more mj stuff

It looks like whenever I discuss mj I'm going to have to do it discreetly, so again, please forgive the lowercase letters and such, none of this is intended to be disrespectful.

So I finally sat down and listened to the Michael album over the holiday and came away feeling I had spoken too soon. It's nowhere near the quality of any of mj's full-length releases but it's quite good for being a cobbled-together collection of rare songs, most of which were probably not quite finished. My only real complaint about it is the complete lack of recording session details and the years for which the recordings were made. As for the controversy regarding whether the vocals are really mj's or not, there are three tracks where this issue is brought up, Keep Your Head Up, Monster and Breaking News, but I don't think there is much to the claim. There are some vocals on those tracks that really don't sound like mj but the main vocals are clearly his. I'm sure this is all just a publicity tactic but I'm surprised how many people are really buying into to it! It's obviously him for 95% of those songs, and when it's not him it's clearly not him, but none of those questionable portions are in the main vocal lines. Anyway, it's worth checking out the album and there are several quality tracks like the legendary Behind The Mask, (I Can't Make It) Another Day with Lenny Kravitz, the lovely Much Too Soon and the previously released but significantly reworked (I Like) The Way You Love Me. The rest of the album is still quite good but those tracks are definitely the standouts, though I have to note that Breaking News is easily the worst of the bunch, making it even stranger that it was the first track released from the album.

My pseudo album review aside, my real reason for posting this is to mention something that was brought to my attention while doing some research on the album. Back in early Novemeber, Radar Online reported someone was trying to sell eight unreleased mj tracks for $300 each or $1000 for all of them. Some snippets were posted and speculation ran rampant whether these would end up on the Michael album or not. Some of them did, some of them didn't, and some of them have leaked since, but it's pretty clear these songs were being considered for the album. As for whether the tracks that did make the album are significantly different versions, no one seems to know or at least no one has made public statements about them, though there has been lots of speculation about the recordings. For starters, Radar listed the eight songs but it's clear there were typos present and nine titles appear, so here is a somewhat corrected list of them:

All I Need
Another Day
Blue Gangsta
Do You Know
12 O'Clock
Monster
Much Too Soon
Never Felt So Good
Carry On

Monster, Another Day and Much Too Soon all made the album, Never Felt So Good is better known as Love Never Felt So Good and has been circulating for years, 12 O'Clock and Do You Know are the same song which is known as Do You Know Where Your Children Are, a version of Blue Gangsta with Pras from The Fugees has been circulating for quite a while, and the other songs all remain unreleased.

Since most mj albums since the early nineties are usually well over an hour in length, why leave Michael just over forty minutes long when there are clearly lots of other songs remaining? There are rumors they're rationing material, but there are also stories that mj left over a hundred finished and unreleased songs that would be viable candidates for issue. Are there issues verifying authorship? Is it not possible to locate the multitracks for all of them? Lots of questions, not many answers, though I'm fair to bet this won't be the last collection of previously unreleased mj recordings that will be released. I've read stories that Sony intends to have Quincy Jones do a complete remastering of Off The Wall with lots of previously unreleased tracks, and if that happens you know there will be an insanely deluxe edition of Thriller issued if not a massive box set.

With all this confusion about these unreleased mj tracks that were being sold and others that have leaked recently, I thought it was a good time to post some of the recent leaks, other things that have been floating around and the snippets that were posted to advertise the sale of the the unreleased tracks back in November. A little info follows about each track.


UPDATE: While I'm leaving the text for this post online, if you're interested in the tracks below (minus the two from the Thriller era which may be reposted later) please refer to THIS UPDATED POST. Thank you.

01 All I Need
Eddie Cascio is apparently a co-author of this song which has brought it a lot of negative attention in the mj fan community. Cascio co-authored Keep Your Head Up, Monster and Breaking News, the three "controversial" songs from the Michael album so there has been speculation whether this is another "fake" mj track. It sounds like mj to me.

02 Xscape
This leaked quite a while ago and was rumored to appear on the album mj was working on in the mid-2000s, but that album never happened and it's since been revealed that this is an Invincible leftover. Not bad but not great either.

