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Michael Album Appreciation Thread

Best Of Joy is my favorite posthumous song. Even though everything that was going on at the time I actually have very fond memories of my buying the album and listening to the songs.
 
Agreed. John McCain's work is definitely more authentic. Hopefully he'll do justice to future songs if he does get involved with another project.
AlwaysThere said:
Just as an addendum to what I already posted, I feel strongly that Michael is a key argument as to why John McClain should be the lead producer of every posthumous album/single moving forward. Not only were his songs respectful to the source material, but they were excellent productions that (in my opinion) exceed the originals in almost every way. "Behind the Mask" is my favorite track on the album production wise, and "Much Too Soon" is far stronger as an orchestrated ballad than a simple acoustic track. (Plus, I believe he was behind the leaked version of "Do You Know Where Your Children Are," which is f***ing phenomenal and the definitive cut of the song so far as I'm concerned.) Not to mention his great work on This Is It and Xscape.

McClain has a knack for taking a track and elevating it while keeping true to its original sound. If the original producers aren't willing or able to come back to finish a track, I firmly believe McClain should be the one and only consideration.
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Themidwestcowboy said:
Best Of Joy is my favorite posthumous song. Even though everything that was going on at the time I actually have very fond memories of my buying the album and listening to the songs.
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It's a three-way tie in my mind between "Best of Joy", "Hollywood Tonight", and "Behind the Mask". Neff-U did awesome work on "Best of Joy". It reminds me of "This Is It" where Michael fades out. It would've made a good closing track if it switched places with "Much Too Soon".
 
'Hollywood' is my favourite - a true to form, big MJ banger. Love it (not the video mix though sheesh!)
 
Even though my favourite unreleased songs were on Bad 25 and the second disc of Xscape, I'll always appreciate the Michael album. It had some truly brilliant songs, Hollywood Tonight, Best Of Joy and Behind The Mask.

The people that worked on the album cared about it sounding like Mike, and it came through when you listened to the record, even on Monster and Breaking News, the production was knock out by Teddy (shame they weren't Mike)

Aside from the obvious mistake the Estate made with the cascio tracks, the only other mistakes were the single choices. Best Of Joy should have been made more out of because of how special it was and how heartbreaking it was being one of Michael's final recordings, especially coming the back of This Is It.
Behind Of Mask and Hollywood Tonight should have been made a bigger push, those tracks are incredible and really well produced

I still remember patiently waiting for the album to released, and how excited we were as a fanbase to hear new music and I'll always be thankful for that time, it felt like Michael was still with us, at least in spirit unlike Xscape
 
dam2040 said:
'Hollywood' is my favourite - a true to form, big MJ banger. Love it (not the video mix though sheesh!)
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I honestly believe that if MJ had lived he would've reworked that song and put it on an album anyway. And I could definitely see him doing a music video for it

SmoothCriminal1995 said:
Even though my favourite unreleased songs were on Bad 25 and the second disc of Xscape, I'll always appreciate the Michael album. It had some truly brilliant songs, Hollywood Tonight, Best Of Joy and Behind The Mask.

The people that worked on the album cared about it sounding like Mike, and it came through when you listened to the record, even on Monster and Breaking News, the production was knock out by Teddy (shame they weren't Mike)

Aside from the obvious mistake the Estate made with the cascio tracks, the only other mistakes were the single choices. Best Of Joy should have been made more out of because of how special it was and how heartbreaking it was being one of Michael's final recordings, especially coming the back of This Is It.
Behind Of Mask and Hollywood Tonight should have been made a bigger push, those tracks are incredible and really well produced

I still remember patiently waiting for the album to released, and how excited we were as a fanbase to hear new music and I'll always be thankful for that time, it felt like Michael was still with us, at least in spirit unlike Xscape
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I've heard this sort of sentiment before, and I'd agree: Michael does sound like an album that he would've actually put together, like they captured his essence. While I love most of the remixes on Xscape, I'm glad they released the original versions too on the Deluxe Edition. If they were to release another album, I'd hope that it would have the dynamite production of Michael and the original versions included like with Xscape.
 
Themidwestcowboy said:
Best Of Joy is my favorite posthumous song. Even though everything that was going on at the time I actually have very fond memories of my buying the album and listening to the songs.
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Me, too. I was so excited to hear new Michael music and hold the CD in my hands, just as I had done, for all of the previous album releases.
"Hold My Hand" is just so sublime - I listened to it with wistful tears of sadness, mixed with joy rolling down my cheeks. Same for "Best of Joy".
 
