I think the change from Destiny to Off The Wall happened because he started working with Seth Riggs which led to changes such as his belts sounding fuller; maybe that's what also led to his voice changing on Triumph & towards the end of the Destiny tour.
Speeding up songs is pretty common & people such as MJ & Prince used it. Back then it was mainly done to get an album to be short enough to fit on a vinyl but nowadays it's very common since people prefer sped up/high pitched versions of songs (they're all over TikTok). You can recreate it live by playing a quicker tempo or raising the key.
It's common practice, well maybe not much anymore, but it isn't something completely unheard of. I wouldn't consider it cheating as you still need to be talented enough to arrange the whole song, and execute the idea, play the instruments, sing the vocal. Half the album is at least sped up.
Thriller itself was sped up, also Baby Be Mine should be sped up too.
Your Ways isn't really sped up that much surprisingly, that's just some crazy Michael falsetto
They were probably sped up to make the songs more danceable.
Most of the BAD album is sped up, TWYMMF given the worse end of things though, Bad is sped up a lot, the original sounds so much more groovier, meanwhile the album track sounds like a dance track, you cant dance to something that's not somewhat upbeat
Wasn't it just TWYMMF, Bad & Smooth Criminal? His voice on the rest sounds in line with how you would expect it to sound in 1986/1987 (minus APOM ofc).
Wow I'd never heard Save Me or Just Friends before; his voice on Save Me sounds great & like a mix of OTW & Triumph. Say Say Say & The Man sound slightly deeper to me compared to Triumph (closer to Thriller) which makes sense given they were recorded in 1981 (you can also hear his voice getting slightly deeper in 1981 when comparing the vocals on the Destiny tour to the Triumph tour or Diana Ross show).I don’t believe that michael’s vocals were sped up on ‘triumph’. I think it was either a deliberate choice, or just where his voice was at that time. it sounds the same as the other songs he featured on from that era; ‘save me’, ‘just friends’, ‘say say say’ and ‘the man’ (they were recorded two years prior to their release in 1983).
Quincy jones said that he wanted to strengthen michael’s lower range. I’m not sure if his vocal coach Seth Riggs was present for the non solo projects..
I do believe that there is a difference between the way Michael sounded on his own in the late seventies/early eighties, versus the Jacksons. on the latter, he sounded more effortless and clean, but I feel he was more explorational and soulful independent from his brothers.
i personally consider both of them to be his peak
Speed Demon and Liberian Girl, and maybe JGF by about a key (im unsure on JGF, but we have a snippet of it being sung in a different key in the BAD 25 Documentary), Smooth Criminal, TWYMMF, Dirty Diana slightly too, and Bad, and Another Part Of Me too.
It's common on a lot of old funk, R&B, disco, dance music, children's & comedy songs. It's used quite a bit in Funkadelic/George Clinton songs. In other songs it's slowed down. But in these cases it wasn't done to save time on an album, it was more of an Alvin & The Chipmunks effect. Prince even recorded seceral of songs like that and used the name "Camille" as the singer. It was supposed to be an album as Camille, but that was cancelled and some of the songs were released elsewhere like on the Sign O'The Times albums and B-sides to singles. Hard Day by George Michael has sped up vocals at the end and the remix for Wham!'s I'm Your Man has a slowed down voice at one part. In the early 2000s there were a lot of rap songs on the radio with sped up voice samples, I remember one had a Luther Vandross sample, but I forgot what the song & artist was. It might have been Kanye West.
interesting. ‘baby be mine’ always stood out to me as the moment when michael showed vocal strain..
. I’m not sure if it was recorded before or after ‘triumph’. I doubt it was sped up.Which parts sound strained? To be fair he was hitting loads of D5s on that song so he was really pushing himself. Wouldn't be surprised if it was sped up tho since the final version is a bit quicker than the demo and Michael's voice is a bit brighter/higher.interesting. ‘baby be mine’ always stood out to me as the moment when michael showed vocal strain..
I listened to both ‘save me’ and ‘just friends’ for the first time in awhile. I didn’t realise how low his voice was mixed in the former. like he was faraway from the microphone. the lyrics remind of the stories michael would later tell about the perils of chasing the ‘Hollywood dream’.
michael’s vocals on ‘just friends’ (as well as the song itself) was somewhat reminiscent of ‘time waits for no one’ to me, but nowhere near as clear. I think his duet partner brought him down. I don’t think they blended well.
I think the delicate high timbre is perfect as long as he’s not drowned out by production (as demonstrated in ‘give it up’).
this Disney medley from 1980 has all of michael’s elements
Turns out Liberian Girl was actually slowed down, the only track in the album who had the opposite treatment i guess lol
I don’t believe that michael’s vocals were sped up on ‘triumph’. I think it was either a deliberate choice, or just where his voice was at that time. it sounds the same as the other songs he featured on from that era; ‘save me’, ‘just friends’, ‘say say say’ and ‘the man’ (they were recorded two years prior to their release in 1983).
Quincy jones said that he wanted to strengthen michael’s lower range. I’m not sure if his vocal coach Seth Riggs was present for the non solo projects..
I do believe that there is a difference between the way Michael sounded on his own in the late seventies/early eighties, versus the Jacksons. on the latter, he sounded more effortless and clean, but I feel he was more explorational and soulful independent from his brothers.
i personally consider both of them to be his peak
Btw where did you hear about Speed Demon, Liberian Girl, Dirty Diana and the album version of APOM being sped up?
Dirty Diana i've heard stuff from the original multitrack.
Just compared them and I can't hear it tbh. The Dirty Diana acapella sounds the same as MJs vocals in the song and Speed Demon sounds the same with the remix having more revurb.
Unrelated and definitely not relevant to this conversation, just wanted to say that i find it very funny how people use "pitched up" and "sped up" interchangeably even though they are really different things, although i guess in the end it doesn't matter.
I mean back in those days if they were speeding a song up it would result in the pitch going up so yeah they do mean different things but changing one variable would affect the other.
Indeed, Smooth Criminal went from a bpm of 114.731 to 118.200, that's like a 3% increase in speed just in there.
For Dirty Diana, the leaked "pack" sourced from stream recordings is from stems, what i've heard is from the actual multitrack, it's not too much slower, but it definitely is a bit slower.
I used pitched because I was talking in terms of keys, you don't say you speed it up a key.
