, ''Strange Attractor,'' would release on September 27th of that year. Although new keyboardist Carsten Brocker joined the band later that June, ''Strange Attractor'' was delayed two and a half years to April 7, 2017.
* Music/GustavoCerati passed away in 2011 before finishing the last music videos for his final album.
* Music/JeanMichelJarre had ambitious plans for early 1986, namely a new studio album titled ''Rendez-vous'' and a gigantic concert in Houston, TX, to celebrate the city's and the state's 150th anniversary as well as NASA's 25th anniversary. The astronaut Ron [=McNair=] was to play his soprano saxophone in space aboard the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' on a track written for him, "Ron's Piece", both on the album and via a live link-up at the concert. It was that very Space Shuttle mission that was cut short when ''Challenger'' exploded after take-off. [=McNair=]'s part on the album was played by Pierre Gossez instead, and the track got the additional title "Last Rendez-vous". As for the concert, Jarre considered canceling it altogether in the wake of the ''Challenger'' disaster, but he was convinced to carry on and play the show, also as a memorial to the victims of the disaster. He did play it with Kirk Whalum standing in for Ron [=McNair=], [[EverythingIsBigInTexas and the concert broke records left and right]].
* Music/CabaretVoltaire's 2020 comeback was cut short by the death of frontman (and sole remaining member) Richard H. Kirk on September 21, 2021 from undisclosed causes.
* Bronski Beat keyboardist Larry Steinbachek died of cancer in December 2016, following the release of the band's long stuck in DevelopmentHell album ''Out & About''. Founder Steve Bronski died in an apartment fire almost exactly five years later, ending the band for good.
* Music/FooFighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died suddenly on March 25, 2022, only hours before the band was scheduled to perform at the Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogota, Colombia. They cancelled the remainder of their 2022 world tour. They were also expected to perform at the 2022 Grammy Awards the week after that before bowing out, although the Grammys announced that their slot would serve as a tribute to Hawkins, instead. On June 8, 2022, the group's surviving members announced plans for two Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts: one on September 3, 2022 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, and another on September 27, 2022 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, California. On December 31, 2022, the group issued a statement saying that they would go on without Taylor, saying "Without Taylor, we never would have become the band that we were – and without Taylor, we know that we’re going to be a different band going forward. We know that when we see you again – and we will soon – he'll be there in spirit with all of us every night.".
* Around 1985, Music/{{Minutemen}} were making plans for a [[DistinctDoubleAlbum distinct triple album]] called '' Three Dudes, Six Sides, Half Studio, Half Live'', consisting of new studio material plus a LiveAlbum, with the latter to have a setlist determined by fan vote. Frontman D. Boon died in a van crash that year, so instead the band released ''Ballot Result'', a live compilation largely centered around the same songs that fans had voted to include on ''Three Dudes...'', a year later.
* Electronics pioneer Music/KlausSchulze passed on April 26, 2022, following a long struggle with renal disease, during which time he recorded the SwanSong album ''Deus Arrakis''; [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents said album's release was delayed from June to July 2022 out of respect]].
* Music/PeterGabriel took so long to finish ''Music/{{Up|PeterGabrielAlbum}}''[[note]]the album entered production in 1995 and didn't release until 2002, a full decade after [[Music/{{Us}} its predecessor]][[/note]] that the guest vocalist for "Signal to Noise", Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, died before he could record his parts. Gabriel had to resort to sourcing Khan's vocals from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5KcEy3y23w an early live performance of the song]].
* Music/DepecheMode co-founder Andy Fletcher died of an aortic dissection on May 26, 2022, as the band was starting production on their 15th album, ''Memento Mori''.
* English poet Robert Graves recorded a reading of one of his works for Music/DavidSylvian's ''Gone to Earth'', but died the year before the album released; his part is featured on the closing track, "Upon This Earth".
* Kenneth Schermerhorn had almost completed leading the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in recording Heitor Villa-Lobos' ''Bachianas Brasileiras'' for Naxos Records when he died in 2005. At that time, all but the first suite had been recorded; Andrew Mogriela took over the baton for that recording to complete the project.
* In 1979, Soul singer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donny_Hathaway Donny Hathaway]] committed suicide during the recording of what was to be his second duet album with Roberta Flack. The album would be released one year after Hathaway's death.
* Moon Bin, the lead vocalist and main dancer of the Korean boy band, Music/{{Astro}}, passed away on April 19, 2023. He and fellow Astro member Sanha were supposed to perform at the Dream Concert in Busan and attend a fan con tour in Jakarta in May.

