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Do you think it's possible MJ "held back" the best songs from the Invincible sessions?

MattyJam

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We've Had Enough, Escape and Another Day all suggest this to be the case. These three songs alone are better than about three quarters of the tracks which ended up on Invincible. I'm sure over the course of the next few years we'll hear many more outtakes from the Invincible sessions, and we'll be able to judge this more accurately.

It's been widely reported that Michael was unhappy with Sony way before the release of Invincible and that he felt he had no-one left at the company who was on his side (those were the exact words of an ex-Sony executive recently interviewed). Perhaps he didn't want to release the best songs on Invincible because he knew in advance that it wasn't going to be supported by the label?

Any thoughts?
 
I can agree with you on this...I like Invincible, but not as much as his other albums, and yes, so far, the outtakes I've heard have been crazy better than the album as a whole...I have my faves on Vince, but man, i know there's better stuff out there.....I just wanna hear it all..
 
For Sure. He even said that The best songs are the unreleased ones. $only really Effed up on him. He gave them what they deserved. The Invincible album was the last project that he had to give them to be free of them. But now, they got him again for the nxt 7 years...:no: Mike was really SMART and Intelligent when it came to his music and everything around him. :D


L.o.v.e.
Romi
 
I read something about Sony said no to songs he was working on 1999.
I think you can say it´s confirmed by R.Jerkins who said they had been working on the album for 1 year when Michael came and said let´s begin from scratch.
I have no idea what songs they were, it would be interesting to hear what Jerkins would say about it.

Maybe I´m wrong but wouldn´t it be worse for Michael than Sony if his album didn´t sell?
I read something about Michael took a loan from Sony and he was going to pay it back with money he got from Invincible.

I simply don´t know if he didn´t think WHE,Escape etc fit into the album at that time, if he didn´t want to release them or if the songs weren´t finished until later.
 
It'll be fascinating once we've heard all the Vince outtakes, to see how different the album could've been and to try and make sense of some of the crazy track selection choices!
 
did MJ held back the best songs from History ?

because Is It Scary, Morphine and Blood on the Dancefloor are better than about three quarters of the tracks which ended up on History.
 
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MattyJam said:
We've Had Enough, Escape and Another Day all suggest this to be the case. These three songs alone are better than about three quarters of the tracks which ended up on Invincible. I'm sure over the course of the next few years we'll hear many more outtakes from the Invincible sessions, and we'll be able to judge this more accurately.

It's been widely reported that Michael was unhappy with Sony way before the release of Invincible and that he felt he had no-one left at the company who was on his side (those were the exact words of an ex-Sony executive recently interviewed). Perhaps he didn't want to release the best songs on Invincible because he knew in advance that it wasn't going to be supported by the label?

Any thoughts?
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Good question. As always you're right on the money.

For me, Invincible is the only album where I heard tracks afterwards and thought why the hell wasn't that on the album. I didn't get any of that with the others; every extra track I heard was deservedly left off OTW -> HIStory, but with Vince there was We've Had Enough, Shout & Escape all of which are a million times better than the likes of Privacy, Don't Walk Away for example.

I think they were left off for the following reasons.

All those tracks are similar in content to other Mike classics. They are all reminiscent of victim/state of the world classics such as MITM, Earth Song, TDCAU etc. I think one of the ideas behind Invincible (and rightly so) was to make it separate from HIStory and the allegations by returning Michael to the love song, carefree eras with songs such as Heartbreaker, Whatever Happens, Butterflies etc.

However, this is in paradox to releasing Cry as the second single; which is a MITM 88th rate rip off. I think this was an unbelieveably lazy decision by presumably someone at Sony who thought 'R Kelly wrote this, he also wrote You Are Not Alone which was a massive hit so this one will be as well.' Forgetting the fact that Cry whilst nice, is about 99th on anyone's sane Top 100 Michael Jackson list.

Finally, and rather more contraversially, I don't believe that MJ was well throughout the Invincible period. I don't think he looked it, I don't think he acted it and as a result I think some very bad artistic decisions were made.
 
Tony R said:
Good question. As always you're right on the money.

For me, Invincible is the only album where I heard tracks afterwards and thought why the hell wasn't that on the album. I didn't get any of that with the others; every extra track I heard was deservedly left off OTW -> HIStory, .
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You don't think that "Is It Scary", "Morphine" and "Blood on the Dancefloor" would have been a better choice than "This Time Around", "DS" or "Money" ?
 
loka said:
You don't think that "Is It Scary", "Morphine" and "Blood on the Dancefloor" would have been a better choice than "This Time Around", "DS" or "Money" ?
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I don't know. Half of me thinks you're right as they are better songs.

But the thing about HIStory is that it works as a concept album and although I don't love any of those HIStory tracks you mentioned and they do reduce the quality of the album as a whole they all fit in as they represent Mike's outlook and state of mind at the time the album was being written therefore it's important they're on there.

I don't think IIS, Morphine of BOTDF would have fitten on. I think they'd have stood out in the same way Come Together does.
 
you find some excuses to History and you are "unforgiven" (do we say like that ?) with Invincible
 
It's not that as such. It's just that I listen to HIStory which by the way is countless times better then Invincible and even the poorer tracks fit in.

