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The Discussion of MJ's Unreleased Tracks

Fuzball said:
Bill Bottrell:

"Leave Me Alone" was finished and mixed.
The BAD version sounds identical and I don't know what they say was changed.

We worked all day and into the night on Feb 28, 1986 on "Bad Girl" including vocals. I'm not sure what level of completion. We never worked on it again.
Since it wasn't worked on more than that day, I can't remember how it sounded.
I maintained strict security, I never took home tapes.
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I think one of the things that keeps me interested in stuff like this is that you never really know with MJ. One day of hard work on a song and it could have a scratch vocal that isn't mumble, or he could work on a song for years and only update the instrumental with no vocals done.
 
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SmoothGangsta said:
I think one of the things that keeps me interested in stuff like this is that you never really know with MJ. One day of hard work on a song and it could have a scratch vocal that isn't mumble, or he could work on a song for years and only update the instrumental with no vocals done.
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Yes. Changes and dream away are probably the best examples of each. Dream away was written spontaneously with Steve porcaro one day and he recorded full vocals for it. Changes started in 85, brought back out in 94 and rumoured to be at least brought back out of the vault in 07-08 and there’s just a rough scratch vocal on it.
 
People don't understand, the estate will gladly put out music, when it makes a profit and Money. Whatever song, whatever album, will make a revenue, that's what they'll consider.

After the biopic, all MJ music will make money. But a really good unreleased song, will also make money.

That song can easily be Dream Away. It has hit potential all over it.
 
Bill Bottrell:

You must be careful with this. It's true the Bad release sounds extremely similar to the Hayvenhurst demos.
I've ALWAYS wondered ever since BAD got nominated for best engineering and I was not included.
My protest was rejected by NARAS.

Demos finished, mixed and sent to Quincy:
Smooth Criminal
Leave Me Alone
Price of Fame
Speed Demon
I Just Can’t Stop Loving You
Dirty Diana
Liberian Girl

On later release:
Come Together

But know this: Bad and Man In The Mirror were the hits that got the album over the hump. John and I had never heard of those.
 
Fuzball said:
Bill Bottrell:

You must be careful with this. It's true the Bad release sounds extremely similar to the Hayvenhurst demos.
I've ALWAYS wondered ever since BAD got nominated for best engineering and I was not included.
My protest was rejected by NARAS.

Demos finished, mixed and sent to Quincy:
Smooth Criminal
Leave Me Alone
Price of Fame
Speed Demon
I Just Can’t Stop Loving You
Dirty Diana
Liberian Girl

On later release:
Come Together

But know this: Bad and Man In The Mirror were the hits that got the album over the hump. John and I had never heard of those.
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Yep. Anything solely written by Michael was more than likely recorded and mixed at Hayvenhurst with the exception of Bad, which I think was recorded in NY while they were filming the short film. John said the chant at the beginning of Liberian Girl was the only thing added and what we hear on the song is exactly what they did in 1983.
 
Fuzball said:
so sad, John's not with us anymore to tell all the stories about "his" songs😔
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I wanted to pick his brain about many songs he worked on and he hinted at the Bahrain sessions but would say "I'll talk about it at a later time". Whatever happened with Michael during this time must've hurt him because his mood would change
 
Bill has just shared his session calendar.




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Fuzball said:
Bill has just shared his session calendar.




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Ok, so many questions here.

Tomboy was worked on quite a bit. Confirms Tomboy does have vocals. This must be releasable.

Why is Al Capone on the schedule AFTER Smooth Criminal? I thought Al Capone became Smooth Criminal. I am confused.

What is "New Song"? Are these unreleased titles? Must be. Why didn't even provide the names?
 
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Derek1984 said:
Why is Al Capone on the schedule AFTER Smooth Criminal? I thought Al Capone became Smooth Criminal. I am confused.
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Although it was crafted before & served as an inspiration for SC, both were individual songs and were treated as such.

Derek1984 said:
What is "New Song"? Are these unreleased titles? Must be. Why didn't even provide the names?
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instrumental song idea with no title or lyrics yet
 
That session calender Bill has shared is so interesting, I've wanted to know something like this for years. I love stuff like this

It makes me wonder how complete Turning Me Off, Tomboy and Throwing Your Life Away are.

