Teena Marie has one last album

When Teena Marie died in 2010, there was an album waiting to be released. It's finally getting an airing, after Marie's daughter, Alia Rose, did the leg work to get it out.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: The dead sell on their own

Hey - that Amy Winehouse album is merely being released as a tribute, yes, and the fact it's been rushed out to hit the Christmas market is just a coincidence.

The Evening Standard reports that it's already number one:

Amy Winehouse topped the charts today with a posthumous album.

Eh? But it's Monday. How has she topped the charts "today"?

Four months after she was found dead in her Camden flat, her new album, called Lioness: Hidden Treasures, has topped the iTunes chart within hours of its release.

Wow. That really is number one in some sort of chart.

But who can give a view on this? Who can tell us if it's alright, like giving a dead man's shoes to a charity shop for someone else to get value from them; or terrible, like digging up Benny Hill to steal his silver? iTunes don't have a spokesperson for these occasions, so the Standard turns instead to Gennaro Castaldo:

Gennaro Castaldo of HMV said: "There could be an emotional reflex among the public, who may feel compelled to buy by way of paying tribute to Amy."

Yes, don't say a silent word of prayer or play the record you already own. That isn't paying tribute. If you're not forking over a credit card, you're some sort of beast. An uncaring, evil, beast.

Talking of which, there's an unnamed HMV spokesperson wheeled into position in the Guardian to talk out their face about Jeremy Clarkson. Could it be a shy Gennaro?

An HMV spokesman said: "We've found in the past that controversy involving artists, with all the media coverage this generates, can often boost sales of their products.

"Clarkson is one of those 'Marmite' personalities that you probably either love or hate, and the chances are that many of the public he upset weren't likely to be among his fans in the first place, while people who do appreciate his sense of humour and follow him on TV may have felt prompted to go out and buy his Powered Up DVD over the weekend."

Or perhaps it's people deciding his career is over, feeling compelled to buy his DVD by way of paying tribute. Who can say, eh?

Gordon in the morning: Slip them into different sleeves

So the inevitable posthumous Amy Winehouse album bandwagon starts; Mitch and family inviting Gordon to private listen of the unreleased work:

The ex-cabbie could not hide his pride as he listened to the 12 songs, some of which even he had never previously heard.

I joined the family in a West London studio last week for the first listen to the surprise collection.

Not all the family, actually:

Amy's 56-year-old mum Janis listened separately to the collection of unheard material because the emotion of the occasion was too personal to share with others.

Especially the showbiz editor of a tabloid who gleefully recounted and chivvied and exposed and prodded their daughter when she was alive, you might assume.

What the "trove" turns out to be is a collection of covers, recorded across the last ten years or so, along with a few works-in-progress versions of familiar songs and one or two new tracks that sound as if they might be best left to the family:

Between The Cheats, was recorded as the star emerged from her turbulent marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil.

But it gets even more uncomfortable than that:

The most emotional track for the singer's family and fans is her cover of A Song For You, a Leon Russell tune made famous by Amy's favourite artist Donny Hathaway. The song, on which Amy plays guitar, was recorded in a single take at her London home in 2009 as she battled to overcome her addiction to Class A drugs.

Her voice can be heard quaking as she tearfully delivers the lyrics.

The really good news, though, is that this mix of the too personal and the previously discarded is going to be ready for release on December 5th - just in time for the Christmas market.

But it's not totally a cynical cash-in:

The posthumous album will be released on December 5 and £1 from every sale will go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which is helping children's charities.

As much as a whole pound? That'll really stop it looking like a record rushed out to maximise the cash take, then.

When Will I Am is the voice of reason

Oh, lord, I hate the idea of nodding in agreement and saying Will I Am has a point, but...:

Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am has criticised plans to release a new Michael Jackson album in November this year.

The star said that previously unheard material should not be made public as it did not have Jackson's blessing.

"How you gonna release Michael Jackson when Michael Jackson ain't here to bless it?" he told the Associated Press news agency.

Unfortunately, Michael Jackson's estate were too busy hosing liquid gold over their genitals to come up with a reply, although Jackson's former manager Frank DeLio was heard to mutter something about dropping the release if some sort of zombie Jackson actually asked him to.

Boyzone plan a "tribute" to Stephen Gately

Apart from inviting Jan Moir to perform a rap on one of the tracks, it's hard to think of a worse idea than the Boyzone Stephen Gately cash-in album.

Sorry, I tried to type 'tribute' but the spell-check keeps correcting it to 'cash-in'.

Boyzone will incorporate a number of tracks which feature Gately's voice on the album, Ronan Keating told Sky News.

Luckily, what with Derek Acorah being busy doing the Michael Jackson seance, Boyzone have got some tapes with Gately's voice on them they can use. Like The Beatles did with John Lennon. Although probably not even as good as that.

Michael Jackson posthumous career as much a mess as prehumous one

Good lord, it was hard to imagine that the management of Michael Jackson's career could have got worse once he was taken out the equation, but it's happened.

That new Michael Jackson song? It turns out it's nearly twenty years old, was originally recorded by a totally different artist and- oh, yes - Paul Anka says the tapes were stolen from his studio and had already been returned once:

Anka said that Jackson returned the tapes after he threatened the star with legal action, but, he claimed, Jackson made a copy and used the track with his voice from I Never Heard, re-titling it This Is It.

I Never Heard was eventually released in 1991 after Anka placed it with an unknown singer named Safire.

Hours after Anka made his claim on the showbusiness website TMZ, administrators for Jackson's estate made him a 50 per cent partner in the publishing rights to the song.

Remember, everybody: stealing music is wrong, unless it's the music industry doing the stealing, when we can always cut a deal.

[Thanks to Mike E and Michael M]

Everyone loves the new Michael Jackson single

Death has conferred on Michael Jackson many things his reputation had kept him away from for a long time - respectful press coverage, kind words and now: an actual single release.

Yes - now unencumbered by the need to worry about quality control and assured of a big sale - Jackson is back to sticking out records, with This Is It getting passed out to radio, and slathering all over the internet as a result.

It's not a bad record for a dead guy. Although... checking the paperwork, it turns out that he wasn't actually dead when he did his bits.

Left Eye from beyond the grave

You have to wonder exactly what sort of a confection Eye Legacy, a "tribute" to Lisa Left-Eye Lopes, actually is. It's being described as her last solo LP, but one does wonder why it has taken six years to get to market if it's, you know, that good.