So are Ya'll ready to believe that Rod Temperton stole song writing credits from Greg Phillinganes too?

[kelley]

Why worry about some random writing credit for songs that are now well over 40 years old?

A few hardcore fans might be interested but the general public? Who bloody cares.

We’re about to go into 2026, relax and have a good Christmas.

I care because the historical record matters.

Also Ive seen so called fans say they tried to changed the album credits on wikipedia to add Brad Buxers name to the credits of Stranger in Moscow. They were actually upset that they weren't able to do so!!

Adding his name or Gregs name to DSTYGE would give the impression that they wrote half the song. Which is absurd and not fair to Michael.

Also you have people like the MJcast guys who have done several episodes where they lament how these guys didn't get the credit they deserve and even go far as to say things like that the guys on the Bad Album team should have gotten writers credit! Even though none of those guys they interviewed even said they deserved writing credits!

And I believe the MJcast guys are taking it that extreme because they believe claims like Brads and so that has created a whole false narrative where all of these other collaborators must have been unfairly denied writing credits as well. Even though they themselves never claimed that.

That's the damage Brad and gregs claims have caused. And those MJcast episodes and interviews are now a part of the historical record.

We should all care when the historical record is tainted with false information.

 

[kelley]

This is not the point, and the point everyone seems to be missing. Greg was ORIGINALLY credited for his input, which was then removed.

https://www.discogs.com/release/198963-Michael-Jackson-Dont-Stop-Til-You-Get-Enough/image/SW1hZ2U6MTA2NDgxOTQ=

His credit was then taken away, so this is NOT a case of someone crying over a credit they didn't get. He had the credit, and it was taken away.

I'm aware of this. Doesn't change the fact that the right decision was made. He should not have received a writing credit for it to begin with.

I see this as just another case of Michael being too nice and it biting him in the ass.

Fortunately he was brave enough correct this mistake, otherwise people would give Greg half the credit for one of his biggest and best songs. Just like Lionel Richie gets praised to the high heavens for We are the World, even though Michael wrote like 98% of that song. And does Lionel make that fact known? Nope, in interviews and in that WATW documentary on Netflix he sits there and happily soaks up all the praise and glory

There are some people here that seem to be so affected by all the negativity generated by MJ over the past few decades that they make it their life mission to villainise ANY person that critiscises MJ.

I think you mean generated by Michael's enemies.

Whether Greg deserved a credit is definitely open to interpretation and debate, but the fact is that he was given the credit and then it was taken off him. This is a tale as old as time. But to go out of your way to paint Greg as a bad guy (like OP is desperate to do) in the story of MJ is just pathetic.

If you want to go for Greg, go for his sticking his head in the sand about the Cascio tracks. His silence is leagues worse than arguing about losing out on decades of royalties of one of the most popular songs of all time.

Edit: To clarify a comment.

Well his silence of the Cascio tracks (which I was not aware of) isn't a good look for his character.

Im not saying the guy is evil. I've said before I don't even think Brad is evil. I think they are both flawed humans and they have a very human desire to be remembered and to elevate themselves, and they want to do that by attaching themselves to Michael's legacy and genius.

But their desire to elevate themselves is harmful to Michael. If us fans (cause we're the only ones protecting Michael) don't stay vigilante people will just run wild using Michael to benefit themselves.

 

[MJJuniorSinceMW]

Let’s face it, now it’s just the hip thing to say “Ohh no, Michael didn’t do all that. Other people did this, different people did that. But Michael, no way he did all that!”

MJ - the success, the mystery - it’s all to big and grand for this day & age. We like to be real, we wanna be so aUthEnTIc…

So let’s have a little chitty chat over it, deconstruct it, demystify & explain everything.
We’re the hipsters, we see through things. That MJ guy wasn’t all that big, wasn’t all that shiny..

LOL, It’s pretty pathetic really!

 

[kelley]

Because songwriting and arranging are different.

“Don’t Stop” didn’t have a bridge of any kind in its original state, as evidenced in the demo. Greg wrote one.

A bridge is not a requirement for a song.

And the bridge in Don't stop is NOT a original piece of music from Greg. It's based off of the rest of the song. Greg did not come up with it on his own. He took the melody that is already present in Michael's demo and changed it a bit. That's no different than a musician changing the song up in a live performance. Nobody would argue that the muscian deserves to be added as the writer of the song in that situation.

What Greg did on Don't stop is the very definition of arranging.

That is songwriting, hence why he was originally credited as co-writer and why he has since claimed authorship on the song (and rightfully so). “Blame It On the Boogie” was fully composed by all accounts, and Greg assisted with how the drums should be played. That is arrangement, hence why he has never once claimed to have written that song.

You're simply wrong. Dont Stop is much closer to the Demo version than Boogie is to the original version, The Jacksons version has completely different music! Only the lyrics and the melody of the chorus is the same. Everything else is different. They created new music for the Jacksons version and just kept the lyrics and chorus!

Once again for comparison

Compare these 2 videos and then compare Michael's demo for Don't stop to the album version. That bridge greg added did not fundamentally change the song, because it was built off of the song.

I don’t mean to be rude here, but I feel you’re deliberately refusing to acknowledge this and just looking for an argument, especially since your counters amount to “Randy is a good drummer so he probably came up with it” and “the interviewer was confused so clearly Greg meant something different.” We don’t need that kind of “discussion” here.

You don't have to participate.

