Hot topic What unreleased demos and remixes do you think will be on Thriller 40 Disc 2?

Status
Not open for further replies.
BBM has a much stronger melody than Hot Street. Say what you want about Quincy but he generally got the final tracklistings correct based on what he had to work with, save for Just Good Friends which he later admitted to be a mistake.

They withheld stronger material that was available for BAD 25. Buffalo Bill, Chicago 1945, What You Do To Me, those were held back intentionally, IMO.
 
“Hot Street” is immensely mediocre imo. Not bad, but it doesn’t come anywhere near the songs that actually made the album.

“What You Do to Me” remains a curio. I’m very interested in hearing that one.
It's probably one of the better songs left in the vault based on what I've read. I also think he went back to it the late 90's.

Another one is Make or Break. Unfinished but they could've included that on BAD 25.

The best stuff was really from '83-'86.
 
Apple Music updated the tracklist. Got the Hots is the second song on CD2.

01
02 Got the Hots (Demo)
03
04
05 Behind the Mask (Mike's Mix (Demo))
06
07 The Toy (Demo)
08
09
10 She's Trouble (Demo)

 
I’m thinking this is what we’re in for:
  1. Starlight (Demo of Thriller)
  2. Got the Hots (Demo)
  3. Nightline (Demo)
  4. [unheard song]
  5. Behind the Mask (Mike’s Mix)
  6. Hot Street (Demo)
  7. The Toy (Demo)
  8. Rolling the Dice (Demo)
  9. Carousel (Demo)
  10. She’s Trouble (Demo)
If it’s anything even close to this, I’m thrilled (no pun intended).
 
My revised list

1. Starlight
2. Got the hots
3. Hot street
4. Lady in my life uncut or someone in the dark
All 4 above written by Rod Temperton.

5. Behind the mask
6. Something post thriller sessions
7. The Toy
All 3 above written by Michael Jackson.

8. Night Line
9. Carousel
10. She’s trouble
All 3 above written by others.

Something like this will make me happy
 
I agree with many people that Got the Hots would have fitted more on disc3. I mean, songs that have previously been in a limited release? Fits the song perfectly. I guess that makes Carousel being on disc2 as well pretty likely.
Starlight, Niteline and Slapstick / Hotstreet are a safe bet. Put together, we have 8 tracks.

I they also put previously released stuff on disc2, then we may be also getting the uncut version of Lady in my Life and Someone in the Dark. Though, that would be pretty lame. The ET storybook deserves an own re-release on CD.
So if we exchange one of these 2 last songs with the demo of Don't Matter To Me (hope it exists with more vocals than the few on Drakes song), we'd have our disc2. Hope they don't count Scared of the Moon as Thriller era.
So the final tracklist (in no particular order) may look something like that:
- Niteline
- She's Trouble
- Starlight
- Slapstick / Hot Street
- Got The Hots
- The Toy
- Behind The Mask
- Carousel
- Lady In My Life uncut / Someone In The Dark
- Don't Matter To Me

Nothing spectalular in my opinion, but nevertheless quite strong. Would mean a complete official release of all Thriller era leakes + like 3 more or less new songs. Releasing the leakes makes future albums much more exciting for me :) The last big batch of leaked songs would be the scrapped 2nd CD of Dangerous.


Also: Who the hell writes these song descriptions on Twitter / the website? I bet most people in this thread could write better texts in about 5minutes each.
 
I'd assume track 1 on Disc 2 is going to be Starlight, it just makes sense.

I hope they include at least one more unheard song on Disc 2, Mystery would be cool, but if that's vocally complete maybe they want to save it for a studio album.

Maybe even the earliest version of Don't Be Messin' Round? I imagine that'll be as complete as the version we got on Bad 25
 
Found this comment on the MJ Archives group.

I had a chat with MJ one time about Got The Hots.. He didn't know Sony had issued it in Japan. He sounded so surprised as if the song was merely a throwaway. "They released THAT!!!" I got the impression it was not important to him.

I don't really understand how they could release a song legally without him knowing.
 
Found this comment on the MJ Archives group.



