Re: IJCSLY re-issue with "Don't Be Messin' Around" bonus track
I think Lenny Kravitz done great job on Another Day. The instrumentation on the Demo version was poor, too much synths. And the final version is so powerful, so hard-rock and it works well with MJ's angry voice.
To each their own of course, but for me it is the opposite. The riff Kravitz added just does not have the same power as the original. It also kinda detracts from the vocals, where the original complemented them. Again, just my opinion of course.
I agree that Neff-U should have been the one to finish Hollywood Tonight. But don't agree that Teddy "destroyed" and "murdered" it. I look at Hollywood Tonight as a remix and I like it very much, it's my favourite song from the album.
And how can you tell that the Demo was "way better" based on that 20 sec snippet?
You can still tell a lot about the instrumentation based on those 20 seconds we have of the demo.
-The beat is much more of a typical MJ beat (louder snare, more groove). It packs much more of a punch.
-The bass sounds much cleaner.
-The instrumentation is more stripped down.
-It features the kind of ominous strings that MJ used in several songs, in line with the dark message of the song, rather than the exuberant horns.
-No effects on MJ's vocals
-The mix is much cleaner. Everything sounds kinda muddled in Teddy's mix.
To me, all of these already make the demo much better. I also agree with T.N.A. that it just conveys a different emotion. As I already said, the demo feels much darker, whereas the original sounds more like a very nice but somewhat more generic uptempo banger. And, of course, I prefer hearing the songs the way MJ left them anyway.