D.S., Money, This Time Around are probably the weakest songs on there but they meant something both in terms of lyrical content and also because they are personal to Michael Jackson.

The songs on Invincible that are poor are meaningless. They don't mean anything to Michael, he had minimal input and they don't resonate with him. That's why I don't mind The Lost Children and You Are My Life, because even though I don't love them like most Mike tracks at least they deserve their place on Invincible as being personal to Mike.

Many of the other tracks could have been on anyone's album.

Even tracks that Mike didn't write on other albums had meaning and had echoes of him. Man In The Mirror, Why You Wanna Trip On Me for example were obviously written with him in mind and not just offered to him.
 
loka said:
you find some excuses to History and you are "unforgiven" (do we say like that ?) with Invincible
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FYI IIS and BOTDF are from the DANGEROUS sessions. And no, I wouldn't change neither Dangerous nor HIStory for those tracks. But I would change half of Invincible's tracks with those outtakes.
 
Money and D.S. are both very underrated. The trouble is, when you have an album with such epic tracks like Earth Song and TDCAU, the more subtle or less obvious songs are always going to get overlooked.

The only filler on HIStory is Come Together. I'm not a big fan of YANA, but HIStory needed a commercial song and it did it's job.

D.S. and Money are both better than any uptempo from Invincible, with the possible exception of YRMW.

Okay, D.S. may not be the most imaginative song in the world, but who else could chant about somebody being a cold man for two solid minutes and get away with it? You can feel MJ's disgust in these songs. It's coming from a real place, which is more than can be said for 2000 Watts.

There are many things to appreciate musically in these songs. Slash's guitar solo on D.S. for example takes the song to a whole other level. And with Money you have all those incredible layers in the chorus - there is so much going on in that song which you can easily miss if you don't pay close attention.

I do believe HIStory would be worse off without those two songs. And the thought of plonking a song about dancing in the middle of such a personal album would be in bad taste and would sound ridiculously out-of-place. There's a reason why songs like IIS and BOTD weren't released on HIStory. There is no logical reason why many of the far superior outtakes from Invincible ended up on the cutting room floor.
 
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No. he held back nothing. i didn't buy 14 copies of Invincible just for my health. check that. yes i did. it's rediculous to compare the quality of his songs. it's like comparing babies. and i'm still obsessed with Invincible. i'll be continuously downloading the album and tracks from it. and i've seen plenty of other fans reports of buying multiple copies.
 
ASIS said:
FYI Is It Scary and BOTDF are from the DANGEROUS sessions. .
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"They don't care about us" was made in 89 for Dangerous
"Earth Song" was made for Dangerous
"Little Susie" was made in 79 and also re-recorded for Dangerous


These 3 tracks were in History !

and you're wrong : "IS it Scary" was recorded in 94...not in 90/91 !
 
always funny to read false arguments from people who try to attack Invincible...
 
loka said:
"They don't care about us" was made in 89 for Dangerous
"Earth Song" was made for Dangerous
"Little Susie" was made in 79 and also re-recorded for Dangerous


These 3 tracks were in History !

and you're wrong : "IS it Scary" was recorded in 94...not in 90/91 !
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TDCAU and ES both fit HIStory really well. As for LS, I didn't see that as fitting in HIStory either.

BTW i'm not "attacking" Vince. I don't think it's bad album, in fact I think it's a great album. But I also think 16 songs are a bit too much, ESPECIALLY since the out takes sound so much better to me.
 
144 said:
No. he held back nothing. i didn't buy 14 copies of Invincible just for my health. check that. yes i did. it's rediculous to compare the quality of his songs. it's like comparing babies. and i'm still obsessed with Invincible. i'll be continuously downloading the album and tracks from it. and i've seen plenty of other fans reports of buying multiple copies.
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No, Michael didn't hold back anything. Just tell me when Michael didn't give his 120%? He gave himself to his arts. It would be out of Michael's character if he held back songs on purpose.

I never for one second think Invincible is a bad album. It doesn't enjoy the mass appeal Michael's earlier works had, but Invincible is still a great piece of arts. I'd buy Invincible for Butterflies only. Michael's vocal on Butterflies is beyond amazing. Words fail to describe how good his vocal is. Break of Dawn, Heaven Can Wait, Speechless are some of his most beautiful ballads. I feel Michael let us see another side of him with Invincible.

Invincible is still a success. Could it be more successful? Yes. It didn't reach the Michael Jackson success level not because of lack of good songs, but because of lack of promotion, lousy PR campaigns, bad judgement on single choice.

Music taste is very subjective. I personally don't understand why people love We've Had Enough so much. I actually prefer Heaven Can Wait. I do love Shout and Escape. Shout was replaced by You Are My Life at the very last minute. I understand Michael's decision and like YAML a lot. The only song on Invincible I can care less is Cry. But still, one song doesn't drag down the whole album.
 
wybt said:
No, Michael didn't hold back anything. Just tell me when Michael didn't give his 120%? He gave himself to his arts. It would be out of Michael's character if he held back songs on purpose.

