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Thriller 40th Anniversary

Robbsaber01 said:
Didnt MJ have an archivist? At least in the 80s/90s? Hopefully the Billie Jean Master is just misplaced (like the Bad tour film 🤞🙏) and not tossed. It's a shame that it was just "standard practice" to throw away masters after being edited to tape.
Hopefully we get some HD Billie Jean scenes in the doc.......if it ever actually gets released lol
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Imagine me being his archivist in the 80s/90s.. Actually describing the demo's, making copies.. :)
 
Victorious said:
Imagine me being his archivist in the 80s/90s.. Actually describing the demo's, making copies.. :)
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Susan Rogers, a sound engineer, did that for Prince. I don't know if she was literally making copies but she did create a proper database for the two-inch, quarter-inch, half-inch tapes, stuff like that. She also collected his master tapes - or some of them, at least.
 
zinniabooklover said:
Susan Rogers, a sound engineer, did that for Prince. I don't know if she was literally making copies but she did create a proper database for the two-inch, quarter-inch, half-inch tapes, stuff like that. She also collected his master tapes - or some of them, at least.
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It seems MJ's legacy is kind of a mess in comparison..? Understatement? With a proper, complete, maybe even digitalized database it would be so much easier to compile 'new' work and 'finish' demo's it would seem. We at least wouldn't have to rely on the producers to hear his music
 
Victorious said:
It seems MJ's legacy is kind of a mess in comparison..?
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I have no idea but that's the impression I get.

Victorious said:
Understatement?
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I don't think so. :(

Victorious said:
With a proper, complete, maybe even digitalized database it would be so much easier to compile 'new' work and 'finish' demo's it would seem. We at least wouldn't have to rely on the producers to hear his music
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Perhaps I'm being unfair but Prince has a vault which seems to be pretty well organised and ... er, Michael doesn't. Or doesn't seem to. Don't wanna slag off the likes of Matt Forger - who I absolutely adore - or any of Michael's studio team. He had an ace team working for him, they were geniuses. I love them to bits and being the archivist or person who organises the vault wouldn't be part of their duties, anyway. Someone mentioned Michael's personal assistant as having some responsibility for this but they would be so busy keeping on top of Michael's professional life and, no doubt, also helping him with aspects of his personal life. That's what PA's do. Organising the vault on top of all of that is a big ask, imo.

Susan Rogers started off as an audio tech, Prince promoted her to sound engineer and she started the database bc he was always asking her to grab this or that tape so he could work on it. She didn't know where anything was, sounds like it was a bit disorganised and she decided to sort it out. Once she got the basics in place - including the database - she then started to call in master tapes. She was a music industry newbie, didn't know she wasn't supposed to ask for the masters since they belonged to the record company but apparently people sent them to her. And I think that's how it got started. I don't know who else worked on the vault but she seems to be the person who got it up and running, initially.

When I see quotes like this from Bruce Swedien I'm like, 😲

"Although when I did Billie Jean I did 91 mixes of that thing ... I had a pile of half-inch tapes to the ceiling."

and I wanna know where those 91 tapes are. I'm not suggesting any of them could be used for any future project. But just to know they were safely documented and properly stored would be great.
 
It seems MJ's collaborators are pretty organised in regards to the stuff that they have in their possession. Michael Prince has said several times that he is willing to go through everything he has with the estate when they are willing. He also seems to possess stuff he didn't even work on initially due to having worked on TUC, GYWOOM for example.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
It seems MJ's collaborators are pretty organised in regards to the stuff that they have in their possession.
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Agreed. I think it's the fact of stuff being scattered around various different people rather than all of it - or most of it - being gathered together in one place. Even if the stuff isn't physically brought together, just having a 'master' database of everything, where it is, who has it etc. Lots of people have said this. It just makes sense to me.

SmoothGangsta said:
Michael Prince has said several times that he is willing to go through everything he has with the estate when they are willing. He also seems to possess stuff he didn't even work on initially due to having worked on TUC, GYWOOM for example.
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Just find it disheartening that MP has said this more than once but nothing seems to happen, afaik. He seems dead organised, seems a shame to just let that go. Those people are a fabulous resource. Make the most of them!
 
Victorious said:
It seems MJ's legacy is kind of a mess in comparison..? Understatement? With a proper, complete, maybe even digitalized database it would be so much easier to compile 'new' work and 'finish' demo's it would seem. We at least wouldn't have to rely on the producers to hear his music
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Prince had an actual, physical vault at his house, i.e., a climate-controlled room with an alarm system and a secure door. After recording, whether it's a song or film reels of a concert, it would all go in there:
prince-bank-vault.jpg
prince-vault-6.jpg


Michael left things at studios (after he died, some unreleased music was found at recording studios such as Marvin's Room in LA) or with people who worked on them (video material, multitrack recordings) from musicians to studio support staff. He didn't catalog or organize much of anything in his life. If he needed something, he would usually have someone hunt it down for him. He seemed to be quite messy and disorganized even when living at Neverland:
Michael-Jackson-Bedroom-michael-jackson-32142393-594-396.jpg

The fact that he moved from house to house in the final years of his life didn't help.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
It seems MJ's collaborators are pretty organised in regards to the stuff that they have in their possession. Michael Prince has said several times that he is willing to go through everything he has with the estate when they are willing. He also seems to possess stuff he didn't even work on initially due to having worked on TUC, GYWOOM for example.
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Yes but that also makes me wonder why they have stuff and MJ (Estate or Sony) doesn't; since the rights to all the music (demo's and tracks) would be theirs right..?
 
