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What were the planned singles to Invincible?

Spaceship

Spaceship

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I know MJ wanted "Unbreakable" as the lead but Sony favored "You Rock My World". "Unbreakable" was going to come out after "Butterflies" before getting cancelled in 2002.

"Cry" was released worldwide in 2001 but cancelled in the US. What other singles were planned? Obviously nothing was ever finalized, but I've read that "Heaven Can Wait", "Speechless", "Whatever Happens", and "Threatened" (at least, MJ wanted to make a video for it) were planned.
 
Apparently, Michael wanted to make a music video for "Unbreakable" and "Whatever Happens". A photo shoot for the singles had reportedly taken place.
 
threatened2020 said:
'Threatened' was definitely on the list. I assume 'Break of Dawn' too, as it was on Number 1s.
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Was that not to satisfy some producer or something like that? Give some extra royalties? It seems so odd to have Break Of Dawn on it randomly outside of that. I love the song myself, its on my top 3 on the album but I feel I am kind of alone rating it so highly.
 
MsAshley said:
nah, people love break of drawn
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If its the case like its been reported as well that MJ was really found of the song and thats why it ended up on Number ones then that is truly remarkable. And probably will make me like the song even more :)

I just watched a youtube reaction to Girlfriend last night and that made me appreciate Break Of Dawn more as well ;) There is nothing wrong with some of the songs from Invincible they were just released with no promo when MJ himself was the least marketable and the music record sales going down the drain overall.
 
The planned singles in the USA, according to a Billboard Magazine dated november of 2001, were :

- Cry
- Butterflies
- Heaven Can Wait ( which spent 16 weeks on the RnB charts)
- Break Of Dawn.

These Are basically aimed at the RnB audience.

Unbreakable was to be a Eutope-only single, Speechless too.
Unfortunately neither MJ Nor Sony wanted to release Whatever Happens. It should have been the World wide second single, It would have been #1 everywhere, and Invincible would have sold well for Christmas. MJ would have had enough money to not do LWMJ, there would have been no trial, and he wouldn't have died so early.
 
JEMFTV said:
Butterflies. Eve wrote in her book that they planned to shoot a music video for the remix, but it got cancelled because of Sony.
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Yes, at the time it was said they were gonna shoot the remix video, in an inside location. But MJ didn't want to appear in the video, since the budget was too cheap for his taste. Keep It mind at the time the RnB videos were very cheap ( Usher, Alicia Keys, etc.).
Cry video was very expensive (1 millions $ of 2001) and It was a disappointment for Sony they invested so much money in a video where MJ didn't appear ( he was supposed to appear in the middle of the crowd from the bridge on, but didn't want to take a plane).
 
RodSerling said:
The planned singles in the USA, according to a Billboard Magazine dated november of 2001, were :

- Cry
- Butterflies
- Heaven Can Wait ( which spent 16 weeks on the RnB charts)
- Break Of Dawn.

These Are basically aimed at the RnB audience.
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I'm surprised that only ballads were planned as singles. Perhaps it's because Earth Song and YANA were the most successful singles on HIStory, and something similar was hoped for with Invincible. Of the faster songs, a short version of Heartbreaker would certainly have had potential.
 
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Hot_Street said:
I'm surprised that only ballads were planned as singles. Perhaps it's because Earth Song and YANA were the most successful singles on HIStory, and something similar was hoped for with Invincible. Of the faster songs, a short version of Heartbreaker would certainly have had potential.
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MJ/ Sony aimed a specific market in the US.
4 singles in the US, that's already huge circa 2001.
I think in Europe they would have tried to be more pop oriented, would have they tried something if Cry didn't flop.

There was something to do with Heartbreaker, similar to the soda pop performance with N'Sync. Some freaking innovating robot dance moves in a cheap but stylised music vidéo with some additionnal beatboxing would have "buzzed" at the time.
Maybe not to the point of releasing the track on radio/ single, but at least a promotional video at the same time of another pop single, such as Whatever Happens.

That was the good old Michael Jackson people died to see at the time.
 
RodSerling said:
The planned singles in the USA, according to a Billboard Magazine dated november of 2001, were :

- Cry
- Butterflies
- Heaven Can Wait ( which spent 16 weeks on the RnB charts)
- Break Of Dawn.
Click to expand...

What issue of Billboard is that?

I don't think they were planning to release three slow jams as singles lol
 
Hasn't this topic been discussed a hundred times on this forum already?

We don't know, and we'll never know for 100% sure, which singles were supposed to be released from the Invincible album. Unbreakable, You Rock My World, Threatened, and Butterflies are the only tracks that were 100% guaranteed to be released as singles and have music videos. This is because the information about these four singles was confirmed by both Mike himself and Sony
 
Spaceship said:
What issue of Billboard is that?

I don't think they were planning to release three slow jams as singles lol
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I still remember that very well from that year. There were already mock-up covers of Heaven Can Wait (it was just as “creative” as the other covers). Maybe I can still find them on my very old hard drive.
 
