The Discussion of MJ's Unreleased Tracks

Man Thriller 40 was awful with unreleased tracks. Saying that Sunset Driver is from 1982 and theres a version from 1987 is fucking wild. Putting Michaels worse song that has nothing to do with Thriller is also wild af.

Like seriously, what potential do they see with Nite Line or Spice of Life? I can see why with C'45, Buffalo Bill (if thats even Thriller era), Hot Street, etc, but they ain't even doing jackshit with them.

You know what they should do? Had another disc or side that contained the demos and alternate mixes of every song on thriller. Like I REALLY wanna hear the alternate mixes of Beat It or hear the alleged 90 mixes of Billie Jean lmao. Hell I wanna hear the demo of TGIM in HQ
 
Man Thriller 40 was awful with unreleased tracks. Saying that Sunset Driver is from 1982 and theres a version from 1987 is fucking wild. Putting Michaels worse song that has nothing to do with Thriller is also wild af.

Like seriously, what potential do they see with Nite Line or Spice of Life? I can see why with C'45, Buffalo Bill (if thats even Thriller era), Hot Street, etc, but they ain't even doing jackshit with them.

You know what they should do? Had another disc or side that contained the demos and alternate mixes of every song on thriller. Like I REALLY wanna hear the alternate mixes of Beat It or hear the alleged 90 mixes of Billie Jean lmao. Hell I wanna hear the demo of TGIM in HQ
^
It just doesn't make sense. They said there was no unreleased material from the Off The Wall sessions for the "anniversary" album in 2016. Still, I think it would have made more sense to put What A Lovely Way To Go there than rather in Thriller 40.

It's true that there is always the possibility that it was actually considered for Thriller and not for Off The Wall, but I doubt that the Estate even knows that.
 
Just rediscovered Goin' Places, and it's giving me major What A Lovely Way To Go vibes. The whole production, the laughs and talking in the bg. I'm thinking it's gotta be from around '77 (the version on T40), before Off The Wall. Am I onto something here?
The book For The Record mentioned it being written in 1975, but the book is old and has some outdated info so I'm not sure how true that is.
WHAT A LONELY WAY TO GO
Song written by Michael circa 1975, and cited by him in his court
disposition in November 1993 – remains unreleased.
Jazz recording of the song surfaced on the internet in 2005 – reputedly
a duet by Michael and brother Jermaine, however, this proved to be a
fake.
 
Is the Estate even in good with Brad Buxer? Is that why The Loser has been left to languish and get leaked? Because it's certainly better than most of what they picked for Michael.
The song probably wasn't released because it wouldn't fit the Xscape album, all of the songs there are dance-pop songs while The Loser is a ballad with a depressing theme. I don't see why Brad wouldn't let the estate work on the song when he already let them remix songs like Hollywood Tonight and Best Of Joy. They're probably saving it for a project that they see it's fit.
 
The song probably wasn't released because it wouldn't fit the Xscape album, all of the songs there are dance-pop songs while The Loser is a ballad with a depressing theme. I don't see why Brad wouldn't let the estate work on the song when he already let them remix songs like Hollywood Tonight and Best Of Joy. They're probably saving it for a project that they see it's fit.
That's why I didn't mention Xscape... It would've easily fit on Michael, like I said. And might've fit as well as Much Too Soon, which is equally depressing and actually downright grim, in the context of the album.

But sonically, sure, it might not gel with everything they came up with.

They could've always ended the album optimistically with Hold My Hand or something.
 
Man Thriller 40 was awful with unreleased tracks. Saying that Sunset Driver is from 1982 and theres a version from 1987 is fucking wild. Putting Michaels worse song that has nothing to do with Thriller is also wild af.

Like seriously, what potential do they see with Nite Line or Spice of Life? I can see why with C'45, Buffalo Bill (if thats even Thriller era), Hot Street, etc, but they ain't even doing jackshit with them.

You know what they should do? Had another disc or side that contained the demos and alternate mixes of every song on thriller. Like I REALLY wanna hear the alternate mixes of Beat It or hear the alleged 90 mixes of Billie Jean lmao. Hell I wanna hear the demo of TGIM in HQ
It was just a lazy effort by the Estate. Someone made a decision to put out something for the 40th anniversary but had nothing planned. They put out all the outtakes we already had, a track they purposely made scarce by removing the Ultimate Collection from streaming services, one of the tracks they remixed for one of the previous posthumous release and "Who Do You Know". To further insult the fan base, they left off 2 that we know exist to keep the tracklisting at 10. If they have a Bad40 it will follow the same formula. Bad25 + "Cheater" + 2 unremixed tracks meant for "Michael" or "Xscape". The people in charge are a joke and as long as they remain there nothing will change.
 
Are there any Bad era songs (outside of JGF and MITM) that John Barnes was NOT originally involved with?
 
I don't think they're that meaningless tbh, the first snippet and From The Bottom Of My Heart (fuck the rest lmao) sound interesting and I would love to hear more, even if they have no vocals. If an instrumental has a good melody I'd say it's still something worth listening, there are plenty of MJ songs that still sound great if you listen to them without vocals. I get that it wouldn't be as interesting as a song that has been fully recorded but I wouldn't call those songs completely worthless either, maybe they still have some quality in them.

Besides, instrumental grooves like those is what the vault consists of the most anyways so better start getting used to them lol.
 
I don't think they're that meaningless tbh, the first snippet and From The Bottom Of My Heart (fuck the rest lmao) sound interesting and I would love to hear more, even if they have no vocals. If an instrumental has a good melody I'd say it's still something worth listening, there are plenty of MJ songs that still sound great if you listen to them without vocals. I get that it wouldn't be as interesting as a song that has been fully recorded but I wouldn't call those songs completely worthless either, maybe they still have some quality in them.

Besides, instrumental grooves like those is what the vault consists of the most anyways so better start getting used to them lol.
Totally agree. We should not forget that Michael used to give directions to the producers on what sounds to use, how to use them, how he wanted the songs to sound, etc. So, even in these instrumental demos there could be some input from him, even though it may not be vocal.
 
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