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The Discussion of MJ's Unreleased Tracks

Eventidescape1 said:
He would have a slave reel to record vocals on to sub-mixes of the instrumental backing track… Layering and stacking the vocals was done for the chorus on “Monster”, and that would have been all the backing vocals. Michael usually did BV’s before recording any scratch lead vocals or final lead vocal.

As it seems Michael had the idea for the chorus vocal part - “you created a monster” etc. - yet never got around to doing a scratch vocal for the melody & rough lyrics… He often ad-libbed on the scratch vocal part, more so than the BV’s as these are obviously multitracked.

Whatever it is, the vocals on the multitrack tape with any real substance would be the existing chorus vocals… who knows if Michael ever did a scratch lead vocal for “Monster”.
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Damn, based on the leaked snippets and your description, Monster sounds epic... To think they could have put this song with Michael, and instead they put another one with Jason Malachi
 
Not sure if this was mentioned here just found it fascinating cus i love this song

Chicago 1945 had 9 vocal tracks MJ did all back to back to back without stopping.

The first version is just a synth jam by Steve that he gave to Michael for inspiration for a song idea.

Shame this song along with Dream Away prolly won't drop anytime soon if ever.
 
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Clay7 said:
Not sure if this was mentioned here just found it fascinating cus i love this song

Chicago 1945 has 10 thriller/victory era versions

The first version is just a synth jam by Steve

The other 9 are different takes by MJ one of which we have. Kind of a slave to the rhythm thing where he recorded the song several times back to back.

Shame this song along with Dream Away prolly won't drop anytime soon if ever.
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Uh? Is your man even a reliable source? I recall Steve saying that MJ just recorded a full vocal take for C1945 in one session, that impressed him, and then he left the studio and didn't put any more work on it.
 
Clay7 said:
Not sure if this was mentioned here just found it fascinating cus i love this song

Chicago 1945 has 10 thriller/victory era versions

The first version is just a synth jam by Steve

The other 9 are different takes by MJ one of which we have. Kind of a slave to the rhythm thing where he recorded the song several times back to back.

Shame this song along with Dream Away prolly won't drop anytime soon if ever.
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I'd love to have Dream Away but those last few lines of the chorus go on a bit too long and it gets clunky. Still a gorgeous song, mind.
 
Idk why, but i'm halfway convinced that songs like Deep In The Night and Monster are just daymixes that were abandoned before there was a mix with hypothetical lead vocals
 
Saka21 said:
Uh? Is your man even a reliable source? I recall Steve saying that MJ just recorded a full vocal take for C1945 in one session, that impressed him, and then he left the studio and didn't put any more work on it.
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Sorry I misremembered that detail, he did 9 vocal passes, not 9 different lead takes lol. Everything else is accurate, and there were adlibs and hiccups that were cut by Steve so I'd love to hear that.
 
JamesCMJJ said:
Idk why, but i'm halfway convinced that songs like Deep In The Night and Monster are just daymixes that were abandoned before there was a mix with hypothetical lead vocals
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Monster very well could be the case, not sure if you saw my previous post I mentioned that there are various mixes of Monster with stripped down elements given to MJ to listen to/sing to privately as well as one for his headphones. Very well could be the case, not sure about DITN since we know very little about that song
 
Clay7 said:
Monster very well could be the case, not sure if you saw my previous post I mentioned that there are various mixes of Monster with stripped down elements given to MJ to listen to/sing to privately as well as one for his headphones. Very well could be the case, not sure about DITN since we know very little about that song
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You're right, there are various mixes of Monster. I wonder if songs like Innocent Man are like this as well
 
Clay7 said:
Monster very well could be the case, not sure if you saw my previous post I mentioned that there are various mixes of Monster with stripped down elements given to MJ to listen to/sing to privately as well as one for his headphones. Very well could be the case, not sure about DITN since we know very little about that song
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It is standard practice in the music industry to create a rough mix of a song after each session with any overdubs & alterations made, purely for reference purposes.

Michael would work on an idea for an extended time period across multiple sessions. He liked to take his time with developing musical ideas, letting it come to fruition in its own time… He would listen to a rough mix from one session on DAT or cassette, then suggest more changes for the next session and so on. Or he wanted to revisit X idea and so forth.

So there are bound to be lots of different work-in-progress mixes & versions from different sessions that exist across all of Michael’s catalog. Including for unreleased songs, grooves & ideas that did not develop that far. Not just Monster.

It is possible more developed versions exist of Monster, DITN and other songs on than what we heard. But chances are these were abandoned at an early stage while other songs took priority, before Michael could add scratch vocals. There could only be so many songs Michael could finish & develop, realistically speaking.

Monster, weirdly enough, continued to be fine-tuned until 2001 by Brad Buxer but Michael never got around to adding vocals aside from the choruses.
Man In Black supposedly has a lead vocal on one version as Bryan Loren claimed, but that is yet to surface.
 
Eventidescape1 said:
It is standard practice in the music industry to create a rough mix of a song after each session with any overdubs & alterations made, purely for reference purposes.

Michael would work on an idea for an extended time period across multiple sessions. He liked to take his time with developing musical ideas, letting it come to fruition in its own time… He would listen to a rough mix from one session on DAT or cassette, then suggest more changes for the next session and so on. Or he wanted to revisit X idea and so forth.

So there are bound to be lots of different work-in-progress mixes & versions from different sessions that exist across all of Michael’s catalog. Including for unreleased songs, grooves & ideas that did not develop that far. Not just Monster.

It is possible more developed versions exist of Monster, DITN and other songs on than what we heard. But chances are these were abandoned at an early stage while other songs took priority, before Michael could add scratch vocals. There could only be so many songs Michael could finish & develop, realistically speaking.

Monster, weirdly enough, continued to be fine-tuned until 2001 by Brad Buxer but Michael never got around to adding vocals aside from the choruses.
Man In Black supposedly has a lead vocal on one version as Bryan Loren claimed, but that is yet to surface.
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I suppose "For All Time" is a good example of this. We are aware of at least 3 takes for this song, the most for a non-album track that we have in our possesion?
 
Yeah, there being multiple mixes means nothing in regards to if there's a more complete version. MJ got people to do new mixes of stuff all the time, sometimes without even touching the track.
 
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