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Michael Jackson · S9 E7
The Vault
Unreleased tracks, posthumous albums, and the debates they created
2010. A year after Michael Jackson's death, Sony releases an album called 'Michael,' assembled from demos and unfinished recordings. Within days, fans and vocal experts are publicly questioning whether every voice on the album actually belongs to him.
Love Never Felt So Good, Michael Jackson ft. Justin Timberlake (2014). Official music video. The lead single from Xscape, built from a demo Michael recorded with Paul Anka in 1983. Timberlake's vocal bridges the decades, and the video intercuts archival MJ footage with new performance. The best argument for what the vault can produce when handled with care.
Love Never Felt So Good, Michael Jackson ft. Justin Timberlake (2014)
Originally recorded as a demo by Michael with songwriter Paul Anka in 1983, during the same creative burst that produced Thriller. The original demo is sparse: just Michael's voice, a piano, and a drum machine. For the Xscape version, producer John McClain and Timbaland added modern production, and Justin Timberlake recorded a complementary vocal. Listen for the contrast between Michael's 1983 vocal, which has the bright energy of the Thriller era, and the contemporary arrangement layered beneath it.
Sources
Xscape album credits, Epic/MJJ Music, 2014
Paul Anka interviews on the original 1983 demo sessions
The Vault
When Michael Jackson died, he left behind hundreds of recordings in various stages of completion. Some were finished vocals with full production. Others were rough demos, fragments, and ideas captured on tape recorders and DAT machines. The Jackson estate and Sony faced a question with no clean answer: what do you do with the unfinished work of a perfectionist who never released anything he did not consider ready?
Sources
Michael Jackson, Inc., Zack O'Malley Greenburg, 2014
L.A. Reid, Sing to Me: My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic, and Searching for Who's Next, 2016
TAP TO REVEAL: Were all the vocals on the posthumous albums actually Michael Jackson?
Two Approaches
The two posthumous albums took opposite approaches. 'Michael' (2010) was criticized for its quality control and the Cascio tracks controversy. 'Xscape' (2014), overseen by L.A. Reid, was received far more warmly because it included the original demos alongside the modernized versions, letting listeners decide for themselves. The inclusion of the raw demos was the smartest decision anyone made in the posthumous era.
Sources
L.A. Reid, Sing to Me, 2016
Pitchfork review of Xscape, 2014
The Posthumous Era
A Place with No Name, Michael Jackson (2014)
From Xscape, built on the melody of America's 1972 hit 'A Horse with No Name,' with Michael's lyrics transforming it into a song about escaping to a place where fame and pain do not exist. Michael recorded the original demo in the late 1990s, and the Xscape producers built a modern arrangement around his vocal. It is one of the most complete-sounding posthumous tracks, and one of the few where the vault material genuinely sounds like a finished Michael Jackson song.
A Place with No Name, Michael Jackson (2014)
The lyrics describe a journey to a place with no name, no identity, no history, where Michael can simply exist without the weight of being Michael Jackson. The borrowed melody gives the song instant familiarity, while his words turn it into something deeply personal. It is a fantasy about disappearing, written by a man who could never go anywhere unrecognized.
Which posthumous Michael Jackson album included the original unaltered demos alongside the modernized versions?
The vault is still not empty. Next season, we step back from the music and look at what Michael Jackson left behind: race, money, influence, allegations, and the question of what the catalog really says when you read it as autobiography.
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