It’s time for the posthumous Michael Jackson album we ALL need.
2019 was not a good year to be a Michael Jackson fan. Although it’s hard to call the boring, false and thoroughly debunked movie “Leaving Neverland” a success in any kind of way — it did succeed in taking up the conversation amongst MJ fans throughout the year. Although legal wranglings continue, that fight was won by the neverending wrath of MJ fans, and frankly, the truth that seeds the conversation no matter how hard the “fake woke” accounts try and blurt out useless buzz phrases about “believing all victims”, missing the point that the only victims in that affair were Michael, his children and his family and not the shysters trying to claim millions of dollars through the courts of law.
It’s time to end them. And the only way to do that is through the music.
It’s hard for me to say this without it sounding like some kind of humblebrag. That’s not my intent, but in 2019, I was fortunate enough to hear an unreleased Michael Jackson song that most haven’t heard. It’s his cover of “Hot Fun In The Summer Time” by Sly and The Family Stone which was re-worked for the “Xscape” album with ?uestlove, D’Angelo, Eric Leeds, Pino Palladino, Jesse Johnson and Mary J Blige. It’s unclear why it didn’t make the album — LA Reid told me at the time that it wasn’t finished, but I can say that what I heard sounded finished to me. And it sounded absolutely breathtaking. I can’t go into details about how this occurred — but the track isn’t leaked nor bootlegged in any form, so leave it up to your imagination.
And there are others.
Whilst Michael was nowhere near Prince’s level in terms of being prolific and having a huge amount of unreleased material out there, there’s at least an album or two’s worth of great material there. Songs like “Men In Black”, “Can’t Get Your Weight Off Of Me”, “Buffalo Bill” and many others, exist and deserve to be heard. Songs that have been bootlegged, such as “Serious Effect”, “Ghost Of Another Love”, “Seeing Voices” deserve a proper release. I wouldn’t even personally mind if a label felt remixes needed to be done, as long as the originals saw a release too, as was done with the Xscape album.
Others actually have been worked on more recently. For example, aside from the aforementioned “Hot Fun”, the unreleased “Lovely Way” was worked on by producer Mark Ronson for the posthumous “Michael” album, yet didn’t make the cut. This is a head-scratcher, when you remember that that same album contained three very obviously fake songs sung by an impersonator, which have rightly been the subject of much fan consternation and legal wranglings ever since. And there’s undoubtedly material that fans don’t even know exists.
Recently, several multitrack files of legendary Michael Jackson songs leaked out amongst collectors, including “Smooth Criminal” and “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”. Loading these up into a Digital Audio Workstation, and isolating just Michael’s vocals and the guitar or piano tracks, for example, is an exercise in pure magic. In Prince’s recent unfinished memoir, “The Beautiful Ones”, he told his co-writer, Dan Piepenbring, that he didn’t want the word “Magic” to be used to describe his work. “Magic”, he told Dan, “is Michael’s word. That’s what his music is about”. He wasn’t wrong. That’s what we need to return to, now more than ever.
I sometimes think that Michael was a victim of his own success. It attracted liars, shysters, thieves into his circle, both in his life and posthumously. And whilst moving the focus away from the music as the primary artifact — into Broadway shows, merchandise, the Cirque De Soleil show etc might well be a great money-spinner for his Estate, the fact that his art is not the primary focus becomes a problem. When was the last time you listened to “Human Nature”. Let me stop you. When was the last time you really listened, on a deeper, emotional level? You see, even the most hardcore fans amongst us must admit that there is a level on which we’re almost too familiar with the songs. We know every inflection, every note, every adlib. Every shamone, every hee-hee, if you will. Intimately. So intimately that in a way you don’t hear it anymore. Not like the way you heard it the first time. Everyone knows what it feels like to hear the magic for the first time. Your problems fade away. You are one with the music. You’re entranced. That’s the power of amazing music.
So let’s get back there. We don’t have Michael here with us, but there remain so many gems hiding away. Things never heard. Things that are magical. Let’s get back to that place. It’s time to open up the vault.
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My name is Casey Rain and I am an award-winning musician, documentarian and writer from the United Kingdom. I have guest-lectured at Universities around the world, including the University of Minnesota, on the music business, documentary production, and the life and career of Prince Rogers Nelson, as well as releasing several records on international major labels with the critically-acclaimed British Asian band Swami. You can follow me on Twitter here.