SkyWalk;4164273 said:
So ....... Unbreakable, Heartbreaker, Invincible, Butterflies, Heaven Can Wait, You Are My Life, 2000 Watts, Don't walk Away, Cry, Whatever Happens, Threatened were all written and recorded in 3 months?? Blimey.
My bad - "Cry" was also recorded beforehand, around 1999.
But yes, signs point to almost everything else being recorded between March and June 2001. That isn't completely impossible either, if Michael really cracked the whip and started working. The vast majority of
Thriller was recorded between late August and early November 1982, after all.
Also take into consideration that several of these songs were completed at the time they were handed to Michael; all that was needed was to polish the production and record his vocals. Neither Michael nor Teddy Riley had a hand in writing "Whatever Happens," for example, though they are credited as cowriters. I also believe Michael took credit for "Heaven Can Wait" and "You Are My Life".
mj_frenzy;4164270 said:
Bill Bottrell talked about “chaotic" recording sessions (when it came to MJ), but that word has a completely different, positive meaning (if it is placed in context):
“… He [MJ] chooses to run an organization making a record of musicians, engineers, producers, writers. These are some flaky people [laughs] and he [MJ] finds a way to motivate them, organize them, make them compete with one another… he [MJ] did have wonderful skills at managing all this chaos going on. And it’s music, it is chaos… ” (Bill Bottrell)
Solid defense. But that doesn't apply to Bottrell's other claim of Michael being "angry and abusive".
MJ was not ready (before his studio album releases) because that was the way he used to work all the time, making final tracklists only to change them at the last minute (because of his own accord & not because of his record company’s demands)! The same thing happened also with his ‘Dangerous’ album which suffered several postponed release dates only because of his own uncertainty. I still cannot understand why ‘Invincible’ has to be treated differently by putting the blame on his record company’s dissatisfaction with the submitted tracks.
The difference lies within the fact that Michael was vocally upset with Sony during the
Invincible sessions, and vice versa.
Keep in mind that by the spring of 2001, recording sessions had been ongoing for upwards of three years, and Sony had pushed the release date numerous times, had only received a handful of tracks, and were hearing through the grapevine of Michael's increasing level of disinterest in the sessions. Not to mention of Michael's growing irritation with the label in general - tensions had been growing between them since
History.
Dangerous was created at a point where Michael was still a universally renowned artist, not the unevenly-received artist considered to be past his prime that he was by 2001. He was also far more active in a studio atmosphere.
Michael postponing his album release dates started to wear on Sony more and more, particularly during
Invincible when they themselves were paying for studio, producer, engineer, travel, and equipment fees.
To summarize:
Invincible was an individually-interesting case when viewed in context of Michael's feelings towards Sony and his overall engagement with the music he was creating. The next time he would actively care about creating an album would be in September 2006.
OnirMJ;4164290 said:
Onir! I missed you needlessly starting arguments rather than asking where this knowledge comes from. Welcome back!
Take a quick look at
Making Michael by Mike Smallcombe. Everything I said regarding the rejected Sony tracks, as well as pretty much everything I've said in this thread, is freely available in there, corroborated by a number of studio engineers and musicians.