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When will.i.am tried to release the songs he did with MJ on his own album

Spaceship

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Even though he refused to release them for the posthumous Michael album in 2010, he tried to release in 2013 for his #willpower but the estate stopped him. The estate certainly weren't in the wrong and will.i.am is an opportunist, but I think it would have been better if they did come out on his will.i.am's album, as long as we'd also get to hear the original version by MJ. Basically, will.i.am could release his new remixed version on his own album, and MJ's own version could be released on another project. So, both sides would win; Will gets buzz for his album, and MJ fans gets to hear new music. If the alternative is the songs never being released, then I would have wanted this.

Edit: Ah, mods, feel free to move this to the will.i.am tracks discussion thread.
 
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While I don't think the snippets from the Access Hollywood interview sound very interesting I do agree that it should come out at some point, we don't have that many complete songs from MJ's final years and it would be a waste to never release the ones that are finished.

If the songs ever get released I hope they get remixed, while the instrumentals are lacking and outdated I doubt the vocals are bad by any means.
 
I didnt know he tried to release them lol. I thought he decided to never do it since MJ isnt here. Well it would of made the michael album much better had they used his tracks over the casio ones.
 
Out of all the unreleased MJ tracks, these are the ones I fear will age the worse, the longer they are left in the vault.

Hopefully we hear them one day, I'm fascinated to know what direction Mike was going in. Although my hopes aren't high for them to be honest, given that Mike didn't have them on his list in his room, of his songs he wanted to finish

I think Mike saw Will I Am the same way he saw Darkchild for Invincible
 
Really funny that he said he didn't want to because it would be disrespectful, then tried to use them for his own purposes, only to be told no by the estate lol. Also, not sure there's any proof that the instrumentals in the interview are stuff they even ended up using. One of them was a solo Will song. I get the vibe from that interview that Will just played stuff he had for Michael so that they could conduct the interview.
 
Eddlicious said:
Seeing how MJ worked with both RedOne and will.i.am, both pioneers of the electropop sound that dominated the charts from 2009 to 2013 I'm really curious as to what these songs sounds like. :unsure:
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I imagine the RedOne songs sounds like Lady Gaga's Poker Face, MJ liked the song so much that it is why he called RedOne to work with him in his final years.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
Redone recently said that he has only one song that is releasable. Although he said years ago that he had more than one. Don't really understand why people seem so inconsistent with stuff like this, Will included.
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There are more songs that he could release, he told Damien Shields that a lot of them would require extensive work and guest vocalists. In the interview I think he meant only one releasable song as is.
 
AChanceToDance said:
There are more songs that he could release, he told Damien Shields that a lot of them would require extensive work and guest vocalists. In the interview I think he meant only one releasable song as is.
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I guess. I personally would not consider a song that needs someone else to sing it as releasable at all unless it was on a demo boxset or something.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
Redone recently said that he has only one song that is releasable. Although he said years ago that he had more than one. Don't really understand why people seem so inconsistent with stuff like this, Will included.
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The inconsistency does my head in. ☹️
 
The perfect time to release any fraud.i.am songs would have been on the Michael album, as they would have been quite recent and contemporary. Now they sound quite outdated, which I don’t really care about but the estate do as they want commercial success.

Personally speaking, I don’t have high hopes from any will-i-am produced MJ song, as I don’t really rate will-i-am and his band.
 
Nite Line said:
The perfect time to release any fraud.i.am songs would have been on the Michael album, as they would have been quite recent and contemporary. Now they sound quite outdated, which I don’t really care about but the estate do as they want commercial success.

