Why did the 2014 release of “A Place With No Name” meet with controversy?

[Spaceship]

A lot of people did point out that the cover seemed to deliberately be covering MJ's nose. It was pretty obvious that they were too ashamed to show his post-surgeries face in full.

 

[Hot_Street]

A lot of people did point out that the cover seemed to deliberately be covering MJ's nose. It was pretty obvious that they were too ashamed to show his post-surgeries face in full.

true
I would have preferred this rejected cover:

 

[MJJ Leaks]

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I would have preferred this rejected cover:

That's a great cover

 

[SeriousEffect.]

The main reason is that its opening lines have an apparent reference to his 1993 incident when his jeep broke down as he drove across on the highway.

Many Michael Jackson fans did not like that reference because via that particular incident Michael Jackson met with Jordan Chandler (the boy who later accused him of child sexual abuse behaviour).

I've been around forever and I've never heard this before today, so maybe a small group of fans is more appropriate.

 

[JEMFTV]

I remember when it came out, I was waiting on it and spend my time here, like everyone else. I don't think there was a big controversy regarding its existence though. We waited 5 years for the song to come out.

When it comes to the remix: I like it. I think it was an akward decision to add Michael's grunts to the intro though. You can tell they did some copy and pasting and I always skip that section, because it just sounds off.

I think people didn't like how the LMA-melody was reused or how goofy the synthesizer sounded. But honestly, it was 2014 and the remix sounded contemporary when it dropped. Realistically speaking, you couldn't have put out just the original version as single. Be real with your self. Music had evolved. Michael is doing his thing, but the original track sounded dated.

Some of us hated on the music video. We had high expectations and didn't know what we were going to get. People theorized that we could get an animated video or something They did announce that there would be some unreleased footage from the ITC shoot, but the whole thing wasn't good enough to us. Cutting out the last part of the bridge also grinded our gears.

 

[Victorious]

It's a nice song imo, I do feel it's a bit out of character for Michael to base new tracks on other people's, famous songs:

"At Record Plant, Freeze began proposing songs to base new material on. One of which came to be "A Horse with No Name", a 1972 hit by the British rock band America. The producer stated he "wanted to refresh it and make a version for the 2000s"

 

[SeriousEffect.]

It's a nice song imo, I do feel it's a bit out of character for Michael to base new tracks on other people's, famous songs:

"At Record Plant, Freeze began proposing songs to base new material on. One of which came to be "A Horse with No Name", a 1972 hit by the British rock band America. The producer stated he "wanted to refresh it and make a version for the 2000s"

With Invincible MJ did a few things out of character, not to mention he has straight up covers that appear on albums (Smile and Come Together).

MJ used background vocalists and had more writers than ever before on Invincible and since the vocals are complete he must have liked the song enough to spend time to fully record it.

 

[mjfp]

It's a nice song imo, I do feel it's a bit out of character for Michael to base new tracks on other people's, famous songs:

"At Record Plant, Freeze began proposing songs to base new material on. One of which came to be "A Horse with No Name", a 1972 hit by the British rock band America. The producer stated he "wanted to refresh it and make a version for the 2000s"

well the original version on Xscape was Michael‘s final mix made with Neff-U in 2008, so I also wouldn‘t consider it a demo, not much is changed except the drums and some smaller stuff iirc

I quite like Stargate‘s Remix when I consider it as a remix and not a final mix of the original vision. It has a nice groove and I like the overall sound but it takes away the soul of the song that has a deeper meaning but is overshadowed by the heavy instruments

 

[Hess]

I have always liked APWNN actually. - I like both versions.