* Music/MichaelJackson died in 2009, weeks before the scheduled start of his planned ''This Is It'' concerts in London. He had been working on new songs in the last few years of his life as well; some were completed posthumously (with infamous [[FakeShemp Michael soundalike Jason Malachi reportedly handling vocals on several tracks]]), bundled together with unused songs from older albums, and released as ''Michael'' in 2010. Most of Jackson's unused material was released in his lifetime to fill out reissues and a box set; as of April 2015 the only post-''Michael'' releases with more "vault" stuff were the ''Music/{{Bad}}'' reissue in 2012 and ''[[Music/XscapeMichaelJacksonAlbum Xscape]]'' in 2014. The latter album is comprised entirely of previously-unreleased tracks, some having been recorded long before Michael's death[[note]]the regular edition of the album contains the remastered versions of the songs, while the deluxe edition adds the original versions[[/note]]. The title track was first created during the recording of Michael's 2001 album ''Music/{{Invincible}}'', and "Love Never Felt So Good" (a duet with Music/JustinTimberlake) came from a demo made with Paul Anka in the early 1980s. Michael was known for having an impressive amount of artistic input during album recording sessions and due to his efforts, it is believed that there are dozens (possibly hundreds) of unreleased/unfinished tracks recorded throughout his career, including songs given to other artists and early versions of other Michael Jackson songs. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unreleased_songs_recorded_by_Michael_Jackson The Other Wiki has a running list of the known tracks and their fates.]]

* Music/MichaelJackson died in 2009, weeks before the scheduled start of his planned ''This Is It'' concerts in London. He had been working on new songs in the last few years of his life as well; some were completed posthumously (with infamous [[FakeShemp Michael soundalike Jason Malachi reportedly handling vocals on several tracks]]), bundled together with unused songs from older albums, and released as ''Michael'' in 2010. Most of Jackson's unused material was released in his lifetime to fill out reissues and a box set; as of April 2015 the only post-''Michael'' releases with more "vault" stuff were the ''Music/{{Bad}}'' reissue in 2012 and ''Music/{{Xscape}}'' in 2014. The latter album is comprised entirely of previously-unreleased tracks, some having been recorded long before Michael's death[[note]]the regular edition of the album contains the remastered versions of the songs, while the deluxe edition adds the original versions[[/note]]. The title track was first created during the recording of Michael's 2001 album ''Music/{{Invincible}}'', and "Love Never Felt So Good" (a duet with Music/JustinTimberlake) came from a demo made with Paul Anka in the early 1980s. Michael was known for having an impressive amount of artistic input during album recording sessions and due to his efforts, it is believed that there are dozens (possibly hundreds) of unreleased/unfinished tracks recorded throughout his career, including songs given to other artists and early versions of other Michael Jackson songs. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unreleased_songs_recorded_by_Michael_Jackson The Other Wiki has a running list of the known tracks and their fates.]]

* American rapper Pop Smoke was murdered before his debut album "Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon" was released in July 2020.

* New York rapper Pop Smoke was killed in a robbery before the release of his debut album, ''Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon''. The album was finished with the help of Pop Smoke's mentor, Music/FiftyCent.

* New York rapper Pop Smoke was killed in a robbery before the release of his debut album, ''Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon''. The album was finished with the help of Pop Smoke's mentor, Music/50Cent.

* Music/FooFighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died suddenly on March 25, 2022, only hours before the band was scheduled to perform at the Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogota, Colombia. They cancelled the remainder of their 2022 world tour. They were also expected to perform at the 2022 Grammy Awards the week after that before bowing out, although the Grammys announced that their slot would serve as a tribute to Hawkins, instead. On June 8, 2022, the group's surviving members announced plans for two Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts: one on September 3, 2022 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, and another on September 27, 2022 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, California. On December 31, 2022, the group issued a statement saying that would go on without Taylor, saying "Without Taylor, we never would have become the band that we were – and without Taylor, we know that we’re going to be a different band going forward. We know that when we see you again – and we will soon – he'll be there in spirit with all of us every night.".

* Music/FooFighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died suddenly on March 25, 2022, only hours before the band was scheduled to perform at the Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogota, Colombia. They cancelled the remainder of their 2022 world tour. They were also expected to perform at the 2022 Grammy Awards the week after that before bowing out, although the Grammys announced that their slot would serve as a tribute to Hawkins, instead. On June 8, 2022, the group's surviving members announced plans for two Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts: one on September 3, 2022 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, and another on September 27, 2022 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, California.

