We all know there's plenty of stuff in the vault for at least one more full-fledged album, and probably a lot of stuff that could be given to rappers and other artists to "collab" on. But obviously not everything can be released -- be it for legal reasons or simply because it was barely even begun or worked on before Michael died. As nice as it would be for us fans to hear in order to get into his creative process, I highly doubt that the Estate would ever release an untitled track that has thirty seconds of piano chords and a couple seconds of MJ humming here and there. I think, for example that "Don't Matter To Me" or "Fall Again" level of completion is probably the lowest that the Estate would ever go in order to release something.
I do think, though, that certain tracks have a good chance of being released in the future. For example, those tracks that were already mixed for posthumous release but left out, like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" or "Chicago 1945" which were planned to appear on
Xscape but ended up shelved. "Hot Fun in the Summertime" was even remixed for
Xscape, and Steve Porcaro said that "Chicago 1945" is perfectly releasable as is, even without being remixed. And there is a precedent for left-out tracks being eventually released (since "Do You Know Where Your Children Are" was considered for
Michael, left out, and then released on
Xscape). Thus, I think that those two -- "Hot Fun" and "Chicago 1945" -- have the highest probability of being released at some point. A lesser likelihood for being released would be the songs that Michael had worked on with Will.i.am, namely "Dreamin'", "The Future", "Still the King", and "Miss You".
Honestly I think Will is just waiting for a deal at this point, since he has previously tried to release "Dreamin'" and it may be just a matter of time before he cuts a deal with Sony and/or the Estate. Whether or not they will be or need to be remixed is up for debate (I guess it depends on your opinion of Will.i.am's production).
Now we get to the tracks that I think have an extremely low probability of being released. Obviously "Monster" (1999) is probably never gonna be officially released (unless they change its name like they changed "She Was Loving Me" to "Chicago"); not just because of all of that Cascio BS but also because it's likely in a very rudimentary state of production. From what Michael Prince has said, it seems like only the chorus was ever recorded. This sucks for me because I would
kill to listen to it. And of course that leads to the other tracks that will likely never be released simply because of how unfinished they are. These are tracks like "Changes" (which despite being worked on for over 30 years never got very far into production), "Remember What I Told You", "Rocker", "H2O/Dark Lady", and "Cocoa Butter". Of course there's no real way to be certain which ones of these were finished and which ones weren't, but I'm gonna assume that they weren't.
Some of the tracks that Michael worked on 2007-2009 were apparently in a pretty advanced state of production. You can see on this picture below that Michael had a few songs -- namely "Scared of the Moon" (2009), "Beautiful Girl", and "Cheater" (2009) -- that he expressly wanted to finish, implying that if Brad Buxer, Michael Prince, John McClain, Darkchild, Timbaland, or Mark Ronson got to work on these tracks they might easily be put in a releasable and finished state that wouldn't be contrary to MJ's vision.
Some other tracks, such as the original cut of "Best of Joy", "Bottom of My Heart", "Adore You", "Can't Stop Lovin' You", and "You Are So Beautiful" might also fall into this category. "World of Candy", which he recorded in full with Nisha Kataria in 2003 (and beyond that we know little about), might be reworked by Kataria in the future if another album is ever put together by the Estate.
https://images.genius.com/cc82657af2d4ecedf65fc9cfaf1abcc1.1000x563x1.jpg
Then again, not everything we've ever heard was officially released. "Another Day" and part of "Blue Gangsta" were leaked years before they were officially released. And of course, all 12 Cascio tracks found their way onto the Internet somehow less than three years after the ones on
Michael were released. I could see certain tracks eventually being leaked in their entirety, such as "Rampage", "The Loser" (2008), and "Can't Get Your Weight Off Of Me", which the fandom's known about for a few years now at least. On the flip side, I think there are some that I think are unlikely to be leaked, such as "Jungle", "Hanson", and "Blue Powder" -- all of these being
Invincible outtakes -- which were sold to a private collector in 2018, and unless that collector is a secret user on this forum I doubt they're gonna share what they have. Then again, I suppose any of these could be leaked in part or in full at any time, and I think it's at this point that the discussion hits a bit of a dead end.
TL;DR I've got a bit of a list here:
| Likely to be released or leaked | Might be produced to a releasable state | Likely to remain unreleased |
| "Hot Fun in the Summertime" | "Scared of the Moon" (2009) | "Monster" (1999) |
| "Chicago 1945" | "Beautiful Girl" (2009) | "Changes" |
| "Dreamin'" | "Cheater" (2009) | "Rocker" |
| "The Future" | "Best of Joy" (original version) | "Remember What I Told You" |
| "Still the King" | "Bottom of My Heart" | "H2O/Dark Lady" |
| "I Will Miss You" | "Adore You" | "Cocoa Butter" |
| "Rampage" | "Can't Stop Lovin' You" | "Hanson" |
| "Can't Get Your Weight Off Of Me" | "You Are So Beautiful" | "Jungle" |
| "The Loser" (2008) | "World of Candy" | "Blue Powder" |
| | |
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I'm sure there's other songs that may fit into one or more of these categories, and I'm sure there's a chance that one song that I put in a certain category really belongs in another. At any rate, I'm wondering what you guys think. Which unreleased songs do you think stand the best and worst chances of ever seeing the light of day?