 

[kelley]

Just because it was a common industry practice doesn’t mean it’s okay. And I find it a little disingenuous to say, “These songwriters, many of whom were likely struggling to break into the industry and scrounging for money (as most songwriters are), saw an opportunity to work with a legend in exchange for him taking undue royalties for songs he didn’t write. Maybe they shouldn’t have said yes! That’s THEIR fault! They can’t cry about it now!

It’s not a mute topic. Any artist who takes credit for something they did not do deserves to be criticized for it, up to and including Michael Jackson.

And just because it may have happened in the invincible era, it doesn't mean that it must have also happened retroactively 20 years prior.

You use what happened in the invincible era to cast Judgement on the younger version of Michael.

People change. People become hardened and disillusioned with life, especially when they suffer traumas. Michael was not in a good space during the invincible album. He was not the same as he was during Off the Wall and Thriller.

The evidence shows that the younger Michael was actually TOO generous with writing credits and often didn't even take credit for the work he did. You want to criticize invincible era Michael, fine. But You can't just label 20 year old Michael a thief because 40 year old Michael started following a common industry practice for that time. You have to look at the evidence in the proper context.

Ive noticed some fans seem to have a hard time comprehending that Michael was a human being who lived a life and was not static character. So for example they are confused about Michael's love for KFC chicken in his later years, because they read an interview from 1983 where he said he was a vegetarian. It's like they can't fathom that he simply changed his food preferences when he got older.

 

[AlwaysThere]

Utterly baffling conversation lmao. “The bridge didn’t completely change the song so Greg doesn’t deserve songwriting credit.”

 

[blair]

Utterly baffling conversation lmao. “The bridge didn’t completely change the song so Greg doesn’t deserve songwriting credit.”

Honest question, if Michael would have tried to force Porcaro for example go give him credit for Human nature, would you agree with him or simply call that a whim from a star ? Because I'm pretty sure lot of peoples would have called him like that despite his contribution, so why a double standard for Philliganes ?

 

[AlwaysThere]

Honest question, if Michael would have tried to force Porcaro for example go give him credit for Human nature, would you agree with him or simply call that a whim from a star ? Because I'm pretty sure lot of peoples would have called him like that despite his contribution, so why a double standard for Philliganes ?

That’s not a double standard because it’s not the same situation. MJ contributing ad-libs to “Human Nature” is not deserving of a co-writing credit. Greg composing the bridge to “Don’t Stop” from scratch absolutely is. If ad-libs were enough to claim co-authorship, then MJ should’ve been credited for every song he ever sang.

 

[blair]

That’s not a double standard because it’s not the same situation. MJ contributing ad-libs to “Human Nature” is not deserving of a co-writing credit. Greg composing the bridge to “Don’t Stop” from scratch absolutely is. If ad-libs were enough to claim co-authorship, then MJ should’ve been credited for every song he ever sang.

The soaring stuff Porcaro have talked is the intro, you can hear the demo it was not here, see the interview I have posted, there are also Just Friends for Carol Bayer Sager, I have given you a quote if you want, so yes that the same thing.

 

[AlwaysThere]

The soaring stuff Porcaro have talked is the intro, you can hear the demo it was not here, see the interview I have posted, there are also Just Friends for Carol Bayer Sager, I have given you a quote if you want, so yes that the same thing.

Porcaro’s exact quote: “That way—some of that soaring stuff during the intro—the re-intros and stuff? That was all Michael.” He’s clearly talking about the “oh why” ad-lib after the second and third choruses that everyone dies for, hence the mention of the “re-intros.” Ad-libs do not qualify as compositional elements. Again, if MJ deserved a writers’ credit for ad-libs, there shouldn’t be a single song in his discography he isn’t credited on.

As for “Just Friends,” the quote you shared specifically says that MJ came back with a different arrangement. She never says he changed the music or added/rewrote lyrics. He’s credited as producer, which I feel is a more or less apt description based on what she said (though we’d have to hear the before and after to really tell how much he did).

I’m really not trying to come off argumentative here, but neither of these examples are in the same category as Greg’s work on “Don’t Stop.”

 

[blair]

Porcaro’s exact quote: “That way—some of that soaring stuff during the intro—the re-intros and stuff? That was all Michael.” He’s clearly talking about the “oh why” ad-lib after the second and third choruses that everyone dies for, hence the mention of the “re-intros.” Ad-libs do not qualify as compositional elements. Again, if MJ deserved a writers’ credit for ad-libs, there shouldn’t be a single song in his discography he isn’t credited on.

As for “Just Friends,” the quote you shared specifically says that MJ came back with a different arrangement. She never says he changed the music or added/rewrote lyrics. He’s credited as producer, which I feel is a more or less apt description based on what she said (though we’d have to hear the before and after to really tell how much he did).

I’m really not trying to come off argumentative here, but neither of these examples are in the same category as Greg’s work on “Don’t Stop.”

I really don't see how you have conclued he have talked about ad-libs when he have talked about the intro where there are no ad-libs, if he wanted to talk about the chorus he would have said the "chorus", you seem really to put other meaning in his words

Also sorry but the Why part of the chorus is also more than just ad-libs, it's just the part of the chorus, that way more important to this song that the bridge of don't stop imo.

For Just Friends I have quoted that because that have been said that have been completely different, he have said to be "another concept", I could argue that the bridge is derived from the rest of don't stop too, in the sense that simply follow the sound and was not really different like Shelley have said, so we call that too an arrangement.

 

[AlwaysThere]

Agree to disagree with this one haha.