This thread made me go back to the album now & im currently on Behind the Mask.. it really was much better than most give credit for. It’s such a shame it’ll forever be tainted because I think the 7 songs are very respectfully done.

Also does anyone know why so many songs leaked when it came out? Was it anger towards the Cascio situation?
 
dam2040;4320945 said:
This thread made me go back to the album now & im currently on Behind the Mask.. it really was much better than most give credit for. It’s such a shame it’ll forever be tainted because I think the 7 songs are very respectfully done.

Also does anyone know why so many songs leaked when it came out? Was it anger towards the Cascio situation?
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Actually, they were not songs, but just snippets (of 30 seconds each) of the songs.

That leak was not because of anger towards the Cascio situation, but apparently it was done for promotional purposes (on the part of Sony Music/Estate) in order to hype up the ‘Michael’ album just few days before its official release.

That is perfectly normal and it happens very often in music industry: artists or record companies deliberately leak snippets (teasers) of the songs, or even certain entire songs right before the album’s official release.
 
mj_frenzy;4320947 said:
Actually, they were not songs, but just snippets (of 30 seconds each) of the songs.

That leak was not because of anger towards the Cascio situation, but apparently it was done for promotional purposes (on the part of Sony Music/Estate) in order to hype up the ‘Michael’ album just few days before its official release.

That is perfectly normal and it happens very often in music industry: artists or record companies deliberately leak snippets (teasers) of the songs, or even certain entire songs right before the album’s official release.
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No, I mean Do You Know Where Your Children Are, Blue Gangsta & Slave to the Rhythm. They all leaked while the album was releasing.
 
If I'm not mistaken, in the case of "Blue Gangsta", a remix of it was floating around on MySpace in 2006, so both that remix and the one considered for Michael may have been leaked by the same person in 2006 and 2010 respectively.
 
I do recall that some of the leaks were fueled by the Cascio situation. I remember seeing somebody post DYKWYCA snippets because of it. But overall, I think it was just a fan reaction to the massive influx of new material. This was the first time since 2004 that we received an album’s worth of new songs at once, so once the outtakes got to the fans it just snowballed.
 
Pentum said:
This is funny. Ironically, most of it is just fabricated from Invincible:

Have a listen:

https://sndup.net/8hqc/d

Even the "you" is copied, but not sourced in the audio. It's most likely the same "you" they used in Black Widow towards the end.
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The copied MJ vocals in the cascio tracks are still very interesting for me. Is there a list of all copied MJ vocals or does someone has a link to more audio comparison samples? For example I remember a video where someone compared the "I used to dream" of Earth Song to the "I used to dream" in All Right.
 
I just listened to the Michael album again in the car - still feels like a MJ album - songs are great and done with respect for MJ and his vision for the songs.
 
mind&magic said:
The copied MJ vocals in the cascio tracks are still very interesting for me. Is there a list of all copied MJ vocals or does someone has a link to more audio comparison samples? For example I remember a video where someone compared the "I used to dream" of Earth Song to the "I used to dream" in All Right.
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Correct, "I used to dream" is pasted right into "All right" after "I've got a premonition".

You will not find anything Cascio comparison related stuff online. Angelikson and Sony were hunting all audio like wild dogs back then. Fans have them stored offline I guess.
 
mind&magic;4321299 said:
The copied MJ vocals in the cascio tracks are still very interesting for me. Is there a list of all copied MJ vocals or does someone has a link to more audio comparison samples? For example I remember a video where someone compared the "I used to dream" of Earth Song to the "I used to dream" in All Right.
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I don't have an audio or video file unfortunately, but I put together a list a little while ago that I thought was fairly comprehensive when I wrote it:

* “Monster” samples vocal ad-libs from Jackson’s previous songs “Invincible”, “Rock With You”, and “Xscape”
* “Breaking News” samples vocal snippets from “You Rock My World”, “Xscape”, and “Invincible”
* The demo of “Keep Your Head Up” samples “Earth Song” near the end
* The demo of “Keep Your Head Up” is clearly a different vocal take than the one that was included on Michael
* The beat of “All Right” directly rips off the beat of “Stranger In Moscow”
* “Black Widow” samples vocal snippets from “Unbreakable” and “Xscape”
* The demo of “All I Need” samples the tune of “You Are Not Alone” in its opening horn
* “Water” samples “Heaven Can Wait” and “Stranger In Moscow”
* “Fall In Love” samples “Heaven Can Wait” in its outro
* The chorus of “Ready 2 Win” bears striking similarities to “On The Line”
* The bridge of “Soldier Boy” samples ad-libs from the bridge of “They Don’t Care About Us”
 
to me those songs sound like it was intended for a Jason Malachi Album. or (maybe) Eddie needed somebody to record those demos to show it Michael later on (for his new album).

btw, is it confirmed that those songs were recorded in 2010?