I don't really understand how they could release a song legally without him knowing.
Because Temperton wrote the song, he owns it. However, Sony owns the specific recordings of the song sung by MJ. They can do whatever they please with it. If Temperton wants to release it, he'll have to re-record it. We see this happening with Taylor Swift right now. She fell out with her label, she wanted to own the original masters. They wouldn't sell it to her. She is not allowed do anything with those recordings unless she gets permission. However, she has outsmarted them. She wrote the songs, she owns the songs, just not the recordings of the songs. Soooo.... she re-recorded them. Sony can do whatever they please with Michael's recordings because they own them. Same with Motown and the Jackson 5. In fairness though, a lot of those songs were written and produced by Motown and only performed by J5 so I think it's fair they own those ones.

That's how it works in general and simple terms. Every contract is different though.
 
Because Temperton wrote the song, he owns it. However, Sony owns the specific recordings of the song sung by MJ. They can do whatever they please with it. If Temperton wants to release it, he'll have to re-record it. We see this happening with Taylor Swift right now. She fell out with her label, she wanted to own the original masters. They wouldn't sell it to her. She is not allowed do anything with those recordings unless she gets permission. However, she has outsmarted them. She wrote the songs, she owns the songs, just not the recordings of the songs. Soooo.... she re-recorded them. Sony can do whatever they please with Michael's recordings because they own them. Same with Motown and the Jackson 5. In fairness though, a lot of those songs were written and produced by Motown and only performed by J5 so I think it's fair they own those ones.

That's how it works in general and simple terms. Every contract is different though.
Sony couldn't put out anything without Michael's approval. They wanted a double disc in 2001 and Michael said no. They wanted the same demos release in 2008 and he said no. They wanted less demos and he said no again. You can't just put stuff out without the label's permission.

The Taylor case is something different. Michael's masters were owned by MJJ Productions afaik.
 
Sony couldn't put out anything without Michael's approval. They wanted a double disc in 2001 and Michael said no. They wanted the same demos release in 2008 and he said no. They wanted less demos and he said no again. You can't just put stuff out without the label's permission.

The Taylor case is something different. Michael's masters were owned by MJJ Productions afaik.
This is what I mean, every contract is different. This makes sense because otherwise I'm sure Sony would be releasing albums left right and center without the Estate involved.
 
I’m thinking this is what we’re in for:
  1. Starlight (Demo of Thriller)
  2. Got the Hots (Demo)
  3. Nightline (Demo)
  4. [unheard song]
  5. Behind the Mask (Mike’s Mix)
  6. Hot Street (Demo)
  7. The Toy (Demo)
  8. Rolling the Dice (Demo)
  9. Carousel (Demo)
  10. She’s Trouble (Demo)
If it’s anything even close to this, I’m thrilled (no pun intended).
I have been dying to hear Rolling The Dice for ages.

Is the song close to completion and was it written by Michael?
 
You guys please stop guessing the tracklist, it's getting pointless now...
Also, in case you don't know, before the announcement of first track, several previously released Thriller era tracks posted on YouTube are labeled as "track 11", "track 13", "track 15" and "track 17" of a non-existent album, and these songs are Got The Hots (track 11), Carousel (track 13), Can't Get Outta The Rain (track 15) and Sunset Driver (track 17). Now that Got The Hots is confirmed as indeed the 11th track, so we can be sure of track 13, 15 and 17.
Only 3 vacancies are left for disc 2 and we know Starlight has been taken down on YouTube, so it must be on it. The other 2 spots are for leaked but unreleased songs, i.e. Hot Street (or Slapstick) and Nite Line. And voila, you got a 10-song disc 2.
So it's absolutely no place for other unheard songs, no Rolling The Dice, no Chicago 1945, no Buffalo Bill, no Nymphette Lover. Nope!
Also we can say goodbye to The Lady In My Life (Uncut Version), Don't Matter To Me (Demo) and other Freddie Mercury collaborations.
 