RodSerling said:
The planned singles in the USA, according to a Billboard Magazine dated november of 2001, were :

- Cry
- Butterflies
- Heaven Can Wait ( which spent 16 weeks on the RnB charts)
- Break Of Dawn.

These Are basically aimed at the RnB audience.

Unbreakable was to be a Eutope-only single, Speechless too.
Unfortunately neither MJ Nor Sony wanted to release Whatever Happens. It should have been the World wide second single, It would have been #1 everywhere, and Invincible would have sold well for Christmas. MJ would have had enough money to not do LWMJ, there would have been no trial, and he wouldn't have died so early.
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How could Heaven Can Wait even chart on the RnB charts? Did I miss something? Doesn't a song have to be released at least as a promo single for that to happen? Heaven Can Wait wasn't used anywhere at all, except for that fan party back in 2002
 
"Speechless" ended up being a promo single, so maybe a full single release was gonna follow? It was one of MJ's favorite songs from the album, after all.

Teddy Riley said "Heaven Can Wait" was gonna be a single. I know it's Teddy, but I don't think he'd be lying about this.

I think one of the people who wrote "Whatever Happens" said it was gonna be a single.

Paul MCC said:
How could Heaven Can Wait even chart on the RnB charts?
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Airplay, I guess.
 
I honestly believe that if Invincible had been released in 2002, it would have achieved so much more. Perhaps, to save money, they should have stopped production on the entire album and focused on polishing specific tracks instead.


They could have spent a bit more time refining Privacy, 2000 Watts, and Threatened, and reworking the vocals on HCW and WH. The first problem is that even in this scenario, Michael would likely have been furious, as he was obsessed with Sony throwing a massive amount of money at him for music videos...


The second problem is that, apparently, Michael was completely satisfied with the tracks... Judging by an early tracklist dated June 2001, Privacy and 2000 Watts were already finished by then.


Dude! You wanted to get SLASH for the song! You even shout his name at one point! You still have time before the album drops, yet you consider the song finished?? Michael, are you okay???

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By the way, did everyone notice that Whatever Happens is missing from the early tracklist? It makes me wonder, was it just a mistake? Or did Michael really not plan on including this masterpiece at first?

The song was fully finished by February 2001. Moments like this make me think Michael couldn't objectively judge his own work anymore...
 
Why would have Butterfless being included? It was nowhere to be #1 ( such as many songs in this failed compilation) and already had lost his momentum.
I don't know what kind of lawsuit there was with Freeze, but it was the last of the planned 4 Big singles in the US that wasn't exploited.

And between Butterflies and Heaven Can Wait, Break Of Dawn IS the best global potential hit of the three. Whereas BTFLS and HCW couldn't work outside the US RnB market.

So had Michael not been arrested, BoD would have been the second single of Number Ones ( even if a little bit redundant after OMC)
 
Paul MCC said:
How could Heaven Can Wait even chart on the RnB charts? Did I miss something? Doesn't a song have to be released at least as a promo single for that to happen? Heaven Can Wait wasn't used anywhere at all, except for that fan party back in 2002
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AirPlay. In the US since 1998, a track hadn't to be released at all physically to chart, or even to peak at #1.
Heaven Can Wait was a minor hit on the US RnB charts . The thing is It never got his momentum since Sony wasn t behind It anymore when it peaked late April of 2002.

But HCW is what maintained Invincible in the US RnB charts in april and may of 2002.
 
RodSerling said:
AirPlay. In the US since 1998, a track hadn't to be released at all physically to chart, or even to peak at #1.
Heaven Can Wait was a minor hit on the US RnB charts . The thing is It never got his momentum since Sony wasn t behind It anymore when it peaked late April of 2002.

But HCW is what maintained Invincible in the US RnB charts in april and may of 2002.
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Do you have any information about the chart positions for Unbreakable?
 
Paul MCC said:
Do you have any information about the chart positions for Unbreakable?
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No, Unbreakable never charted anywhere.
There was a promo pressing for two countries to the best of m'y knowledge : -
In France, where Invincible was a success the first few months ( It even broke several records and sold better than History), so that was a logical step.
- In the UK, where basically the last 9 MJ singles in a row before Cry made the top 5, but where Vince flopped. It did even worst than BOTDF in every aspect.

I heard Unbreakable 2 or 3 times only on the radio in France. Many fans requested the song in NRJ, the biggest musical radio, but to no avail. Without Payola you can't do much. NRJ had a contract with Sony to promote Vince.But they were reluctant to play Cry : the song didn't please their audience, and whenever they played it, they cut the second part of each verse (!) or the complete second verse. It would have been better to not release that song, and to stop the promotion at YRMW.

Whatever Happens was on regular rotation on a big radio though ( Skyrock) late 2001.

Neither songs made the top 100 AirPlay : we Are talking of a country where This Time Around made the top 40 several weeks in 1997, after the death of BIggie, and where Cry peaked at #20.

In the UK, It never made the top 100 of the BBC radio.
 
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