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Thriller 40th Anniversary

Dorian said:
Do you guys think it’s worth it to email the label/estate and try to make something viral via Twitter/Facebook etc? I got some spare time tomorrow and could try to put some things together.

I expected the release to be bad, but not this bad.
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They won't listen. They never do. They don't give a f#@* about what the fans think
 
im sorry to say but Thriller 40 is BAD. I wasn't expecting ten never before released/leaked amazing perfect polished songs but DAMN. This is hilariously bad. Why did they think it ok to release Starlight with loud static and scratches for half the song? It makes it unlistenable. What a lovely way to go is off beat at multiple points and the bgvs are earrape but WOULD have potential if fixed. The Toy is just kinda weird and has bad vocal mixing on the harmonies, seems even worse when we have Best Of Joy for comparison. Who do you know is painfully mid but at least the quality is decent on it so i'll give it a pass. The rest is absolutely inexcusable. They have had several years to work on this and deliver THIS. It is absolutely embarrassing and unacceptable. I don't think we should support this.
 
This really isn't that bad.

Considering first of all, it's just another leak were dealing with. The material is not bad, it's just rough. It's literal sketches and outtakes. Are we saying that if this material was what made it to Thriller than MJ wouldn't deserve the accolades? It should certainly make us appreciate what did make the final tracklisting.

But what's the expectation? Is it really about quality assurance or are we just subconsciously expecting more hit worthy material? I'm just enjoying hearing an artist work and refine his craft.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
This really isn't that bad.

Considering first of all, it's just another leak were dealing with. The material is not bad, it's just rough. It's literal sketches and outtakes. Are we saying that if this material was what made it to Thriller than MJ wouldn't deserve the accolades? It should certainly make us appreciate what did make the final tracklisting.

But what's the expectation? Is it really about quality assurance or are we just subconsciously expecting more hit worthy material? I'm just enjoying hearing an artist work and refine his craft.
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I see what you mean entirely but if that's the case, why even release these songs if they're quite literally unreleasable? If theyre not even good then there's no point it just kinda makes mj look bad. Especially when they have been trying to hype this up for months upon months. Super underwhelming imo. And again, I already wasn't expecting much along with many others. It seems like they really ran out of material to use so just threw this together.
 
I would be happy with this release (if I ignore everything else surrounding it) if most of the songs didn't sound like trash (not the songs themselves, the sound quality). That is not expecting too much, that's just expecting the basics.
 
luis98 said:
They won't listen. They never do. They don't give a f#@* about what the fans think
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Well, the fans said, don't release the phony tracks - they haven't listened but eventually they've learned it the hard way.

Imo if enough fans would raise their voice the label (and thus the Estate) have to take note of our displeasure.
 
Clay7 said:
I see what you mean entirely but if that's the case, why even release these songs if they're quite literally unreleasable? If theyre not even good then there's no point it just kinda makes mj look bad. Especially when they have been trying to hype this up for months upon months. Super underwhelming imo. And again, I already wasn't expecting much along with many others. It seems like they really ran out of material to use so just threw this together.
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That's the thing I can't answer. Obviously that's why they had a few padding songs.

But if we wanted a box set of everything he put out, every scratch vocal and half finished instrumental, what's the difference? This isn't a commercial product, it's more like an archive thing. What else are we gonna expect? It can't all be hits. There can't be anything more than glimpses of what his next full bodied project would've been, and what ifs for everything else he did. That's the kinda artist MJ was, quality over quantity. I'm losing my thought a little but you see what I'm getting at. Yes a good song like Hot Street was left on the cutting room floor, and probably for a good reason. If this project wasn't mean to have all eyes on it, then that's just what it is. I mean, they probably would've put a remix on it if that was the case.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
I would be happy with this release (if I ignore everything else surrounding it) if most of the songs didn't sound like trash (not the songs themselves, the sound quality). That is not expecting too much, that's just expecting the basics.
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There's always the slim chance it sounds better on Friday, on Spotify. It could just be a Defective CD rip.
 
