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The Discussion of MJ's Unreleased Tracks

Hollywood_Tonight said:
I do see similarities between this mix and BTM on the Michael album. Some level of vocal distortion to hide the lower quality of the tape with heavy layering and overdubbing to modernize the track.


Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Neff-U was only given a demo tape to work with, so a hq mixdown would have been very challenging given what he had to work with.
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I was referring to the fact he used a mix down of the song to build his mix, not like he was using an amatuer recording. It wouldn't sound nearly this bad. If it's real I guess the file we have has just been massacred sound quality wise lol.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
If it's real I guess the file we have has just been massacred sound quality wise lol.
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See, I thought the same, but the bass and strings sound pretty HQ to my ears. It’s just the source recording that sounds so degraded.

Like others have said, I just think that this is a (pretty well-done) scam.
 
Was "Ghosts" really recorded in 1991? There's a list which originates from the Dangerous sessions that includes a track called "Ghost", but, to be honest, I'm pretty much leaning towards it being "Ghost of Another Lover", given by the fact the note next to the title says "Teddy do overdubs, get lyrics from writer" - who is Thom Russo.

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ToMi said:
Was "Ghosts" really recorded in 1991? There's a list which originates from the Dangerous sessions that includes a track called "Ghost", but, to be honest, I'm pretty much leaning towards it being "Ghost of Another Lover", given by the fact the note next to the title says "Teddy do overdubs, get lyrics from writer" - who is Thom Russo.

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I think Ghosts was started in 93/94 around the same time as Family Thing and Is it Scary. The ‘Ghost’ song here should be Ghost of another lover.
 
michaeljackson.nl said:
[...] The ‘Ghost’ song here should be Ghost of another lover.
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I think so too.

The thing that keeps bombarding my mind is when was "Ghosts" first recorded. I've heard it was developed around the time Michael worked on the Is This Scary? / Addams Family Values projects, but I thought that the only song which was worked on during that time was "Family Thing". As far as I know, "Is It Scary?" began life during the HIStory sessions and was worked on with Jam & Lewis (who joined in late 1994), so I assume that "Ghosts" was developed around the same time as well.
 
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ToMi said:
Was "Ghosts" really recorded in 1991? There's a list which originates from the Dangerous sessions that includes a track called "Ghost", but, to be honest, I'm pretty much leaning towards it being "Ghost of Another Lover", given by the fact the note next to the title says "Teddy do overdubs, get lyrics from writer" - who is Thom Russo.

f9ad66dda4b6e3ef884454806fec90a4.778x1000x1.jpg
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It’s GOAL. “Ghosts” essentially started out as an unused Teddy Riley instrumental from the Dangerous sessions that later developed in 1996. The leaked first demo recorded in 1996 is the very first vocal take of that song.
 
AlwaysThere said:
See, I thought the same, but the bass and strings sound pretty HQ to my ears. It’s just the source recording that sounds so degraded.

Like others have said, I just think that this is a (pretty well-done) scam.
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It seems like the vocals were processed similarly to BTM. What's strange is that the instrumental also has some distortion, which makes me think the file has been tampered with and compressed. However, if Damien says it's the real mix, then it probably is.
 
Hollywood_Tonight said:
It’s GOAL. “Ghosts” essentially started out as an unused Teddy Riley instrumental from the Dangerous sessions that later developed in 1996. The leaked first demo recorded in 1996 is the very first vocal take of that song.
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I'm pretty sure that vocal take was from 1994, judging by the operatic intro.

XTRA INFO: you can actually re-create what the Dangerous-era instrumental sounded like through the leaked multitracks. It has a different intro and lacks the driving rhythmic sound that defines "Ghosts."
 
SeriousFX said:
I'm pretty sure that vocal take was from 1994, judging by the operatic intro.
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I'd say so too. If I remember correctly, there was a scan of an insert of a "Ghosts" DAT tape dated 1994 among the stuff leaked during the Brad Sundberg laptop theft.
SeriousFX said:
XTRA INFO: you can actually re-create what the Dangerous-era instrumental sounded like through the leaked multitracks. It has a different intro and lacks the driving rhythmic sound that defines "Ghosts."
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Yup. I've been wanting to create a remix of the song using the multitracks of the early version but there are so many empty or unused tracks I gave up on that. I have to look at it again. :)
 
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SmoothGangsta said:
I was referring to the fact he used a mix down of the song to build his mix, not like he was using an amatuer recording. It wouldn't sound nearly this bad. If it's real I guess the file we have has just been massacred sound quality wise lol.
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Is it possible to restore this mix?
 
ToMi said:
Was "Ghosts" really recorded in 1991? There's a list which originates from the Dangerous sessions that includes a track called "Ghost", but, to be honest, I'm pretty much leaning towards it being "Ghost of Another Lover", given by the fact the note next to the title says "Teddy do overdubs, get lyrics from writer" - who is Thom Russo.

f9ad66dda4b6e3ef884454806fec90a4.778x1000x1.jpg
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I doubt it’s “Ghost of Another Lover.” Signs point to “Ghost” first being worked on around 1991. Plus, on a more irrelevant note, it seems odd that MJ would spell out every song title but that one.

Plus, Thom Russo is an engineer, not a writer.
 
I once made a post about 'Ghosts', BOTDF and RTT having the same samples; and that's why to me it always sounded like they originated from the same sessions:

Musical Parallels Thread

What's your favorite musical "parallels"? For me, it's a pick between The Hurt from Victory & Hollywood Tonight having the same backing vocals. A more recent one is We've Had Enough and Who Do You Know having the same vocal melody in parts of the song. Which is a very cool element. What are...
www.mjjcommunity.com www.mjjcommunity.com
 
AlwaysThere said:
I doubt it’s “Ghost of Another Lover.” Signs point to “Ghost” first being worked on around 1991. Plus, on a more irrelevant note, it seems odd that MJ would spell out every song title but that one.

Plus, Thom Russo is an engineer, not a writer.
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Oh... I always thought Russo wrote GOAT. Is that incorrect then?
 
firmware-god said:
This is untrue. GOAL was played once at Kingvention and never again. You can't have heard it, since the original sessions are residing with the Estate, Michael Prince, Brad Buxer and me. There is a CD with two mixes. But it has never leaked and never will.

Edit: Thom Russo obviously owns a copy too.
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Is there more to GOAL than what we hear on the leak or are both of those mixes of the mumbling type? I love the demo already btw, although I hope he did work on it later on in life, like planned..
 
It's fascinating to me how MJ revisited that song only 2 months before he died. I wonder what was the exact amount of songs he had worked on in 2009 since 2008 was supposedly the last time he had given full effort into creating music.

Iirc Prince once said that MJ would work on music right after he'd come back from the TII rehearsals so there had to be some amount of songs that were progressed further.
 
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