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Thriller 40th Anniversary

SmoothGangsta said:
The mastering and total lack of care in presenting them on the CD. They sound bad.
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But they might sound bad because of the way they were recorded! Not polished, because they are DEMOS! If the estate mixed them, fans would be complaining about THAT! For once, theyve given us the demos untouched! Which is what fans have been asking for for years.

The presentation of the whole release has been bad though. That hideous font, weird behaviour from the estate, taking down the Remastered videos, lack of communication with the fans, branca's tiktok, barely any promotion. All so strange.
 
luis98 said:
But they might sound bad because of the way they were recorded! Not polished, because they are DEMOS! If the estate mixed them, fans would be complaining about THAT! For once, theyve given us the demos untouched! Which is what fans have been asking for for years
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I'm really not getting where you're coming from. I don't think any fan has ever complained about music being properly mixed and mastered.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
I'm really not getting where you're coming from. I don't think any fan has ever complained about music being properly mixed and mastered.
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I mean, if multitracks exist for those demos and the estate mixed them to make them sound perfect, the fans would still complain, because those new mixes would not be the way Michael left them. Maybe the only source for those demos were cassette tapes, acetates, etc that are 40 years old. Not much they could do to make them sound better.
 
luis98 said:
Are people complaining about the quality of the audio or the songs themselves? We've all been saying for years that we want the music as Michael left it. These are the demos as he made them and they are 40 years old!!!! We are lucky they still exist at all! Personally, i wanna hear everything he recorded no matter the quality. I think if people keep complaining about this then the estate will completely stop releasing ANY unreleased demos. What I have more of an issue is with the estate themselves. The lack of promotion and Their attitude towards the fans in general is very disrespectful.
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Just because they’re not 100% finished songs doesn’t completely shield them from criticism.
 
luis98 said:
I mean, if multitracks exist for those demos and the estate mixed them to make them sound perfect, the fans would still complain, because those new mixes would not be the way Michael left them. Maybe the only source for those demos were cassette tapes, acetates, etc that are 40 years old. Not much they could do to make them sound better.
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Nah, I really don't think that's true at all. Mixing a song to sound good is sound 101. I really hate this "If the estate released the songs sounding great you guys would still complain!" narrative. It makes absolutely no sense.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
Nah, I really don't think that's true at all. Mixing a song to sound good is sound 101. I really hate this "If the estate released the songs sounding great you guys would still complain!" narrative. It makes absolutely no sense.
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But it's true though.
 
luis98 said:
But they might sound bad because of the way they were recorded! Not polished, because they are DEMOS! If the estate mixed them, fans would be complaining about THAT! For once, theyve given us the demos untouched! Which is what fans have been asking for for years.
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If the source material was this damaged, it shouldn’t be released and they should be upfront about it, as they were with Wembley (which, quality aside, was the most transparent they’ve ever been).

The recording isn’t the issue here; if it was, you’d be able to tell. There’s no clipping, no overload of room ambiance, nothing that would imply that MJ’s engineers didn’t do their job correctly. It’s the mixing and mastering.
 
luis98 said:
I mean, if multitracks exist for those demos and the estate mixed them to make them sound perfect, the fans would still complain, because those new mixes would not be the way Michael left them. Maybe the only source for those demos were cassette tapes, acetates, etc that are 40 years old. Not much they could do to make them sound better.
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A mixing engineer can recreate those mixes from the multitracks.
 
AlwaysThere said:
If the source material was this damaged, it shouldn’t be released and they should be upfront about it, as they were with Wembley (which, quality aside, was the most transparent they’ve ever been).

The recording isn’t the issue here; if it was, you’d be able to tell. There’s no clipping, no overload of room ambiance, nothing that would imply that MJ’s engineers didn’t do their job correctly. It’s the mixing and mastering.
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I completely agree. Aside from the terribly off beat moments which they should have fixed. Then again, if they couldn’t fix it then they shouldn’t release it at all.
 