* After the release of ''Music/{{Innuendo}}'', Music/{{Queen|Band}} frontman Music/FreddieMercury anticipated that he wouldn't live to see a follow-up, and recorded as much material as he could with the intent of releasing it posthumously. However, due to his failing health, he was only able to finish enough usable material for three songs -- "Mother Love", "You Don't Fool Me", and "My Life Has Been Saved". When the band reconvened in 1993 to finish what ultimately became 1995's ''Music/MadeInHeaven'', most of the songs were instead pieced together from outtakes and side-projects. Mercury's final vocal performance is on the song "Mother Love", in which Music/BrianMay sings the final verse as Mercury left the studio to rest, and then ultimately never returned to finish it.
* There's been speculation that Music/OtisRedding intended "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" to be part of a ''[[Music/TheBeatles Sgt. Pepper]]''-like concept album, but he was killed in a plane crash a mere three days after recording it, and it ended up being the last song he ever recorded.
** Four members of his backing band, The Bar-Kays, were also killed. Trumpet player Ben Cauley (who survived the crash) restarted the band with bassist James Alexander (who wasn't on board).

* Music/RunDMC producer Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell was murdered in 2002, and the group more or less died with him.
* Influential Manchester PostPunk[=/=]{{Goth}} band Music/JoyDivision had just finished a well-received European tour, completed their second album, had just produced a promo video for their soon-to-be hit single "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and were poised on the brink of international recognition. The night before they were due to leave for a major tour of the USA, frontman Ian Curtis hung himself in his kitchen. His history of depression and severe epilepsy made suicide almost inevitable according to his friends and family, but no one expected it that soon. The rest of the band changed their name to Music/NewOrder, updated their sound to a more synth-based synthpop and practically invented the alternative dance genre, and went on to greater commercial success. As for the leftover Joy Division material, the last two songs Curtis recorded, "Ceremony" and "In a Lonely Place", were re-recorded and released as New Order's debut single, while their remaining non-album work would see various re-releases on a number of compilations.

* Layne Staley, lead singer and co-songwriter for grunge outfit Music/AliceInChains died of a drug overdose in 2002. The band never officially split, but Staley's addiction meant that he was reclusive from the late nineties until his death, which meant that the band was also inactive. In 2005 the band reunited, replacing Staley with William [=DuVall=].
* T. Rex leader Music/MarcBolan was killed in a car crash, ending the band immediately.
* After five years of rising success, three members of Music/LynyrdSkynyrd were killed in a plane crash while the rest were seriously injured. The band's fifth album, ''Street Survivors'', was released three days before the crash; the album cover art originally superimposed a group shot of the band onto a city street engulfed in flames, and had to be pulled from store shelves and replaced with an alternate version of the group shot on a plain black background (recent CD re-releases have restored the original cover). Eerily, Steve Gaines, who died in the crash, appeared to have his eyes closed and had his head surrounded by flames on the original cover.
* When Music/JeffBuckley drowned in the Wolf River in 1997, he left behind an entire album worth of material that the producers had to guess the order of the songs that were going to appear. The double album ''Music/SketchesForMySweetheartTheDrunk'' was released the following year, reflecting the album's TroubledProduction - the first disc contained the basically finished songs he and his band recorded with Tom Verlaine as RecordProducer, and the second disc is home demos made on a 4-track recorder.

* Similar to The Exploding Hearts, 90s AlternativeRock group For Squirrels had their career suddenly halted by a van accident around the time their [[OneHitWonder only hit]] "Mighty K.C." was on the charts. Lead singer Jack Vigliatura and bassist Bill White were killed. They released two albums, and one of those (''Baypath Rd'') was self-released and is [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes long out of print]]. The remaining trio reformed under the name Subrosa, and released one album, ''Never Bet The Devil Your Head'', before splitting up.
* Heaven and Hell singer Music/RonnieJamesDio (formerly of Music/BlackSabbath) died of stomach cancer in 2010. Since Heaven and Hell only existed so the non-Ozzy members of Sabbath could play with Dio again, the band pretty much ceased to exist after he died. Ronnie's main band, [=Dio=], were also working on two follow-ups to their ''Magica'' concept album prior to his death. The story will never be completed now. (Making the way he cuts off the narration of Magica's storyline with some teases cut off by a mischievous "Ah! But that’s another story!" to make you wait for the next installment much HarsherInHindsight.)