JM is a huge MJ fan, he even did a tribute song somewhen after 2011 (released on an album). maybe he was so inspired by Michael that initially he wanted to do similar songs.


but it still seems so unreal that they had the balls to present such tracks to sony.
 
Not to derail this thread, but does anyone find the Cascio tracks memorable? I never find myself humming them and I'd be hard pressed to tell you how they went.
Ironically I can ad-lib along with them though...
 
SmoothCriminal1995;4321415 said:
Not to derail this thread, but does anyone find the Cascio tracks memorable? I never find myself humming them and I'd be hard pressed to tell you how they went.
Ironically I can ad-lib along with them though...
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I genuinely think the remixes of “Stay” and “Burn Tonight” are fantastic on a melodic and production level. (The demos are... eh.) Give them a fresh set of lyrics and they would’ve been great candidates for MJ.

Also, giving credit where credit is due, a decent number of the Cascio tracks have nice chorus melodies. “Breaking News,” “Keep Your Head Up,” “Stay,” “All Right,” and “Burn Tonight” are all very catchy.
 
Mikky Dee said:
"Hold My Hand" and "Hollywood Tonight" are two of my favourites from the album and I also give an honourable mention to "Another Day". I love the videos for both songs and I remember experiencing ALL of the feelings when the album and the singles/videos were first released. So, so good.

Oh, God....and then there's "Behind the Mask" and the two videos for that.....just excellent! Classic MJ in that song.
I love that fans worldwide had an opportunity to be in the second video for BTM.
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I agree mate, I do think most were remixed well, to be fair, although I think the lyrics and melody are so plain (for what we're lead to believe are MJ demos), take for instances, Don't Be Messin' Round or Free, very simple rough demos but very memorable melodies and hooks on both

Maybe I've just been so scarred by them I've blocked them out entirely ?

Sorry Mikky Dee I was meant to quote my man AlwaysThere
 
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DanGerouS-;4321391 said:
to me those songs sound like it was intended for a Jason Malachi Album. or (maybe) Eddie needed somebody to record those demos to show it Michael later on (for his new album).

btw, is it confirmed that those songs were recorded in 2010?

JM is a huge MJ fan, he even did a tribute song somewhen after 2011 (released on an album). maybe he was so inspired by Michael that initially he wanted to do similar songs.


but it still seems so unreal that they had the balls to present such tracks to sony.
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It would make sense that a lot of these songs on the Bible album were intended by Jason for one of his albums, possibly an MJ tribute album that he had in the works. Maybe he brought the idea up to Eddie in hopes of getting some sort of blessing for the project, and Eddie turned him aside and had him record the 3 tracks that are on Michael under the guise of working on a tribute album with the Estate. By the time Jason figured out what Eddie had really planned, he'd already been paid into silence and it was too late to go back. At any rate, I think that "Monster", "Breaking News", and "Keep Your Head Up" were made explicitly by Eddie to be passed off as MJ songs, while the other 8 Cascio tracks were merely written by Jason in the style of MJ as tribute songs (which is why there's so many callbacks and samplings of real MJ songs in them).

SmoothCriminal1995;4321415 said:
Not to derail this thread, but does anyone find the Cascio tracks memorable? I never find myself humming them and I'd be hard pressed to tell you how they went.
Ironically I can ad-lib along with them though...
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A few lines of them here and there stick with me, like the bridge of "Keep Your Head Up". "Monster" is a fun song to me and since my voice is lower than MJ's it's easier for me to hit the notes on that song than on real ones:p

AlwaysThere said:
I genuinely think the remixes of “Stay” and “Burn Tonight” are fantastic on a melodic and production level. (The demos are... eh.) Give them a fresh set of lyrics and they would’ve been great candidates for MJ.

