I decided to forgo reading through the several pages I missed in the past few weeks. But for those of you believers out there, please read the following and explain to me how these songs are Michael:
The Cascio tracks are not Michael Jackson. Not a single vocal on those songs (of course barring the vocal samples) come from his mouth. Every single iota of "proof" Eddie Cascio or Teddy Riley tried to spew about why they sounded off can be discredited by the simplest of observers. An overview follows:
Almost every song samples a previously-released MJ song, musically OR vocally, ranging from Heartbreak Hotel to Heaven Can Wait, to an extent Michael himself never reached. (He was not 100% original, but he was never this desperate for ideas.) The isolated vocal tracks don't feature any of Michael's trademark finger snaps, music bleeding from the volume he preferred music to play through his headphones, foot stomps, hand claps. The songs are considered blemished demo recordings, even though there are numerous instances in which the vocalist clearly sings with full strength and reaches to the height of his vocal range, as well as the undoubted fact that, vocally, every song is finished. Over the next year and a half, Michael never mentioned the Cascio tracks to anyone he was working with. When he put together songs he planned to work on in London, he suspiciously ommited every Cascio title.
Roger Friedman first reported the songs existence in April 2010, a whole ten months after Michael died, fueled by rumors that Michael's ad libs ("Water, water, water") in This Is It were sourced from an unreleased song. John Branca encouraged their inclusion on Michael, which caused extreme fan backlash across the globe. Numerous family members, collaborators and fans cried foul play. Cory Rooney exposed a lie the estate conjured about everyone at a listening session agreeing that the vocals were real, when, according to him, it was general consensus that they were not. Brad Sundberg, will.i.am, Chucky Klapow, Karen Faye and many others have expressed similar sentiments.
One of Eddie Cascio's first face-saving arguments was that the songs were recorded in less-than-stellar conditions, despite the fact that Michael recorded dozens of songs in hotel rooms with just a microphone placed in a corner and Pro Tools, which is much less equipment than the Angelikson studio acquires. He went on to argue that the songs were recorded without Michael's typical vigorous vocal warm ups with Seth Riggs, which may explain a lack of ability to hit the highest possible note but will not justify the off-putting pronunciation and vocal strength. Teddy Riley later claimed he used Melodyne to fix the existing vocals, which makes little sense: (a) Michael had absolute pitch and, as many have said around the time, was rarely off-key; (b) Michael would not have approved of vocals that were that terribly off pitch; and (c) assuming such vocals did exist, why did the Cascios save them over possible on-key versions? Numerous other excuses have been made, ranging from Michael's health issues affecting his vocals (though it is confusing as to why Michael would record with such health issues) to claims that it is a guide demo, and thus won't feature the trademarks (even though every other guide demo Michael has ever released/that has leaked does), though they were all miscredited.
Fans, meanwhile, did an investigation of their own. Hundreds of audio comparisons putting the Cascio songs against Jason Malachi vocals (both isolated and in his music), and the results were strikingly similar. Interestingly, none of the "believers" have ever attempted such a comparison with Michael's vocals. Eddie Cascio, Jason Malachi and James Porte have all fallen off the face of the earth since the controversy, with the former two attempting to resurrect their careers in the past year or so; the latter has yet to do anything that we are aware of.
I go on to ask the believers, then. With all of this staring us in the face, how in this world can it be claimed that the songs are real?
This is a good overview of the pro-hoax arguments, although you're being a bit selective with the quotes (leaving out for instance the people who say it is MJ, like Greg Phillinganes), but there are problems with it, which is why the issue is not settled.
I don't want to go through all of them, but the fact is that in order to believe this version of events, we have to believe that :
A young man (Eddie Cascio), his family, his friend (James Porte), his significant others, and somebody from the outside (Jason Malachi) all conspired to produce 12 fake Michael Jackson songs, at great risk for their reputations, their future and even their safety and liberty if ever found out -- which they would be, since there were people would could provide an "alibi" for MJ, starting with his oldest son, Prince.
They all did this despite none of them ever having done anything criminal, or even less than ethical regarding Michael Jackson, whom they loved as a personal friend.
Sony and the Estate, being warned of the possibility of a hoax, were either unconcerned with the fact that they were selling to the worldwide public a collection of fake MJ songs, to the point where they lied and made stuff up about supposed tests that never happened, or were so invested in the idea these songs were the real deal that they botched said tests and went ahead with the release.
Despite fans later claiming that the singer on those songs is OBVIOUSLY not MJ, "as any observer can attest", the Estate says that a number of people, having listened to the acapella vocals BEFORE the album's release, i.e. when there was still time to pull the songs , said it indeed was MJ. And despite other people present later saying that this is not how the listening session went down, none of the people thus listed in the statement have bothered to clear their names of their association with what they now say are fake songs. Even people who couldn't be sure it was MJ -- Q, for instance -- still admitted it COULD be MJ, thus showing that fans who later said it sounds NOTHING like MJ are overstating their case -- unless they know MJ's voice better than Bruce Swedien and Quincy Jones.
The people who led the public charge against the vocalist being MJ are Cory Sweeney -- whose song had been LEFT OUT the "Michael" album to leave room for the Cascio tracks -- and MJ's nephews, who had a well-documented and perfectly understandable dislike of the Cascios, and who, as Jacksons, stood to benefit from the Estate being labelled as incomptent fools.
Despite the Jacksons having later pursued a legal case against John Branca and John McClain, claiming that the will investing them of the power to run MJ'S Estate was illegitimate, and despite their allegations (from Jermaine, Jackie, even Paris) that the songs are indeed fake, the Jacksons have dropped this line of attack against the Estate, even refraining from clearly reiterating that the Cascio songs are fake when asked about it on this very forum (interview with Jermaine).
Despite the Estate now knowing either that they were fooled, or that their own criminal fraud (releasing fake MJ songs) has been discovered, they STILL reused those songs on subsequent products (Immortal and the iTunes releases).
Despite the sheer number of people who were co-conspirators in the beginning, took part in the cover-up of the fraud, or now know there was a fraud and a cover-up, nobody thus fas -- not one person -- has spilled the beans, confessed sincerely or inadvertantly, released a smoking gun, launched a lawsuit, or put the claims in front of a judge. In the era of the Internet where EVERYTHING comes out, this is one conspiracy that has managed to stay under wraps.
And I could go on... AlwaysThere, you said MJ didn't tell anyone about the songs before they finally were heard about through Friedman, but Frank Dilleo did say, at the height of the controvery, that he had been on the phone with MJ while he stayed in Jersey and that MJ had told him about the songs. He is a co-conspirator too now? But why? Unless I'm mistaken, in their recent book, the bodyguards say they knew MJ was "working on music" while with the Cascios. And Eddie himself had sent out the songs to be mixed in New York BEFORE MJ's death, and told the engineer that the songs were meant for MJ (they had Porte's vocals on them at that time). What means someone in MJ's camp must have at least told him MJ would look at those songs while in London, unless Eddie knew MJ was going to die!
Well, that's enough for now! Again, none of this proves MJ is on the tracks. But questions like these are why the matter is not so clear-cut as some say.