* Jazz critics usually cite the 1961 live recordings by pianist Music/BillEvans and his trio at New York's Village Vanguard as Evans' GrowingTheBeard moment, but 10 days after those shows were recorded bassist Scott [=LaFaro=] died in a car accident. The incident traumatized Evans and worsened his already heavy heroin addiction. Evans himself died in 1980 (of a drug-related bleeding ulcer) just as he was entering a creative renaissance. [=LaFaro=] is an interesting case because, due to his elevation of the bass' role to counterpoint to instead of solely support to the soloist, he is frequently regarded as being one of the three most influential bassists in jazz. The other two, Jimmy Blanton and Jaco Pastorius, also died at similarly young ages.[[note]][=LaFaro=] was 25, Blanton was 23, Pastorius was 35[[/note]]

* Rich Mullins died in a car accident in 1997 while working on ''The Jesus Record''. It was released the following year as a double album - one disc of Rich's home demo recordings, the other disc featuring the same songs (plus one extra) given the full band treatment by Mullins' "Ragamuffin Band".
* Chuck Schuldiner, the guy who pretty much invented DeathMetal with his band Music/{{Death}}, was diagnosed with brain cancer in late 1999 and underwent surgery and radiation therapy. Unfortunately, the cancer recurred in 2001, and a series of chemotherapy treatments weakened his body to the point that he died of pneumonia in December 2001.
* Rolf Kohler, the lead singer of Systems in Blue, died of a stroke in September 2007. The rest of the group produced their second album, ''Out of the Blue'', as a PosthumousCollaboration.

* Francisco "Frankie" Gutierrez, [[FaceOfTheBand frontman and face of]] the Eurodance act Captain Jack, made famous by the ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' series, died of a hemorrhagic stroke in 2005, ending the group for all practical purposes; Until 2008, with singer Bruce Lacy taking on the character of "The Captain".

* The sudden death of Peter Christopherson in November 2010 put an end to Music/ThrobbingGristle. The death of Genesis P-Orridge in March 2020 killed any further chances of a reunion.

* The fate of the Music/BeastieBoys after their album ''Hot Sauce Committee Part 1'' is now uncertain with the death of Adam "MCA" Yauch in May 2012. The surviving members Ad-Rock and Mike D have said that they may perform together in the near future, but not with the Beastie Boys moniker.

* A plane crash in March 1963 killed CountryMusic artists Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins. All three had singles on the charts at the time (in fact, Hawkins' "Lonesome 7-7203" had ''just'' been released, and would go on to #1 two months later), but Cline was the only one of the three who had continued posthumous chart success.

* This trope is practically embodied by Cliff Burton of Music/{{Metallica}}, who was heavily responsible for the band's sound - particularly on their best-selling second and third albums - and as a result of being musically educated, was acknowledged by the band as the most talented musician and writer in the group. Sadly, he died in 1986 aged just 24, when the band's tour bus crushed him. After this happened, Metallica changed their style completely from the ThrashMetal genre they practically created to a slow, mainstream hard rock sound, leading to massive outcry from fans accusing them of "selling out". This, combined with the fact that they dropped almost all Burton-era songs from the live setlist in this era, strongly suggests that Burton's death and the resulting grief is what drove the band into this change. One thing's for certain; Metallica fans everywhere wonder WhatCouldHaveBeen had Burton lived and continued writing.
* Mitch Lucker's fatal motorcycle accident left Music/SuicideSilence without a vocalist and an uncertain future. They eventually brought in Eddie Hermida of Music/AllShallPerish to replace Mitch.

** When DOOM himself passed away in 2020, he had multiple planned projects languishing in DevelopmentHell, including a sequel album to ''Music/{{Madvillainy}}'' and a collaborative album with [[Music/WuTangClan Ghostface Killah]]. [[https://www.nme.com/en_asia/news/music/flying-lotus-reveals-he-and-mf-doom-were-working-on-an-ep-before-the-rappers-death-2847710 He was also working on a collaborative EP with]] Music/FlyingLotus at the time of his passing. It is unknown if they will be scrapped altogether or if any material related to the planned projects will see the light of day.

* Folk-rocker Music/JimCroce died in an airplane crash in Louisiana in 1973, but had four chart singles after his death, including a posthumous #1 hit with "Time in a Bottle" in early 1974.

* Music/JanisJoplin died of an accidental heroin overdose shortly before her only big hit, "Me and Bobby [=McGee=]", topped the charts.