Personally speaking, I don’t have high hopes from any will-i-am produced MJ song, as I don’t really rate will-i-am and his band.
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I don't have a business brain. And don't, in fact, have a problem with the Estate running things along commercial lines. Seems to be working quite well so far. The bit I don't understand is why they can't also do a few things that don't have commercial success written all over them. I'd be quite happy to hear stuff even if it no longer sounds contemporary. It would still be interesting. I mean, obviously, you'd want stuff that is decent quality but if it's not 100% finished and polished and maybe sounds slightly dated I don't think I'd mind too much. Sort of like an official bootleg. Not that bootlegs are usually rubbish, complete opposite, in fact. Not everyone likes bootlegs but those of us who do, we know how to adjust our expectations. We know what we're listening to. Demos, for example, have their own intrinsic character and value which is entirely different to the finished official version of a song but can still be great to listen to.

Just to be clear, I agree with SmoothGangsta, songs that need a guest vocal on them are not acceptable. I can take an unfinished song with Michael's vocals on it and appreciate it for what it is and what it represents. Other people being drafted in, no thanks. Not interested.

I dunno. Maybe it wouldn't work. But I can't help feeling that this obsession with everything having to be seen as a guaranteed smash hit is an irritating obstacle. I think the obsession with seeking new fans for Michael is unhelpful. I understand it up to a point, of course I do, but the needs of potential new fans are not necessarily going to be the same as Michael's existing fanbase. Is it so impossible to do stuff for both groups?

They always use the argument that Michael wouldn't have wanted unfinished stuff out there which I'm sure is true. But I highly doubt he would have wanted TII to be released but they don't seem to mind that. They boast about it's success on the website. Bit of inconsistency right there. Although presumably that was mainly an AEG project so maybe that's why they don't mind praising it.

I just don't understand any of it. Maybe it's the lack of a business brain, as I said.

Oh yeah, fraud.i.am. Love it 😄
 
SmoothGangsta said:
I guess. I personally would not consider a song that needs someone else to sing it as releasable at all unless it was on a demo boxset or something.
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To the Estate's standards it can be released, Hot Fun In The Summertime has only the chorus and the adlibs but the Estate remixed it and called in 2 singers to complete the song.

I don't think they'll ever be released though, RedOne already told his demands to the Estate's executives but if we got nothing so far that means they don't plan on releasing them.
 
AChanceToDance said:
To the Estate's standards it can be released, Hot Fun In The Summertime has only the chorus and the adlibs but the Estate remixed it and called in 2 singers to complete the song.

I don't think they'll ever be released though, RedOne already told his demands to the Estate's executives but if we got nothing so far that means they don't plan on releasing them.
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Yeah, the estate love to make excuses like "we don't release a lot of stuff because it's unfinished and MJ wouldn't want that" but then are willing to release a song he didn't even finish singing as long as they can get someone else to patch it up, lol.
 
will.i.am stated that when he works with an artist on new songs, they record and finish seven songs in order to choose that one song for future release.

This suggests that the number of finished songs (from those sessions) is bigger than those four or five songs that they were announced for release at that time when Michael Jackson was still alive.

Also, RedOne implied that there are finished and partially finished songs from his work with Michael Jackson.

He specifically revealed that he recorded only the last song (from those sessions) with Bruno Mars' vocals, meaning that all the previous songs have Michael Jackson's vocals on them.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
Yeah, the estate love to make excuses like "we don't release a lot of stuff because it's unfinished and MJ wouldn't want that" but then are willing to release a song he didn't even finish singing as long as they can get someone else to patch it up, lol.
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This.
 
Basically the Estate need to stop living in the past and give us what we want. Concert dvd’s, rehearsals, demos, unreleased tracks, alternative versions, extended versions, studio footage. Forget the damn modern remixes, forget the collaborations with modern artists. It is a waste of money and it is quite simply not what we want.
Someone needs to remind them that Michael is not relevant anymore for younger people (which is perfectly normal), hits don’t matter, the existing fanbase matters! It has been 13 years, the cow cannot be milked anymore, we deserve the candy now, especially after all the bullshit of the last 3 years!

