Why doesn’t the Estate release all the songs that the fans have leaked? And why doesn’t the Estate just release everything in the vault?
Eventually the Estate hopes more music will be released but there is nothing in the vaults that is finished and ready for release. As has been stated previously, the Estate won’t release everything in the vaults based on the choices Michael himself made during his life and that includes songs that fans have found and leaked.
There are appropriate uses for demos, such as including them on anniversary album releases, most recently done with the Thriller 40 anniversary album, which were varied in terms of completion. But if we released demos by themselves, they would not show Michael in his best light or be representative of the quality of Michael’s recordings, and would not be commercially successful because they are, by definition, unfinished. While releasing unfinished work may be appreciated by the fans, it would not be the way to introduce Michael to new fans who should hear Michael at his best. That is certainly how Michael decided what to release and we believe that is what he would want us to do. And even among the fans, we see disagreement on whether unreleased material should be finished to make them commercially viable or not.
Michael had several philosophies that we use as guides. One of those is, “The quality goes in before the name goes on.” Just because something exists doesn’t mean it should be made public – and sharing with the fans is the same as making it public.
Just because something has been leaked by a fan doesn’t mean that it is something which should have an official release. The fact that it is leaked means that Michael didn’t intend for it to be shared by whomever he may have trusted with it in the first place.
