Michael Jackson (1958–2009) was an American musician and entertainer. He is known to have written, recorded, and filmed material that has never been officially released. Many of his unreleased songs have been registered—usually by his company Mijac Music—with professional bodies such as the
United States Copyright Office, the
Songwriters Hall of Fame,
Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI),
American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the
Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) and
EMI Music Publishing.
[1] This list, however, only documents the songs explicitly cited as unreleased and therefore does not contain every unreleased Jackson song registered with such bodies.
Many officially unreleased Jackson songs had been scheduled, at one point, for release, through ways such as his six solo studio albums with music label
Epic Records:
Off the Wall (1979),
Thriller (1982),
Bad (1987),
Dangerous (1991),
HIStory (1995) and
Invincible (2001) and the remix album
Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix (1997). For varying reasons, the tracks were rejected and, as of 2023, remain unreleased. Jackson's unreleased material includes songs recorded as a solo artist (including covers of songs released by other artists and
the Jackson 5 songs) and demo versions, some featuring established artists such as
Freddie Mercury and
Barry Gibb. Between 1974 and 2009, Jackson recorded "at least 1,000–2,000 songs" according to close partners Bill Bottrell and Bruce Swedien. Bottrell claimed "only a small percentage of Michael's full catalog has been released", and that "he recorded a lot of music in his 3 decade career".
In 2009, after Jackson's sudden death,
La Toya Jackson said that she had discovered two hard disks at her brother's home that contained more than 100 unreleased songs, many of which were unregistered.
[2] Several of Jackson's songs have been leaked onto the Internet, such as a 24-second segment of "
A Place with No Name" leaked by
TMZ.com following
Jackson's death.
[3] At the time of the leak, it was claimed that there were "thousands" of unreleased songs by Jackson, and that they could be issued for years to come. The curator of the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Jim Henke, noted that any future releases would garner significant attention.
[4][5][6] On March 16, 2010,
Sony Music Entertainment signed a $250 million deal with Jackson's estate to retain distribution rights to his recordings until 2017 and release ten posthumous albums over the next decade, but this did not come to fruition as only three posthumous albums were released.
[7]