Victorious said:
Yes but that also makes me wonder why they have stuff and MJ (Estate or Sony) doesn't; since the rights to all the music (demo's and tracks) would be theirs right..?
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I've always just put it down to them not bothering about stuff that isn't right in front of them. Maybe they do have that stuff, who knows. Past examples make me think they don't though.
 
ChanceToDance said:
At this point I won't be surprised if unreleased MJ media ends up being found in a garage sale like they did with that Sega arcade video.
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I think that's quite likely. We could start seeing things pop up soon. I'm sure John Barnes had a lot of material, and his family doesn't seem that well off... He was basically the Brad Buxer of the 80s, i.e. MJ's go-to musician for solo produced material.
Victorious said:
Yes but that also makes me wonder why they have stuff and MJ (Estate or Sony) doesn't; since the rights to all the music (demo's and tracks) would be theirs right..?
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It's quite simple, actually. MJ's former employees like Michael Prince are physically in possession of the material. The Estate has the sole rights to publish this material, i.e. the material cannot be released by anyone other than the Estate. The collaborators are asking for money to hand it over. The Estate is currently not interested in releasing it, so there is no reason for them to pay anyone to hand it over.
 
Alec said:
It's quite simple, actually. MJ's former employees like Michael Prince are physically in possession of the material. The Estate has the sole rights to publish this material, i.e. the material cannot be released by anyone other than the Estate. The collaborators are asking for money to hand it over. The Estate is currently not interested in releasing it, so there is no reason for them to pay anyone to hand it over.
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But didn't MJ had the material in the first place, I always heard that it was studio practice the work (at least the vocals) went home with him..?
 
Victorious said:
But why didn't MJ had it in the first place, i always heard that the original vocals went with him/he was very wary to lose them
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Michael Prince was Michael's personal engineer. He was a full-time employee and traveled with Michael Jackson wherever he went. Pretty much all music MJ composed solo in his final years was physically kept by Michael Prince rather than MJ.

There might be some stuff only MJ had in his possession, but it would be a relatively rare instance. My educated guess is whatever Michael Jackson wanted to keep from sessions with external producers such as Akon or Will.I.Am, would likely be handled by Michael Prince rather than MJ himself. That's why he hired Michael Prince, to not deal with this kind of stuff.
 
Alec said:
Michael Prince was Michael's personal engineer. Whatever Michael Jackson wanted to keep from sessions with external producers such as Akon or Will.I.Am, would likely be handled by Michael Prince, who was a full-time employee and traveled with Michael wherever he went. Pretty much all music MJ composed solo in his final years was also physically kept by Michael Prince.

There might be some stuff only MJ had in his possession, but it would be a relatively rare instance.
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Michael Prince said he had 40 releasable songs in his possession, that number seems plausible if you consider the songs MJ had made with other people and if you count the songs he was reworking with MJ throughout TUC and his final years.
 
Alec said:
Michael Prince was Michael's personal engineer. He was a full-time employee and traveled with Michael Jackson wherever he went. Pretty much all music MJ composed solo in his final years was physically kept by Michael Prince rather than MJ.

There might be some stuff only MJ had in his possession, but it would be a relatively rare instance. My educated guess is whatever Michael Jackson wanted to keep from sessions with external producers such as Akon or Will.I.Am, would likely be handled by Michael Prince rather than MJ himself. That's why he hired Michael Prince, to not deal with this kind of stuff.
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Thank you! That makes sense yes!
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
The big snafu in 2012 was basically because they couldn't find Wembley. No clue if they ever did find it right?
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Yeah the estate said they haven't found it in a Q&A few years ago. They didnt even know it was filmed until we gave them that info. I wish they asked Frank back In 2012 before he passed.
 
For all we know it was in the tapes LaToya's husband took. Though maybe they've documented all that by now
 
Michaels collaborators were more than willing to cooperate with the Estate but either the Estate wanted to remix the songs or they didn’t want to pay what they were worth. John Barnes said the Estate never contacted him but if they did, he would’ve been willing to listen. Pretty sure he had some of Michaels earlier music from 1983 to 1986 in his possession.
 
Nite Line said:
Like you, I listen to The Toy and Who Do You Know on a frequent basis. The rest, not so much.
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I used to be disappointed with Who Do You Know because I expected it to be an uptempo song but after a few weeks it completely grew on me. I'm so glad the Estate was generous enough to give us an unheard song for the album (not only 1, but 2!).
 
Robbsaber01 said:
Yeah the estate said they haven't found it in a Q&A few years ago. They didnt even know it was filmed until we gave them that info. I wish they asked Frank back In 2012 before he passed.
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According to Warren Eagles, who was hired to edit the Wembley material, they had stacks of 35mm and 16mm reels but none of the shows were completely recorded on film. Minneapolis has performances on film since that's where the bulk footage of MITM from Moonwalker comes from.

Patrick Kelly said he turned in all the footage recorded from the tour after the last show.

The Estate has it.....they just don't want to go through the trouble of editing.....just like they're sitting on the Triumph show from LA on full film.
 
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