I don’t see the Prince Estate desperately trying to score hits or George Michael or Whitney Houston or Elvis Presley. Just stop it!
 
filmandmusic said:
Basically the Estate need to stop living in the past and give us what we want. Concert dvd’s, rehearsals, demos, unreleased tracks, alternative versions, extended versions, studio footage. Forget the damn modern remixes, forget the collaborations with modern artists. It is a waste of money and it is quite simply not what we want.
Someone needs to remind them that Michael is not relevant anymore for younger people (which is perfectly normal), hits don’t matter, the existing fanbase matters! It has been 13 years, the cow cannot be milked anymore, we deserve the candy now, especially after all the bullshit of the last 3 years!

I don’t see the Prince Estate desperately trying to score hits or George Michael or Whitney Houston or Elvis Presley. Just stop it!
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It really is this simple. Every word of f&m's comment is gold.

When I read the guff on the website I wonder if they really believe that nonsense. I had another look the other day and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I wish they would read this comment from f&m, or any of the comments on this thread, and then just go and do it.

'Hits don't matter' Yes! Exactly so. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards.
 
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filmandmusic said:
Someone needs to remind them that Michael is not relevant anymore for younger people
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Don't know if I would go so far as to say that Michael is not relevant any more. I think his music is timeless. Though I completely agree with the sentiment of the post. Remixing is only going to spoil things, and won't create new super hits. Give current and future fans the unaltered versions of Michael's work. That's where the magic is.
 
filmandmusic said:
Basically the Estate need to stop living in the past and give us what we want. Concert dvd’s, rehearsals, demos, unreleased tracks, alternative versions, extended versions, studio footage. Forget the damn modern remixes, forget the collaborations with modern artists. It is a waste of money and it is quite simply not what we want.
Someone needs to remind them that Michael is not relevant anymore for younger people (which is perfectly normal), hits don’t matter, the existing fanbase matters! It has been 13 years, the cow cannot be milked anymore, we deserve the candy now, especially after all the bullshit of the last 3 years!

I don’t see the Prince Estate desperately trying to score hits or George Michael or Whitney Houston or Elvis Presley. Just stop it!
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He is still relevant to new kids. His music is trending right now on tiktok (wbss)
 
filmandmusic said:
Basically the Estate need to stop living in the past and give us what we want. Concert dvd’s, rehearsals, demos, unreleased tracks, alternative versions, extended versions, studio footage. Forget the damn modern remixes, forget the collaborations with modern artists. It is a waste of money and it is quite simply not what we want.
Someone needs to remind them that Michael is not relevant anymore for younger people (which is perfectly normal), hits don’t matter, the existing fanbase matters! It has been 13 years, the cow cannot be milked anymore, we deserve the candy now, especially after all the bullshit of the last 3 years!

I don’t see the Prince Estate desperately trying to score hits or George Michael or Whitney Houston or Elvis Presley. Just stop it!
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Love Never Felt So Good, Chicago, and Don't Matter to Me all proved you wrong on this. And who is this "we" you're speaking for, it's yourself.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Love Never Felt So Good, Chicago, and Don't Matter to Me all proved you wrong on this.
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Remixes are always a hit or miss honestly. You get remixes that are better than the originals like LNFSG, Behind The Mask, Loving You, etc but then you also get remixes like Xscape, The Way You Love Me and that god awful Bad Pitbull remix lmfao.
 
ChanceToDance said:
Remixes are always a hit or miss honestly. You get remixes that are better than the originals like LNFSG, Behind The Mask, Loving You, etc but then you also get remixes like Xscape, The Way You Love Me and that god awful Bad Pitbull remix lmfao.
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2 out of 3 of those you mention as "bad" are some of my favorite songs, and those are my favorite versions, so I'm obviously not gonna agree with you lol.

Have you considered it's just a matter of taste?
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Have you considered it's just a matter of taste?
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For some songs? Sure, but a lot of them are a downgrade of the originals. The symphonies on the Xscape remix are too loud and that remix takes away all the "anger" the original version had. The remix of APWNN turned what was supposed to be a cover of A Horse With No Name into a generic electronic song the same of which removes vocals. MJ's vocals in Don't Matter To Me are ruined by the overuse of autotune.

Like I said, it's a hit or miss.
 
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