New Michael Jackson Album in May

[soulstevie]

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6029371/new-michael-jackson-album-xscape-to-be-released-in-may

i love the titletrack in it´s original form. I´m curious what the producers have made of it.

[smark21]

Is the album a salute to 90s girl group Xscape?

[captainjames]

With all due respect to Mr. Jackson does anyone know if Laytoya has anything to do with this project ? I have my reasons for asking.

[Glenpwood]

Is the album a salute to 90s girl group Xscape?

Kick of your shoes, relax your feet, and party on down to the Xscape beat!

[Ngroove]

I'm good. I love MJ and his music and all, but I kinda feel that "digging up" those unused sessions, to "cashing in", just one more[[s) "album" after the guy pushing daisies is pretty darn shameless...for MJ, for Rick James, for Teena Marie, for Vesta Williams, and I wouldn't be surprised Whitney Houston. Let em' rest in peace. Maybe ten years post-mortem, like I wouldn't mind new "Elvis" records every several full moons, but right now, it's just still too fresh.

[bradsupremes]

8 songs? Contemporizing them? Really? Are they trying to stretch things out by only issuing 8 songs here, 10 songs there [[half of which weren't even Michael). Just put out a 20 track CD or something.

Why can't they issue things of his as they were originally recorded without adding things? Didn't Motown do that in the 80's with Marvin Gaye tracks? Instead of releasing the songs as they were in the Motown Sound with the Funk Bros. they added all of that 80's synthesized crap.

[midnightman]

His engineer Bruce Swedien said there weren't that many finished MJ songs to go around. The fact Xscape only has eight songs on it that were probably "finished" but are being "contemporized" by L.A. Reid and his goons makes sense with Swedien's comment that there weren't a lot of finished unreleased material MJ did. Even more telling, the songs that were said to be on the album were already heard online. You can google the songs and they should have them on either YouTube or another video channel site.

[MrTopCat]

8 songs is just not enough. They should just stick to releasing anniversary editions of his other albums - now those are usually worth it. The last album they released - Michael - was OK. Not great, but not too bad either. Dunno about this new project though.

[marybrewster]

Who approves this stuff? Katherine? Is this a way to make $$$ for the children? To me it sounds like you're getting a half-assed product.

Why doesn't his estate just license out his image and milk the cash cow that way?

[MrTopCat]

Who approves this stuff? Katherine? Is this a way to make $$$ for the children? To me it sounds like you're getting a half-assed product.

Why doesn't his estate just license out his image and milk the cash cow that way?

They signed a deal with Sony a while ago, so Sony can do whatever they want with the music now. It was a HUGE deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

[midnightman]

Who approves this stuff? Katherine? Is this a way to make $$$ for the children? To me it sounds like you're getting a half-assed product.

Why doesn't his estate just license out his image and milk the cash cow that way?

The estate released a video game like four years ago on him. Some kind of dancing game on XBox. And there's the Cirque du Soleil show residing in Vegas and the Michael Jackson One that was also in Vegas. It seems it's the music that's the albatross in the cleaning up legacy dept. some speculated the album with the track "Do You Know Where Your Children Are" was damage control for the case by Wade Robson.

[midnightman]

8 songs is just not enough. They should just stick to releasing anniversary editions of his other albums - now those are usually worth it. The last album they released - Michael - was OK. Not great, but not too bad either. Dunno about this new project though.

They put out Bad 25 in 2012. I hear they may release a re-issue of Off the Wall too.

[Boogiedown]

unless Quincy Jones is involved forgetaboutit

[midnightman]

unless Quincy Jones is involved forgetaboutit

Quincy has never even been asked to contribute. They didn't ask him to contribute when they were doing Thriller 25 or Bad 25. Doubt Quincy would even attempt to work with them. And I don't blame him one bit. People can deny this all they want and MJ obviously had musical talent [[as some of his demos, including the one for Beat It showed), but they still wouldn't have been complete without Quincy. Both of them got what they wanted out of the other. MJ never worked with anyone that tough ever again.

[MrTopCat]

Quincy was involved in Thriller 25, what are you talking about? He was even in the documentary.

[midnightman]

Quincy was involved in Thriller 25, what are you talking about? He was even in the documentary.

Maybe in the original album re-issue but not the production. I don't know if he was part of Bad 25. I don't recall him being in that documentary but I'll research now.

QJ was part of archival footage for Bad 25. Thriller 25 had a brief documentary that featured a QJ production on the DVD so there's that. I remember the backlash he got for the new version of We Are the World.