I never for one second think Invincible is a bad album. It doesn't enjoy the mass appeal Michael's earlier works had, but Invincible is still a great piece of arts. I'd buy Invincible for Butterflies only. Michael's vocal on Butterflies is beyond amazing. Words fail to describe how good his vocal is. Break of Dawn, Heaven Can Wait, Speechless are some of his most beautiful ballads. I feel Michael let us see another side of him with Invincible.

Invincible is still a success. Could it be more successful? Yes. It didn't reach the Michael Jackson success level not because of lack of good songs, but because of lack of promotion, lousy PR campaigns, bad judgement on single choice.

Music taste is very subjective. I personally don't understand why people love We've Had Enough so much. I actually prefer Heaven Can Wait. I do love Shout and Escape. Shout was replaced by You Are My Life at the very last minute. I understand Michael's decision and like YAML a lot. The only song on Invincible I can care less is Cry. But still, one song doesn't drag down the whole album.
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exactly...the more you add songs in an album the more you risk to disappoint some of your fans...it's like that.

This being said, i don't know any other recent pop album which can match the overall quality of Invincible...
 
loka said:
exactly...the more you add songs in an album the more you risk to disappoint some of your fans...it's like that.

This being said, i don't know any other recent pop album which can match the overall quality of Invincible...
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Because there are none! :D
 
loka said:
You don't think that "Is It Scary", "Morphine" and "Blood on the Dancefloor" would have been a better choice than "This Time Around", "DS" or "Money" ?
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Blood On The Dance Floor would of been better than any of them. I dont know about Is It Scary or Morphine.......Anything would have been better than Little Susie though, never been a fan of that.
 
I think by working on the project for too long and overdoing things he did hold back some of the better stuff unintentionally.

Blue Gangster, The Way You Love Me, Beautiful Girl, Fall Again, Shout, We've Had Enough, Another Day and Escape are all great songs.
 
MattyJam said:
We've Had Enough, Escape and Another Day all suggest this to be the case. These three songs alone are better than about three quarters of the tracks which ended up on Invincible. I'm sure over the course of the next few years we'll hear many more outtakes from the Invincible sessions, and we'll be able to judge this more accurately.

It's been widely reported that Michael was unhappy with Sony way before the release of Invincible and that he felt he had no-one left at the company who was on his side (those were the exact words of an ex-Sony executive recently interviewed). Perhaps he didn't want to release the best songs on Invincible because he knew in advance that it wasn't going to be supported by the label?

Any thoughts?
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I've always felt the same as what MattyJam posted in r/t Sony, etc. It's a very personal taste issue as well. A few of the songs were definitely "MJ" to me, but many just totally left me cold. Respect to those that loved it, but understanding to those that felt it lacking at times as far as the songs go. To be honest, perhaps it's my age and having been a dedicated fan since the beginning of his career, the particular feel/style of many of the songs on Vince simply were not to my liking (for lack of a better word). Be it because he did hold back because of the issues, or his simply changing his direction.

Since none of us were "in his mind", about all we can do is go by what we feel/believe may have been the intentions. I do think Michael was going through a stressful period, and without further discussion, think he may not have felt the best at times perhaps r/t the issues at the time.

jmo
 
The Way You Love Me, Beautiful Girl and Fall Again are good songs, but they are not necessary better than Break of Dawn, Heaven Can Wait and Speechless. Another Day (based on the snippet) sounds great, but doesn't seem to go well with the style of Invincible. I found Threatened to be more creative than Escape.

We all know Michael over-recorded. It's inevitable that the outtakes are of good quality. Michael just didn't record bad songs. Blood on the Dance Floor didn't make it to Dangerous. Let's take a step back. Let's say none of the Invincible outtakes were leaked and we never heard any of the outtakes. Would we still consider the songs on Invincible not good enough?

IMO, Invincible is GREAT. Yes, there are songs (Privacy and Cry) I'm not too crazy about, but I still don't believe Michael held back good songs, at least not intentionally.
 
I really like Little Susie, I love the composition if it, and BODOF was a massive hit in the UK, reaching number 1. Vince isn't my fave Mike album, far from it, and I agree it suffered as it wasn't classic MJ. We have only heard some of the outakes and yes I do like them but I don't believe Michael deliberatly held back when it came to recording Vince.
 
I think Invincible has a number of problems.It has too many songs on it & too many producers also worked on it.The first 3 songs are all clumped together & same-ish,You Are My Life,Privacy,Don't Walk Away,Cry,The Lost Children are all clumped together near the end.The way the tracks are laid out across the album is poor.It stops it from flowing.

Yeah,I think the songs that were held back are much better songs than 60% of what was put on,that said I think You Rock My World,Butterflies,Speecless & You Are My Life are all superb.

I think Whatever Happens is the most over-rated on the album & maybe the most boring thing on it.

The album sleeve & booklet is also poor.It should have had much better artwork.I remember all the hype & talk about how the album cost so much to make.They should have spent some of that money on a decent sleeve.
 
i may have posted on here before, but i am too lazy to look, and i don't care because am so adamant about this. i don't believe he held back.
 
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