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In all likelihood, you heard of the band Sublime when everyone else did: After it had become defunct. It may be unfinished, but while there have been countless releases of his live shows, studio demos and other ephemera since his passing, "Sketches" sounds a lot like a finished full-length, and goes to show how great a musician Buckley was, even when he was raw and unguarded. The end result is striking and powerful and showed where Buckley's sound was progressing, with tracks like opener "The Sky Is a Landfill" and the pummeling "Nightmares By the Sea" showing how much more comfortable Buckley was getting with the rock side of his sound, pushing his sonic well outside of balladeer territory. Prior to his passing, Buckley was at work on his sophomore effort, to be titled "My Sweetheart the Drunk." Released in 1998, "Sketches from My Sweetheart the Drunk" is aptly titled, presenting a mix of finished or at least close-to-finished studio songs and four-track demos that Buckley was recording on his own. Following news of his sudden and tragic drowning in 1997, the music world was shocked, losing such a bright young talent at age 30.
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While Jeff Buckley's signature song will always be his dramatic rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," the album that track comes from, 1994's "Grace," had an even bigger impact, with its assured, pop-rock sound and winsome poetry anchored by Buckley's yearning, powerful vocals. Yet as a rock music curiosity, well, few albums are as curious as this.
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Is it a good full-length record? It remains up for debate even to this day. Although the music is certainly engaging, there is little harmony between the various tracks, save for a gimme-gimme add-on in the form of live cut "Roadhouse Blues," which reminds us of the power and the chemistry that the band had together when doing songs and not backing a poetry reading. However, 1978's "An American Prayer" is credited to both Jim Morrison and The Doors as separate entities, as the band simply provides musical accompaniment for Morrison's detailed and sometimes hypersexualized spoken word poetry. Although he died in July 1971, no less than three Doors albums were released after that: 1971's "Other Voices" and 1972's "Full Circle" each featured the other members doing their own songs and vocals without Jim. There are few things linear about The Doors' career arc, and that's largely because Jim Morrison was assuredly not a linear person. Although reviews were mixed and the album was a bit more rock-based than jam-based, fans still embraced it, and although the Grammys failed to include Moore on the In Memoriam reel that year, "Big Whiskey" still ended up getting a nomination for Album of the Year. were crushed by the news, which is why "Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King" was designed as a tribute to Moore, as "GrooGrux" was a made-up word to describe the kinetic energy shared among Moore, Tim Reynolds and Tim Wicks. Yet when he was in an ATV accident in 2008, his healing and re-hospitalizations are what ultimately led to his passing in August of that year. LeRoi Holloway Moore was one of the band's founding members and a dynamite saxophonist whose fingerprints are all over DMB'd discography. While Dave Matthews is the chief songwriter and figurehead for the Dave Matthews Band, even he knows the "Band" part of the equation is what made the group what it is today, as DMB is a tight, eclectic unit of profoundly talented musician who often elevate Matthews' songs to new heights. A saving grace came with the Jackson estate's second stab at a posthumous record, as 2014's "Xscape" at least featured some raw takes of songs like "Love Never Felt So Good" that rank among his greatest recorded works. That's bad." He wasn't wrong: The resulting album, with dated Akon collaborations (Akon saying his own name is the first word you hear on this record), subpar ballads and guest verses that make no sense (50 Cent sounds just as confused as to why he's here) all add up to a record that simply shouldn't have been released. How you gonna release Michael Jackson when Michael Jackson ain't here to bless it?. Heck, even the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am, who himself worked on some remixes for the 25th-anniversary re-release of "Thriller," said in interviews that "I don't think that should ever come out. While it was rumored that Jackson was working on material for a new record before his passing in 2009, tracks "in the can" didn't necessarily mean they were worthy of release.