'Faking Michael' Podcast Out Now

i wonder what the cascio idiots are doing these days. are they reading this forum? are they happy? rich? do they feel ashamed towards the whole jackson family including the 3 kids and MICHAEL?

what was the last public sign of any of them? does anyone know? they are hiding since their fake tracks, no social media at all... the whole thing is so insanely awkward. and now they even threat the estate. speechless.
 
another thing: michael's kids were always with him at the cascios. they MUST know the truth. why don't anyone listen to them? the estate really believes michael secretly recorded a whole album in the basement while locking the kids into a cabinet or what?!? i hope one day corrupt john branca will tell the truth and apologizes to katharine jackson and her whole family.

edit: and to US! i want my money back for those 3 fraudulent tracks. they scammed us hard!
 
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i am also confused by this sony hack. was there only one hack? i remember beginning of the 2000s that something similar happened and fans hacked the server and downloaded unreleased tracks and then leaked them? or didnt leak? i dont remember. and someone ended up in prison? am i mixing up something or is this the hack from faking michael?
There was no hacking. It was publicly available links to Sony servers. The media spinned the truth and called it "hacking". And yes, it's the same event from the podcast.

And it happened in 2011.
 
Does anyone know what the original MJ songs from the sony "hack" are or at least the 8 mentioned in the podcast? According to https://michael-jackson.fandom.com/wiki/2011_Sony_Music_hack it in unkown...

The hack caused many of unreleased Michael Jackson songs to be stolen, including demos, posthumous reworks, songs meant for the eleventh studio album, and collaborations with will.i.am and Freddie Mercury. It's unknown how true this statement is, as only a very few of the tracks actually leaked.

 
so what else did they get from the sony server? not only the cascio songs but also other unreleased MJ stuff? so that means it is out there. I am sure they made copies of what they had downloaded... i wonder when that whole material leaks.
 
Does anyone know what the original MJ songs from the sony "hack" are or at least the 8 mentioned in the podcast? According to https://michael-jackson.fandom.com/wiki/2011_Sony_Music_hack it in unkown...
Neff-U's mix of Hollywood Tonight didn't come from the server leaks, it was someone who had worked on the mix that leaked it. What came from the servers was a scrapped mix of TWYLM
The track, which was uploaded to yourlisten.com by Faster Pussycat lead guitarist Ace Von Johnson five months ago, was produced by former Jackson-collaborator Ron "Neff-U" Feemster and engineered by James Murray in 2010. During production on the track Murray brought Von Johnson in to record guitar overdubs and a solo on the bridge. Von Johnson considers the solo his favourite he has ever written."The engineer was a buddy of mine and invited me to come down to lay down some tracks," recalls Von Johnson in an interview with metalliville.com. "I did some stuff on a tune that they cut from the album at the last minute."The record label, Epic Records, felt that the versions Neff-U was turning in for consideration were lacking something. They then had the files delivered to Teddy Riley who crafted a percussive beat box from Jackson's vocal scraps that served as the foundation for the track. and added a spoken bridge featuring the King of Pop's nephew Taryll. Riley's version was ultimately selected and released on the 'MICHAEL' album. Neff-U was given a co-production credit for laying the groundwork of the mix, along with Brad Buxer who produced the original demo with Jackson.For the past four years the Neff-U/Ace Von Johnson version, which keeps relatively true to Jackson and Buxer's original demo, has remained unknown to fans around the world -- until now."Released or not, that was a big deal for me," adds Von Johnson. "I'm proud that I'm lucky enough to be able to play music for a living. Most people never will never know what its like to achieve that."
 
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Did Michaels family spent time with the Cascios after 2010 again?

Did Michael talk about the time spent with Cascios in 2007/2008/2009?
 
Posting as FYI. The Daily Express is a UK tabloid.


"A journalist has uncovered bombshell evidence that suggests three songs on a posthumous Michael Jackson album were "fakes".

Damien Shields said he has spoken to an expert audiologist who has concluded lead vocals on the songs Breaking News, Keep Your Head Up and Monster, which were on an album released a year after the singer's death in 2009, are not his. Hollywood icon Jackson died 15 years before the recent death of his brother Tito."