You guys please stop guessing the tracklist, it's getting pointless now...
Also, in case you don't know, before the announcement of first track, several previously released Thriller era tracks posted on YouTube are labeled as "track 11", "track 13", "track 15" and "track 17" of a non-existent album, and these songs are Got The Hots (track 11), Carousel (track 13), Can't Get Outta The Rain (track 15) and Sunset Driver (track 17). Now that Got The Hots is confirmed as indeed the 11th track, so we can be sure of track 13, 15 and 17.
Only 3 vacancies are left for disc 2 and we know Starlight has been taken down on YouTube, so it must be on it. The other 2 spots are for leaked but unreleased songs, i.e. Hot Street (or Slapstick) and Nite Line. And voila, you got a 10-song disc 2.
So it's absolutely no place for other unheard songs, no Rolling The Dice, no Chicago 1945, no Buffalo Bill, no Nymphette Lover. Nope!
Also we can say goodbye to The Lady In My Life (Uncut Version), Don't Matter To Me (Demo) and other Freddie Mercury collaborations.
finally someone say that
 
You guys please stop guessing the tracklist, it's getting pointless now...
Also, in case you don't know, before the announcement of first track, several previously released Thriller era tracks posted on YouTube are labeled as "track 11", "track 13", "track 15" and "track 17" of a non-existent album, and these songs are Got The Hots (track 11), Carousel (track 13), Can't Get Outta The Rain (track 15) and Sunset Driver (track 17). Now that Got The Hots is confirmed as indeed the 11th track, so we can be sure of track 13, 15 and 17.
Only 3 vacancies are left for disc 2 and we know Starlight has been taken down on YouTube, so it must be on it. The other 2 spots are for leaked but unreleased songs, i.e. Hot Street (or Slapstick) and Nite Line. And voila, you got a 10-song disc 2.
So it's absolutely no place for other unheard songs, no Rolling The Dice, no Chicago 1945, no Buffalo Bill, no Nymphette Lover. Nope!
Also we can say goodbye to The Lady In My Life (Uncut Version), Don't Matter To Me (Demo) and other Freddie Mercury collaborations.
Pretty sure this was debunked a while ago and those tracks were attributed to other albums (TUC, TUFAC, etc.). It’s somewhere in this thread.
 
Putting Sunset Driver and Can't Get Outta the Rain on this album would be really stupid. Not only do they belong to the OTW era, but the latter song also has already been released. They both would have fitted on the OTW chalk album quite well.
If they are really gonna be released on Thriller 40, that would be a sign for me that no usable cut tracks or even demos are left from Thriller era.
 
Sunset Driver (as released on TUC) was recorded in 1982 for Triller.
 
Sunset Driver (as released on TUC) was recorded in 1982 for Triller.
I wouldn't take TUC as the gospel.
Fall Again was credited as written by Michael Jackson, for instance.

I'd guess that Sunset Driver is an Off The Wall outtake, when you listen Mike's vocals they sound from OTW era to me and the production sounds disco era that even pre-dates most of the sound on Off The Wall
 
Were the re-recorded lyrics that replace 'game' with 'rain' recorded at the same time as You Can't Win? Or did they re-record the song during Thriller sessions?
They just re-recorded the lyrics. Everything else was kept untouched, they were just mixed differently.
 
Putting Sunset Driver and Can't Get Outta the Rain on this album would be really stupid. Not only do they belong to the OTW era, but the latter song also has already been released. They both would have fitted on the OTW chalk album quite well.
If they are really gonna be released on Thriller 40, that would be a sign for me that no usable cut tracks or even demos are left from Thriller era.
It would more say to me that they don't want to use much unreleased stuff and are filling up the tracklist as a result.
 
Sunset Driver (as released on TUC) was recorded in 1982 for Triller.
I didn’t buy this for the longest time, but upon double-checking the credits (assuming they’re to be believed), I feel like it’s the only possible timeline. It was engineered by Keith Seppanen, who worked on most of Jermaine’s early-‘80s albums, and mixed by Bill Bottrell, who joined the Jackson crew in 1983-84. It could’ve been written in the late ‘70s, but it was definitely recorded no earlier than 1981.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top