03 Blue Gangsta
There doesn't seem to be any clear determination as to when this song was recorded but I'd guess around 1997 as mj had a brief working relationship with Wyclef's Refugee Camp Productions at that time which resulted in some remixes. To me, this is way too dark for potential release and it doesn't sound much like the mj most folks are used to, but it's not a bad track and what makes it so different makes it quite interesting.

04 Gangsta (No Friend Of Mine)
I don't know if this is the real title for this track, but it's what it has been labeled since it leaked a few years ago. This is a remix of Blue Gangsta which leaked long before the original version leaked. Pras of The Fugees is one of the rappers here but I can't identify the other voice. The presence of more Refugee Camp work backs up my suspicion that these two songs were created around 1997.

05 Hold My Hand (Early Version)
This version of Hold My Hand leaked back in 2008 and is a bit rougher than the version that appears on Michael. Akon still shares vocals with mj, unfortunately.

06 Do You Know Where Your Children Are
This track has suffered a lot of bizarre circumstances since it leaked a little while ago. It was recorded for potential inclusion on Dangerous back in 1990 so Teddy Riley may have been involved in it's creation. It's been referred to as Do You Know and 12 O'Clock. Since it's leak, someone edited the intro and added sound effects like a bad hip-hop dj adding this to a mixtape. Then someone took part of Jay-Z's rap from Girl's Best Friend and added it to the track. Finally, I believe it was Steve Porcaro of Toto who noted that Sony had hired a number of mj's regular studio musicians, including himself, Greg Phillinganes and Steve Luakther, to perform at additional recording sessions for songs that may have been intended to appear on Michael. He confirmed that Do You Know Where Your Children Are was one of the songs they recorded additional performances for, although the version that leaked is most likely the original take from 1990.

07 Love Never Felt So Good
It's a bit of a mystery trying to pin down when this was actually recorded. It could be from any number of sessions ranging from the Off The Wall era to before the Bad sessions. What is clear though is despite the simple backing track, mj must have taken this song very seriously as this recording features a very detailed multitrack vocal performance from himself. This song was probably an early contender for the Michael album and may eventually see the light of day. Conceivably, it would be very easy to build a new recording around the vocal and piano performance. Of course, if the multitracks aren't available, there are issues with the song's ownership or the lyrics are considered too repetitive, any of those things could make it's potential release a problem. Personally, while the lyrics are a bit repetitive, the performance is so beautiful I think that fact should be overlooked and the track released.

08 Slave To The Rhythm
This popped up online recently and no one seems to know when it was recorded. It's not bad but it's mighty repetitive. On top of that, this version is most likely incomplete, probably assembled by a fan from different sources. Samples have been making the round with some stupid dj announcing how cool he is for playing this song and making additional noises while it plays. What idiot thought it was a good idea to ruin songs by screaming their name over top them twenty times, especially when it's not their song to begin with?

09 Trouble
This is not one of the recent leaks and I've only included it here because this version isn't in the collection of mj demos from 81/82 that I posted recently. The quality of the recording is pretty crappy but it's a more complete performance than the one included in that aforementioned post.

10 The Lady In My Life (Full Version)
This is also not a recent leak, but most people I've spoken to aren't aware it exists so I figured it was worth posting. The version of Lady on Thriller is an edit of this version. It was edited because the album was too long for a standard length 33 1/3 LP. If the album had been released at it's original length the sound quality would have been notably reduced. Instead, Billie Jean and Lady were shortened, although there may have been other edits throughout the album as well. This version only saw release upon a very limited promotional compilation of the songs of Rod Temperton, where it was noted the track had a lot of hiss and sounded as though it had been transferred from an old tape compared to the rest of the recordings.

11-21 Snippets
Most of these are the snippets that were leaked by the person trying to sell the recordings in November, though some of them are from other sources.


There will probably be another mj post in the near future, although that will probably be it for the time being, what with my having to post these discreetly and all. I wouldn't want to risk Google/Blogger taking me down or something. Anyway, enjoy!