Back in the 80s/early 90s I worked at the Virgin Megastore in London. I was always surprised at how quick we would get in stock when an artist died. We would hear the news, place our orders and new stock would be on the shelves within a couple of hours. Not instant no, but as near as was possible in those dim distant days when we did our stock checks with eyes and pen and paper and placed our orders over the phone.

I never understood it either, this need to own their albums when you hear they've died. If I didn't already own an album by Amy I wouldn't go and buy one now simply because they'd died. It's some weird sort of response.

every morning we would get the bulletin from Head Office, what music has featured on which TV shows, big advert music, the three month advance notices of Valentine's/ Father's/ Mother's Day, etc and sometimes would be the command to create an 'end on' featuring product of (insert recently dead star here). All very dry and matter-of-fact.

And that's show-business folks.

If you didn't buy those Amy Winehouse records when she was alive, why would you suddenly want them now? It's not as if she was a niche artist who's death has bought her to the public's attention.

I don't do it but I get it (I think).

Good, talented artists will receive huge exposure when they die. Especially young. People are more likely to hear the songs and so realise they like them. They may even be swayed by the increased gravitas an artist appears to have when they die.

I don't think its a desire to own stuff by dead people - merely people finding out they like it (or being reminded that they like it and they never bought it when it first came out.)

Frank came out in 2003, Back to Black in 2006.
Imagine you are a 13 year old kid right now. You would have been 8 years old when Amy W last released a record, and only 5 when she started out, you've probably heard of her, but would have had no reason to have heard a note of this 'old' music. She dies, there is a tidal wave of coverage, so you investigate. Maybe. (I know teenagers aren't supposed to pay for music, but I guess enough of them do.)

And also - what Fraser said - some artists you just never get around to. I've always liked the sound she makes, but have never bought one of her records. I'm not likely to now, either, but enough people will - clearly.

I think that very few people will have bought the records *because* she's dead - they may have just bought the singles in the past, or just enjoyed them on the radio, and never had that single "tipping point" moment where the album purchase happened, and her death was that point (yes, it's semantics, but you know what I mean.)

As a not-inspired-by-tragedy comparison, how can Adele's album still be selling after 17 (or whatever) weeks at number 1? Surely everyone who wants it has it by now? Obviously not, and same goes for Amy, albeit stretched over 5 or 6 years...

I've listened to a number of reports and news items since her death and I must admit it made me interested in listening to her music anew. When she was alive her music had become secondary in the media eye and despite buying Frank and enjoying it I kept clear of Back in Black simply because I couldn't be bothered giving it time and attention while her career became a tabloid freak show. I still liked her music if it came on the radio but I gave up on investing any emotion in it.

I suppose I'm old-fashioned when it comes to popular music in the sense that if acts are of greater media interest because of what they do outside of the music I go off them very quickly. I just don't understand the fascination with acts that specialise in having their personal lives mirrored in the media or who compromise their talent and their music by peddling it as a side-show to their own egos and foibles. Ultimately I find it boring and my ennui extends to the music itself, even if the quality is there. I stop listening properly to it because my mind is cluttered with the attendant baggage of the media gaze.

Most of the radio reports I've listened to since her death have focused on her music and talent rather than the drugs and self-abuse which has created space to listen to her again; many of the prejudices and mental blocks built up in recent years have been sidelined as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if many people who knew of her only as a drug addict have been surprised at how good a singer she was and will have taken time out to reappraise her solely in relation to the music she has left behind. Radio 2 for example has played quite a few records accompanied by some glowing testimonials to her talent and vocal quality; Tony Bennett for example.

The idea of her as a jazz singer with great phrasing and timing rather than "just another dead pop star" seems to have become the mantra and that alone has helped to refocus on what it was that appealed about her in the first place. For many people who thought of her merely as a waster or a freak-show this week has moved much of the debate away from the ghoulish and macabre of the car-crash and onto a more positive agenda which is about the music and her voice.

We can be cynical about the record sales because someone somewhere is making a mint but in time I think it will help in the reappraisal of who she was in terms of her talent. I too will get round to buying Back in Black but it is a sad reflection of how I view the consumer society these days that I'll be taking the time to invest in it after she has died, simply because it was only then that her music and talent became the important aspect of her life in the public eye.

It's only in her death that the cultural worth of her life is understood.

The first significant artist I remember dying was Hendrix.

After all these years I couldn't say exactly how long it took, but I reckon Track / Polydor had the Voodoo Child (slight return) / Hey Joe / All Along The Watchtower single out within a week or so.

It also came in a picture sleeve (very rare in those days) and retailed for 6 shillings (30p in today's money) when the normal price would probably have been 8 or 9 shillings.

I remember hearing every now and again about Jeff Buckley - the usual description was "a choirboy singing Led Zeppelin numbers". I'd also see a few positive mentions in the music press (well, Q anyway). This wasn't happening constantly, you understand, but I always had it in the back of my mind that I should get hold of his album, and give it a listen.

Then he died and I heard "So Real" (on Radio 4, bizarrely enough). That's when I went out and bought the album. If he hadn't died I'm not sure I would have ever heard him. He certainly wasn't being played on the radio much when he was around.

Of course, nowadays the minute you hear about an interesting artist you can immediately check them out on Spotify, YouTube or (if they're particularly obscure) MySpace. But if someone is reminded of an artist by news reports and obituaries and decides to go and grab the album, fair enough.

Mind you, I seem to remember when George Harrison died, the price of All Things Must Pass in HMV mysteriously increased to about 15 quid

Two points:

1. When Michael Jackson died and his downloads immediately skyrocketing, I thought this marked (to employ an entirely inappropriate metaphor) another nail in the coffin of music retail.

As an aside, I was once the British Columbia buyer for a major Canadian music retailer and decided to take a morning off after a B Dylan/J Mitchell/V Morrison concert, which fell on the night of the final Seinfeld. After enjoying the show, I watched the taped episode, and afterward the TV showed Sinatra onscreen. I knew my day off was curtailed so I could go to work and try to order the appropriate Frank material before my earlier-time zoned competition could do so.

2. When the general public flock to the shops for Michael Jackson or Amy Winehouse, I often detect a bit of disdain for the latecomers, but when Captain Beefheart died, it seemed only right and natural to listen to Trout Mask Replica.

I think both instincts are the same: we may not be ready to let go, both of the performer and the associations with them, usually of our own youth. Not everyone has a vast library at hand. In many ways, such actions connect to what the first listeners of recordings must have experienced: an elimination of the dislocation between performer and listener. It's a bit metaphysical, really, and I refrain from criticising how others experience music.