AlwaysThere said:
  1. Select 10 demos from the vault.
  2. Hire the highest-rated mixing and mastering engineers on Fiverr to overhaul the demos. If the multitracks aren’t accessible, hire an audio restoration specialist (also from Fiverr) to ensure the best possible quality.
  3. Hire a graphic designer on Behance and provide them with enough rare and unpublished photos to craft an eye catching, brand-new cover and booklet.
  4. Hire @JohnC and provide him with the necessary resources to write an album retrospective and track notes for the booklet.
That’s it. That’s all they had to do.

Obviously Thriller deserves far more, but if the estate was insistent on a two-disc format, they could’ve pulled off something great for a few thousand dollars at most—probably a fraction of what they spent on Thriller 40. Absolutely insane.
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Only the Estate can take something that simple and turn it into a perfect exercise in laziness.
 
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AlwaysThere said:
If the source material was this damaged, it shouldn’t be released and they should be upfront about it, as they were with Wembley (which, quality aside, was the most transparent they’ve ever been).

The recording isn’t the issue here; if it was, you’d be able to tell. There’s no clipping, no overload of room ambiance, nothing that would imply that MJ’s engineers didn’t do their job correctly. It’s the mixing and mastering.
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Absolutely. I understand thinking that it may just be the condition that the recording was in but if you know about this stuff it's rather easy to tell if something is just badly produced. These demos, however rough they sounded in their raw form, could have easily sounded better. I've heard Beatles recordings that were recorded with a shitty cassette recorder that are still pleasing to listen to. It's not a case of the recording circumstances. Your job is to make it sound presentable when you officially release it and charge money for it.

Obviously there's exceptions, but let's not pretend listening to these songs that they couldn't have sounded a lot better.
 
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Disappointing but also not surprising that the estate seems to be the problem here. Maybe they had a financial related falling out? Either way totally sucks.
 
AlwaysThere said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1593090968278163460

https://twitter.com/x/status/1593092710788841473

“THE GIRL IS MINE” STUDIO FOOTAGE!?
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Lol don’t count on it. That would be the logical and fan serviceable thing to do. However, it’s probably going to be some cringy ass shit like the Hollywood Tonight video or the LNFSG video…… Jesus I HATE the Estate. We haven’t had new material since 2014 so what do they do? Fill up HALF of an 80+ min CD with mostly already previously officially released outtakes or songs that have been leaked for like 14 yrs. Then give us two rough demos of posthumously released songs that are HORRIBLY mixed and mastered (if at all) and then give us just 2 new songs. 2!!!!! No wonder we all got so hyped about the damn leaks cause we don’t get anything!

Now yes, the two 4K videos are AMAZING! Fantastic job (for once!) on that that! However this could have been so much better! Give us at least 6 new unheard songs like Bad 25. Give us an HD concert from the victory tour (unlike Bad 25’s bullshit attempt) some studio footage and maybe the making of Thriller in some form of restoration. BOOM success! That is if they actually MARKETED the damn thing!

Makes me sad, this thing is going to flop and when it does they’re going to think “Oh well new MJ music and 4K videos aren’t what the fans want.” And then they’ll keep peddling their bullshit biopic idea and more goofy one off projects like musicals and remix albums…..
 
I think there is fight between Estate and Sony.
I think it was also a sign that the biopic-deal is with Lionsgate and not Sony.
But this fighting is on cost from Michael and his fans, the Estate seems only to fulfill the contract.

BTW my CD from Amazon is on the way.
 
Annita said:
I think there is fight between Estate and Sony.
I think it was also a sign that the biopic-deal ist with Lionsgate and not Sony.

But this fighting is cost from Michael and his fans, the Estate seems only to fulfill the contract.
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There definitely seems to be a problem if we're believing the rumours. Doesn't change the disastrous effort of the MJ estate on this release though.
 
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