 
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I knew one of the "hackers"... compulsive liar and generally untrustworthy.
 
Posting as FYI. The Daily Express is a UK tabloid.


"A journalist has uncovered bombshell evidence that suggests three songs on a posthumous Michael Jackson album were "fakes".

Damien Shields said he has spoken to an expert audiologist who has concluded lead vocals on the songs Breaking News, Keep Your Head Up and Monster, which were on an album released a year after the singer's death in 2009, are not his. Hollywood icon Jackson died 15 years before the recent death of his brother Tito."


All well and good but they still said the claims were "wild" 😆
 
All well and good but they still said the claims were "wild" 😆
I agree, it's ridiculous but I wasn't surprised, tbh. That's why I mentioned it being a tabloid, for context. Tabloids will do what they do. It's been picked up by an online music news website. They used the word 'bombshell' rather than 'wild'. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Not sure if it will get any more coverage. It's been out long enough for other media outlets to pick up on it.
 
FBI?

Presumably bc of this:

@DamienShields
"By definition, this is music’s first ever case of art forgery. The false attribution of authorship to Michael Jackson in return for payment is a federal crime. This story should flip the music industry on its head."

"Yep ... There will always be fakes. But fakes only cross the forgery line when the false attribution is used to transact for large sums of money. Then it becomes a federal crime. The estate and Sony’s complicity in the narrative of authenticity makes this case even crazier."



 
Regarding the audio analysis, I'm rather surprised there is no objective and reliable way of authenticating vocals.

Scientists can do it with light and other EM radiation by looking at the spectral signature. But why not with vocals? Is there no physical phenomena that represents what we so clearly hear?
 
Finally listened to the whole thing. Firstly credit to Damien and his research team, the research here is meticulous and the effort alone is phenomenal

I do think it is a bit repetitive at times, I think it was episode 7 that was the worst offender, but on the whole the new information is interesting. I had no idea of the YRMW bassline was sampled in Breaking News for example

The timeline set out was really well done and throughly thought out, I actually felt the tension building as the release date neared, then remembered the album was released nearly 14 years ago

I hope episode 13 gives Vera her credit and deserved spotlight, without her effort and tenacity none of this would have been possible.
 
Finished last episode, while repetitive at times it really lays out the entire case and situation.

The two really outstanding matters that never quite get squared-

1. Evidence of Jason collaborating and working with Port and Cassio and timeframe this happened. I know in last episode there was a moment in the lawsuit where Jason was going to confess and potentially provide those details. Along with Porte purging his email account it may be hard to verify that now.

2. The estate making a deal to guarantee that 3 Casio tracks would be on Michael album set this whole thing off. Why was such a deal made and by time it was discovered they were paying Port and Cassio legal fees was it a case of damage control. Why the estate defended them for so long is some what of a mystery.

Thank you for wonderful series.
 
I completely understand the actual point, but I also recognize that the likelihood of certain people actually campaigning for the FBI to start investigating the situation is rather high. [...]
I don't disagree with this but I also can see Damien's point. I have no idea if he's right. Is this really the first case of art forgery for the music industry? Maybe for the pop world in the modern era but the music industry as a whole? I have no clue. I can also see that the FBI might not be able to pursue this even if they wanted to. Are they still funded and resourced to the level they were 20 - 30 years ago? Again, I don't know.

I'm sure not every federal crime gets attention from the FBI and most of the work they do doesn't get into the media, anyway, but I can understand why Damien thinks this that this case qualifies. Bc, as a federal case, it almost stops being about Michael and becomes something much bigger.

I haven't seen any msm coverage of the story (apart from that one piece in the Daily Express). I think the potential is there for the story to go far beyond a niche podcast but I'm not really expecting anything to happen. The FBI does have an art crimes section, afaik, but I'm not sure if it covers music. Might just be fine art. :unsure:
 
It's a horrible time to talk about this in my opinion, to be honest. Even if you don't feel cynical about MJ and trial cases, trying to bring attention to this before the potential MJ Renaissance is just straight suicide. This will have to really keep legs to grow.
 
Like it or not, the Estate represents Michael. Even if their portrayal is as shallow and miserly as can be, trying to trample that just gets in the way. The fans can't do all the work.
 
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