MissAshley
Bryan Loren's Only Fan
Bryan claimed, in general, Michael would have him play some chords and they would find something he liked so he could just groove to it. This would be exactly the same process as the Give Into Me session mentioned above, which seems to be backed up by the Don't Believe It session tape. However, it doesn't account for when Bryan would just bring tracks in to present to Michael (the proper definition of what a demo tape is). A lot of them are just Bryan throwing shit at the wall in hopes that it would stick. Michael would then add his own ingredients into some of the tracks, like hand claps were the thing Bryan always brought up to people. If you hear hand claps, they were at Michael's behest (the ones in Superfly Sister were recorded in a bathroom for the acoustics I guess?). Most of the demos do not have any input from Michael beyond a vague initial sound to strive for: Verdict is just a repurposed For You which is based on Work. Michael's input here would be close to zero beyond supposedly writing the lyrics for Janet (Bryan claims Michael confessed this).
Tabloid Junkie is a really interesting track because it's the closest he ever got to replicating The Knowledge, which is what drove him into his Rhythm Nation inspired fugue state and why early Dangerous sounds so lame. Michael implied he came up with the melody, but it's unclear to what degree Jam and Lewis would have been responsible for the track's rhythm; it seems likely he talked with them about The Knowledge given the similarities. Bryan clearly was not capable of creating this for him, which makes sense given his weird anachronistic pension for "Off the Wall" and the fact he's admitted he never understood what Rhythm Nation was supposed to be (somehow).
I also just want to point out that Bryan is very often unreliable. He's changed his story about To Satisfy You at least 2-3 times, and I don't know if it's misremembering things or just an ego thing, but he claimed the entire idea of a remix album came from Michael hearing Son of Thriller (just read this recently), which is ridiculous considering he was contractually obligated to make a remix album. He also claimed Bubbles punched him the chest, which really, REALLY upset him, but Michael only laughed at him. People that went to the Paris seminar claim that Bryan only talked about "hanging out" during the Invincible era, so it seems weird he would only mention working on demo tapes for the album later in private.
