"Chicago 1945" (1989 & 1995)?

The change in Michael's voice between 84-87 is so intriguing to me. I'd love to know the recording dates of the songs on the Bad album and the demos of the era, because its so hard to pinpoint the evolution of his voice.

Something like Fly Away vocally sounds nothing like Thriller era, some with a song like Song Groove. His Bad era voice is glorious

Off the top of my head, the only Bad era track that sounds Thriller era is We Are Here To Change The World, to me at least
 
Off the top of my head, the only Bad era track that sounds Thriller era is We Are Here To Change The World, to me at least
Work on that began in 1984 while MJ was in hospital after the pepsi accident, so vocals were recorded earliest afterwards, while Abortion Paper was recorded between 1983 and early 1984.

it seems MJ was capable of changing his voice seamlessly between those styles at any time
 
His voice was not "weird". You guys really underplay the uniqueness of his voice. Michael was experimenting with different sounds for his upcoming album (in this case the album would be "Bad"), if you listen to all of Michael's demos in between and after different eras, you will notice that he sounds like a mix between whichever era came before and the era that came after. Simply put, Michael always had the same voice, he just learned how to sing differently as time passed, which is why he sounds different on Thriller than he does on Bad. Michael could always sing like he did on Thriller even when he was in his 40's. I believe "Chicago 1945" was simply a way to experiment with the "Bad" era singing style.
Destiny to Off The Wall to Triumph to Thriller to Victory to Bad all feel like a seamless sort of evolution, where you hear all these different textures to his voice and different experiences in his songs, even if they're sometimes basically the same topic. It's always so novel. None of MJs "successors" have that range, male or female.
 
Work on that began in 1984 while MJ was in hospital after the pepsi accident, so vocals were recorded earliest afterwards, while Abortion Paper was recorded between 1983 and early 1984.

it seems MJ was capable of changing his voice seamlessly between those styles at any time
That is exactly what I said. Thank you so much!
 
Destiny to Off The Wall to Triumph to Thriller to Victory to Bad all feel like a seamless sort of evolution, where you hear all these different textures to his voice and different experiences in his songs, even if they're sometimes basically the same topic. It's always so novel. None of MJs "successors" have that range, male or female.
He truly was THE MOST talented artist of ALL TIME.
 
Work on that began in 1984 while MJ was in hospital after the pepsi accident, so vocals were recorded earliest afterwards, while Abortion Paper was recorded between 1983 and early 1984.

it seems MJ was capable of changing his voice seamlessly between those styles at any time
Yeah it's mad isn't it. Seemingly Mike could sing in his "Bad era voice" for the demo's of the new album, then revert to his Thriller era voice on the Victory Tour. Then you have the anomaly of We Are The World, were he sounds like Thriller era again

Scared Of The Moon seems to be the true bridge between Thriller and the Bad era.

This is why confirmed recording dates would be so interesting to have
 
Iirc Steve said that after the estate contacted him about xscape and weren't at all interested in anything but the vocal track he decided to try and finish it in the way he thinks MJ would have wanted him to.
 
Work on that began in 1984 while MJ was in hospital after the pepsi accident, so vocals were recorded earliest afterwards, while Abortion Paper was recorded between 1983 and early 1984.

it seems MJ was capable of changing his voice seamlessly between those styles at any time
Where did you read about the recordings of these tracks
 
Not sure if my input here would be useful -- I talked to Jerry Hey a long time ago about this song. According to him, did the charts for this song back in the 80s when this song was recorded (never gave me a specific year), but the horns themselves were never actually tracked until quite recently (also, never gave me a specific year). The horns were Tom Walsh, who's a fairly young guy, and plays for Hollywood soundtracks -- he's the next best thing to Jerry.
 
Not sure if my input here would be useful -- I talked to Jerry Hey a long time ago about this song. According to him, did the charts for this song back in the 80s when this song was recorded (never gave me a specific year), but the horns themselves were never actually tracked until quite recently (also, never gave me a specific year). The horns were Tom Walsh, who's a fairly young guy, and plays for Hollywood soundtracks -- he's the next best thing to Jerry.
He must have heard the song at Westlake in 1986. Which would mean C45 was re-recorded from scratch.
But was C45 actually re-recorded or did they only tweak production to the original 1983/84 vocals? Not that it's impossible but I don't think Michael would've recorded at Westlake if it wasn't going to make the album as Quincy wasn't one to waste studio time. Didn't Quincy say he liked the song but I don't recall them doing additional work on it besides listening to it.
 
But was C45 actually re-recorded or did they only tweak production to the original 1983/84 vocals?
Since Pocaro claims he had the actual multitracks of it since the day of recording and the estate says C45 is a recording from the Bad sessions, I would say it has been re-recorded for Bad.

Would be great to have a definitive answer on this. Somebody should ask Matt Forger (assuming he'll join one of Sundberg's L.A. events this year).
 
Michael recorded 9 vocal lines in the initial session with Steve Porcaro in 83, the song hasn't been re-recorded.
That's according to Porcaro -- but Porcaro did say many years back on Toto's website that Mike only recorded the song 2 times. It's been long enough to the point where I believe his memory is starting to fail him.
 
“Years ago, Michael and I wrote a song called Chicago 1945 – I did the music and Michael the lyrics, he recorded the song twice, but never put it on an album… the instruments were played in a constant rhythm in the 16th note, which was called ‘yada’. When I explained this to Michael, he liked it so much he gave me that nickname!” - Steve Porcaro}

Additionally, the version of C45 we have right now is not really in a constant 1/16 note rhythm -- so I'm not sure what we have even remotely resembles what would have been recorded then...?
 
“Years ago, Michael and I wrote a song called Chicago 1945 – I did the music and Michael the lyrics, he recorded the song twice, but never put it on an album… the instruments were played in a constant rhythm in the 16th note, which was called ‘yada’. When I explained this to Michael, he liked it so much he gave me that nickname!” - Steve Porcaro}

Additionally, the version of C45 we have right now is not really in a constant 1/16 note rhythm -- so I'm not sure what we have even remotely resembles what would have been recorded then...?
Went from recording it twice to running through it 9 times. There must've been a session with them where he ran through a song multiple times like that......maybe Dream Away?
 
That's according to Porcaro -- but Porcaro did say many years back on Toto's website that Mike only recorded the song 2 times. It's been long enough to the point where I believe his memory is starting to fail him.
9 vocal lines doesn‘t mean nine lead vocal takes
 
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