* IndieRock duo Her's ceased to exist after both members were killed in a head-on collision in March 2019. Their manager (who was driving their van) and the driver who hit them (who'd been driving the wrong way) were also killed.
* Similarly, the Brit rock band Viola Beach had just recorded their debut album when all of its members along with their manager were killed in a car accident in Sweden in February 2016. The self-titled album did eventually see release.
** And the ''same day'' as Viola Beach, Ohio rock band Counterflux lost three of its five members when a drunk driver hit them head on. Jeez.

* Music/DavidBowie's final album, ''Music/BlackstarAlbum'', was released on his 69th birthday, two days before he succumbed to cancer. The meaning of many of the album's songs soon became clear after the fact - he knew his life was over.

* After Music/{{Queen}} frontman Music/FreddieMercury died in 1991, many of his final recordings with the band were completed in 1995 for the ''Made In Heaven'' album. Mercury had recorded much of the ''Made in Heaven'' material immediately after the release of 1991's ''Innuendo'' knowing he didn't have much longer to live and with the intent for his bandmates to finish them after his death. Mercury's final vocal performance is on the song "Mother Love", in which Brian May sings the final verse as Mercury left the studio to rest, and then ultimately never returned to finish it.
** Music/BrianMay and Roger Taylor recruited Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers to revive Queen, but the results, while not disastrous, were received lukewarmly by critics. May and Taylor revived the band yet again with Music/AdamLambert for a pair of tours in 2014-15, while also releasing the pseudo-GreatestHitsAlbum ''Queen Forever'', based on long-lost demos and other recordings featuring Freddie Mercury.

* Around 1985, {{Music/Minutemen}} were making plans for a [[DistinctDoubleAlbum distinct triple album]] called '' Three Dudes, Six Sides, Half Studio, Half Live'', consisting of new studio material plus a LiveAlbum, with the latter to have a setlist determined by fan vote. Frontman D. Boon died in a van crash that year, so instead the band released ''Ballot Result'', a live compilation largely centered around the same songs that fans had voted to include on ''Three Dudes...'', a year later.

* Music/ZZTop was the longest-running rock band with the same line-up (with Music/GoldenEarring and then Music/{{Rush}} close behind them) from their 1969 founding until Dusty Hill's death on July 28, 2021. In accordance with Hill's wishes, the band [[https://ultimateclassicrock.com/zz-top-not-breaking-up/ will continue]] with their longtime guitar technician Elwood Francis in Hill's place.

* On August 5, 2021, Music/TheRollingStones announced that they'd go on tour again after being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but added that Charlie Watts would not be playing because he had to recover from a medical procedure, and a substitute drummer would fill in for him in the tour. But on August 24, Watts passed away at age 80. From 1963 until his passing, Watts had been the only member besides Music/MickJagger and Music/KeithRichards to have played on every Rolling Stones album and tour. Later that week, Jagger and Richards announced that the tour would go on with a tribute to Watts, however, the future of the band is uncertain.

* Music/GeorgeHarrison died while working on the album ''Brainwashed''; it was completed by his son Dhani Harrison and former Travelling Wilbury bandmate Jeff Lynne. They made it considerably more lavish than George would have if he had lived--we have WordOfGod on that; Lynne felt that doing otherwise would've dishonored his memory. George Harrison was also one of the producers of Creator/CirqueDuSoleil's ''Love''; in the making-of special his wife and son are seen watching the troupe's dress rehearsal some months after George died, and it's eerie seeing Dhani (with [[WhatBeautifulEyes wide, bright eyes]]) looking through a giant projection of [[StrongFamilyResemblance his nearly-identical father.]]

* Music/LudwigVanBeethoven's Symphony No. 10 had a similar fate. Beethoven was already laying the groundwork for the symphony while composing his famous Symphony No. 9 and planned it as a sort of purely instrumental answer to the choral finale of No. 9. However, he only completed a few hundred bars' worth of sketches for the first movement before setting it aside, and he never returned to it. English musicologist Barry Cooper produced a speculative completion of the first movement and released a recording in 1988, but critics almost universally agree that the results are far less impressive than they would have been had Beethoven finished the symphony himself.

* Music/AntonBruckner planned for his Symphony No. 9 in D minor to be his last and grandest contribution to the form. However, he had only completed the first three movements at his death in 1896, and although he left enough sketches for the finale that several speculative completions have been produced, performed, and recorded, it is more usually performed as a three-movement work. Knowing he would not live to finish the piece, Bruckner suggested that his setting of the ''Te Deum'' prayer be used as a finale, but as it is in C major rather than D minor (or D major), this idea has never been popular.[[note]] Although the three-movement version likewise ends in a completely different key (the "concluding" Adagio is in E major).[[/note]]