Are people complaining about the quality of the audio or the songs themselves? We've all been saying for years that we want the music as Michael left it. These are the demos as he made them and they are 40 years old!!!! We are lucky they still exist at all! Personally, i wanna hear everything he recorded no matter the quality. I think if people keep complaining about this then the estate will completely stop releasing ANY unreleased demos. What I have more of an issue is with the estate themselves. The lack of promotion and Their attitude towards the fans in general is very disrespectful.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
The mastering and total lack of care in presenting them on the CD. They sound bad.
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But they might sound bad because of the way they were recorded! Not polished, because they are DEMOS! If the estate mixed them, fans would be complaining about THAT! For once, theyve given us the demos untouched! Which is what fans have been asking for for years.

The presentation of the whole release has been bad though. That hideous font, weird behaviour from the estate, taking down the Remastered videos, lack of communication with the fans, branca's tiktok, barely any promotion. All so strange.
 
luis98 said:
But they might sound bad because of the way they were recorded! Not polished, because they are DEMOS! If the estate mixed them, fans would be complaining about THAT! For once, theyve given us the demos untouched! Which is what fans have been asking for for years
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I'm really not getting where you're coming from. I don't think any fan has ever complained about music being properly mixed and mastered.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
I'm really not getting where you're coming from. I don't think any fan has ever complained about music being properly mixed and mastered.
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I mean, if multitracks exist for those demos and the estate mixed them to make them sound perfect, the fans would still complain, because those new mixes would not be the way Michael left them. Maybe the only source for those demos were cassette tapes, acetates, etc that are 40 years old. Not much they could do to make them sound better.
 
luis98 said:
Are people complaining about the quality of the audio or the songs themselves? We've all been saying for years that we want the music as Michael left it. These are the demos as he made them and they are 40 years old!!!! We are lucky they still exist at all! Personally, i wanna hear everything he recorded no matter the quality. I think if people keep complaining about this then the estate will completely stop releasing ANY unreleased demos. What I have more of an issue is with the estate themselves. The lack of promotion and Their attitude towards the fans in general is very disrespectful.
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Just because they’re not 100% finished songs doesn’t completely shield them from criticism.
 
luis98 said:
I mean, if multitracks exist for those demos and the estate mixed them to make them sound perfect, the fans would still complain, because those new mixes would not be the way Michael left them. Maybe the only source for those demos were cassette tapes, acetates, etc that are 40 years old. Not much they could do to make them sound better.
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Nah, I really don't think that's true at all. Mixing a song to sound good is sound 101. I really hate this "If the estate released the songs sounding great you guys would still complain!" narrative. It makes absolutely no sense.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
Nah, I really don't think that's true at all. Mixing a song to sound good is sound 101. I really hate this "If the estate released the songs sounding great you guys would still complain!" narrative. It makes absolutely no sense.
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But it's true though.
 
luis98 said:
But they might sound bad because of the way they were recorded! Not polished, because they are DEMOS! If the estate mixed them, fans would be complaining about THAT! For once, theyve given us the demos untouched! Which is what fans have been asking for for years.
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If the source material was this damaged, it shouldn’t be released and they should be upfront about it, as they were with Wembley (which, quality aside, was the most transparent they’ve ever been).

The recording isn’t the issue here; if it was, you’d be able to tell. There’s no clipping, no overload of room ambiance, nothing that would imply that MJ’s engineers didn’t do their job correctly. It’s the mixing and mastering.
 
luis98 said:
I mean, if multitracks exist for those demos and the estate mixed them to make them sound perfect, the fans would still complain, because those new mixes would not be the way Michael left them. Maybe the only source for those demos were cassette tapes, acetates, etc that are 40 years old. Not much they could do to make them sound better.
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A mixing engineer can recreate those mixes from the multitracks.
 
AlwaysThere said:
If the source material was this damaged, it shouldn’t be released and they should be upfront about it, as they were with Wembley (which, quality aside, was the most transparent they’ve ever been).

The recording isn’t the issue here; if it was, you’d be able to tell. There’s no clipping, no overload of room ambiance, nothing that would imply that MJ’s engineers didn’t do their job correctly. It’s the mixing and mastering.
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I completely agree. Aside from the terribly off beat moments which they should have fixed. Then again, if they couldn’t fix it then they shouldn’t release it at all.
 
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