The greatest final albums of all time

September 29, 2023

Frequently, many musicians are engaged in the law of diminishing returns. Their first couple of albums will be full of fire, inspiration, and the need to prove something to the music-buying public. After about eight or nine albums, though, things can become a little perfunctory and give the impression that the artist is just trying to fulfill a contract.

However, this trend is sometimes bucked, and an artist goes out with a bang. It’s not often, but it does happen, and we’ve decided to list 10 such examples here.

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David Bowie – ‘Blackstar’

When David Bowie passed away in 2016, it was a huge surprise to almost everybody, as he had kept the fact that he was terminally ill a secret. But two days before his death, on his 69th birthday, he released the album “Blackstar,” which critics and fans hailed as one of the best things he’d ever done in his long career.

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The Beatles – ‘Abbey Road’

Technically, “Let It Be” could be said to be the Beatles’ last album because it was released last, but it had been recorded before “Abbey Road,” the record that was the final one all four Beatles would work on. “Abbey Road” had a few clunkers on it, but overall, it was a fine note for the Fab Four to go out on, and many fans consider it one of the best things they ever recorded.

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Janis Joplin – ‘Pearl’

“Pearl” was released in January 1971, just a few months after Janis Joplin died from a drug overdose. While it was a little more polished than her previous records, her voice could still peel paint off the walls, and as much as it’s a great note to go out on, it’s also a sad reminder of what she could have done if she had lived.

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Nirvana – ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’

A lot of people feel two ways about this album. Some people see it as the band’s unencumbered finest, while others see it as a cynical attempt to cash in on the band less than a year after Kurt Cobain’s death. Either way, it shows the band in top form, and the rendition of Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” would still be chilling even if Cobain were still alive.

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Joy Division – ‘Closer’

Joy Division only released two albums, and only 1979’s “Unknown Pleasures” was released in singer Ian Curtis’ lifetime. “Closer” was released two months after Curtis took his own life and didn’t even include the single “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” but it was instantly hailed as a classic, and its reputation as a seminal post-punk album remains to this day.

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Johnny Cash – ‘American VI: Ain’t No Grave’

“American VI: Ain’t No Grave” was released in 2010, seven years after Johnny Cash had passed away, and it represented the last of the recordings Cash had made with producer Rick Rubin in 2003. Like almost all of the music he had recorded with Rubin, it was a bare-bones collection of songs that stripped away every bit of technology used to sweeten up most recordings, and as anyone who followed Cash’s career knows, his recordings were best when they followed the “less is more” approach, as he did here.

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Otis Redding – ‘Dock of the Bay’

The great soul singer Otis Redding died tragically in a plane crash at the age of 26 while his career was ascendant and he was becoming a household name. Redding was the subject of numerous posthumous albums, but “Dock of the Bay” was released just two months after his death, which makes it feel more like something he had some involvement in and less like an estate sale.

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Amy Winehouse – ‘Back to Black’

“Back to Black” is a strange beast because even though it was her second album, it was many people’s first exposure to her, leading them to believe it was her debut. Sadly, even though she lived for five more years after its release, she never made another album in her lifetime, making “Back to Black” a souvenir of a very promising career cut tragically short.

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Jeff Buckley – ‘Grace’

Both a debut and a final album, “Grace” announced Jeff Buckley as a major talent and someone to watch in the coming years, especially thanks to his rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which would move a concrete statue to tears. Tragically, Buckley accidentally drowned in 1997, and even though the posthumous album “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk” followed, it consisted of recordings that Buckley had been dissatisfied with and had decided not to use.

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Jimi Hendrix – ‘Band of Gypsys’

The last album released in Jimi Hendrix’s lifetime consisted of live recordings that he had made without his regular band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Featuring bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, the performances are a little ragged, and there’s more than one out-of-tune note, but the songs are otherwise such scorchers that it doesn’t matter, especially the epic “Machine Gun.” Posthumous releases beyond counting have since emerged, but none are as good as this imperfect live album.

This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.

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