Also, giving credit where credit is due, a decent number of the Cascio tracks have nice chorus melodies. “Breaking News,” “Keep Your Head Up,” “Stay,” “All Right,” and “Burn Tonight” are all very catchy.
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That's what I've been thinking. Jason Malachi's verses are iffy and nonsensical but he's got a bit of a talent for choruses. I think they're overall solid songs and some of them like "Stay" would've fit in on a Michael Jackson tribute album, but the lies and the deception surrounding them has forever tarnished them in many fans' eyes.
 
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SmoothCriminal1995 said:
I agree mate, I do think most were remixed well, to be fair, although I think the lyrics and melody are so plain (for what we're lead to believe are MJ demos), take for instances, Don't Be Messin' Round or Free, very simple rough demos but very memorable melodies and hooks on both

Maybe I've just been so scarred by them I've blocked them out entirely 😅
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I agree with you a 100% mate! MJ had a knack for gorgeous melodies.
 
Just heard Behind The Mask and Much Too Soon again - these are great songs IMO. - I like others songs from Michael too, but at the moment these are my favorites,
 
Pentum said:
Correct, "I used to dream" is pasted right into "All right" after "I've got a premonition".

You will not find anything Cascio comparison related stuff online. Angelikson and Sony were hunting all audio like wild dogs back then. Fans have them stored offline I guess.
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Would be interesting to hear more comparison audios. Does anyone know if audio recordings were played in the court case? What is the current status of the court case?
 
king_of_style;4321389 said:
I don't have an audio or video file unfortunately, but I put together a list a little while ago that I thought was fairly comprehensive when I wrote it:

* “Monster” samples vocal ad-libs from Jackson’s previous songs “Invincible”, “Rock With You”, and “Xscape”
* “Breaking News” samples vocal snippets from “You Rock My World”, “Xscape”, and “Invincible”
* The demo of “Keep Your Head Up” samples “Earth Song” near the end
* The demo of “Keep Your Head Up” is clearly a different vocal take than the one that was included on Michael
* The beat of “All Right” directly rips off the beat of “Stranger In Moscow”
* “Black Widow” samples vocal snippets from “Unbreakable” and “Xscape”
* The demo of “All I Need” samples the tune of “You Are Not Alone” in its opening horn
* “Water” samples “Heaven Can Wait” and “Stranger In Moscow”
* “Fall In Love” samples “Heaven Can Wait” in its outro
* The chorus of “Ready 2 Win” bears striking similarities to “On The Line”
* The bridge of “Soldier Boy” samples ad-libs from the bridge of “They Don’t Care About Us”
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Black widow also samples vocal snippets of Supperfly Sister (dirty, nasty)? In my perception Black widow is the cascio track which has the most MJ adlibs or would you say?
 
mind&magic said:
Black widow also samples vocal snippets of Supperfly Sister (dirty, nasty)? In my perception Black widow is the cascio track which has the most MJ adlibs or would you say?
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Good catch, "Black Widow" does have more samples than most of the others. I think either it or "Monster" steals the most ad-libs (almost the entire intro and bridge of that song are made up of ad-libs). I think either "Burn Tonight" or "Stay" has the least samplings. Now that I think about it, no stolen ad-libs come to mind from "Burn Tonight". "Stay" probably sounds the most to me like an MJ song out of the whole bunch, which is ironic because neither "Burn Tonight" nor "Stay" are as blatant in their thievery or their attempts to pass themselves off as authentic as the others.
 
some unreleased JM:

it seems Jason likes to play with MJ samples:
https://soundcloud.com/jasonmalachiofficial/stop-breakin-my-heart
(some sounds from the dangerous album. lol.)

and he also likes to smash glas (BN vibes at the beginning):
https://soundcloud.com/jasonmalachiofficial/ive-got-what-you-want

dangerous anyone?
https://soundcloud.com/jasonmalachiofficial/girl-was-bad-intro

at least there's a catchy chorus (kinda at 1:03):
https://soundcloud.com/jasonmalachiofficial/i-cant-live-without-you

there are a few others, where he is tryharding MJ style (the unreleased ones are quite funny).
 
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I’ll admit that Jason Malachi actually would’ve made a decent, B-list Justin Timberlake if he continued on the path of his Critical album, which is surprisingly good (even though half the songs are stolen). He has a solid voice when he isn’t singing like an MJ impersonator.
 
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