As for Price Of Fame, I'm certain that there is a more completed version of that song we are yet to hear, it seems to be worked on so much
 
Bill Bottrell:

I did work with MJ on Buffalo Bill
I think it was during Victory sessions, at a place called Can-Am.
It was a strange, silly song, we did vocals. One session


"Who shot Buffalo Bill
They said he shot a lot
Did he ever get killed?"
I went home and said to my fam: WTF?

I understand the MJ community wanting to hear EVERYTHING. but seriously people, let MJ have some experimental time once in a while.
 
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Some fascinating stuff there. And to think this only covers the span of one year, imagine how many more songs were created between 1983-1984 and the rest of 1985/1987 that we don't know of. I'll bet there's more gems hidden between those sessions.

And also, is "Bill's African Groove" the only new title there? And does this confirm (at least as far as those sheets show) that Scream-o-Blaster wasn't a song that Michael recorded?
 
Fuzball said:
Bill Bottrell:

I did work with MJ on Buffalo Bill
I think it was during Victory sessions, at a place called Can-Am.
It was a strange, silly song, we did vocals. One session


"Who shot Buffalo Bill
They said he shot a lot
Did he ever get killed?"
I went home and said to my fam: WTF?

I understand the MJ community wanting to hear EVERYTHING. but seriously people, let MJ have some experimental time once in a while.
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Yep, that was me asking him about Buffalo Bill.
 
Fuzball said:
I'm quite shocked, Bill doesn't like BB.
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This would've killed my hype for the song if it wasn't for the fact that MJ praised that track himself and said it could've been a hit lol. There's no way it's as bad as Bill makes it out to be if it got MJ's blessing. I'm not expecting it to be the "next Billie Jean" since the song must've been discarded for a reason but I doubt it'd be something that fans would dislike hearing.
 
BlackAnon said:
Uno de los ingenieros, creo que era Rob, dijo que Michael grabó versiones en español y francés de algunas canciones de la sesión de Bad.
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A few years ago I saw an interview where Rubén Blades, IJCSLY's Spanish adapter, said that Michael wanted to make a full album in Spanish, but it never came to fruition because there was no time.
 
It's interesting how Bottrell thinks "Crack Kills" didn't have vocals when another collaborator on those pre-production sessions confirmed that it did. Maybe he wasn't there, or maybe that collaborator was mistaken.
 
Fuzball said:
Bill has just shared his session calendar.




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Some interesting revelations here.
  • Seems like "Crack Kills" and "Don't Be Messin' 'Round" were brought to Westlake at least once.
  • Apparently a Spanish-language version for "Price of Fame"'s Pepsi version exists.
  • "Hot Fever" did have vocals added post-registration.
  • "Don't Be Messin' 'Round" was brought to Westlake around October
  • A ton of work was done on "Speed Demon (either the album version or the a second, more fleshed-out demo)" and "Throwin' Your Life Away" 'round the end of December.
  • The Westlake sessions began on July 10th, not August 4th like I previously thought.
  • At Westlake, Bottrell was most involved with early production on "Smooth Criminal" and "Streetwalker."
I highly suspect "A Way With Words" was an earlier attempt at creating a ballad before "I Just Can't Stop Lovin' You" took its place.
 
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ChanceToDance said:
This would've killed my hype for the song if it wasn't for the fact that MJ praised that track himself and said it could've been a hit lol. There's no way it's as bad as Bill makes it out to be if it got MJ's blessing. I'm not expecting it to be the "next Billie Jean" since the song must've been discarded for a reason but I doubt it'd be something that fans would dislike hearing.
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It's a early 80s disco throwback, must be. Wouldn't have fit on Bad though.

Also, Bill doesn't like many of these songs lol.
 
SeriousFX said:
Some interesting revelations here.
  • Seems like "Crack Kills" was at least brought to Westlake at least once.
  • Apparently a Spanish-language version for "Price of Fame"'s Pepsi version exists.
  • "Hot Fever" did have vocals added post-registration.
  • Don't Be Messin' 'Round was brought to Westlake around October
  • A ton of work was done on "Speed Demon" and "Throwin' Your Life Away" 'round the end of December.
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Hot Fever is confirmed as the working title for TWYMMF
 
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