Michael Jackson Wiki

Welcome to the Michael Jackson Wiki, the encyclopedia intending to honor the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Here, you can discover or even share your knowledge about the star. Before doing so however, please make sure to check our rules and guidelines.

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Michael Jackson Wiki
THE KING OF POP ENCYCLOPEDIA
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in: Lists, Unreleased songs

List of unreleased songs

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When adding a song to this article or the category, make sure it is only a song that is 100% confirmed to be real and have Michael's involvement in it. Any unconfirmed tracks will be removed as we do not want to spread misinformation.

Ihavethisdreamoct72005

Michael Jackson recording "I Have This Dream" at the Metropolis Studios, London (October 7, 2005)

For each album, Michael Jackson would write and record tons of songs. These would span from 30 to 50 or more. However, a majority of them would ultimately stay in the vault and never see a release, as only 10-15 tracks would be picked to make it on the artist's records. A lot of these would be scrapped for various reasons, whether it'd be decided they weren't strong enough for the record, or plans fell through due to conflicts behind the scenes.

The unreleased songs began finding their way online between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Jackson was known to be a perfectionist, and wasn't exactly keen on showing the listeners his unfinished work, especially when it'd be a track he still wanted to release. Whenever a leak would occur, Michael dropped the works on the track and usually never came back to work on it.[1][2][3]

Following Michael's death, many of the titles he worked on over the years were registered by Mijac Music through the United States Copyright Office, Broadcast Music Incorporated, American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and more. The artist's unreleased songs rose in popularity as well, after TMZ.com leaked a 24 second snippet of "A Place with No Name" on July 16, 2009, which was covered by several news stations. More songs also became known with time, thanks to Brad Sundberg's In The Studio With MJ, Brad Buxer's and Michael Prince's Making History With MJ, and Steve Porcaro's seminars. Other artists, producers as well as Michael's personnel discussed their collaborations with him on numerous occasions (e.g. Twitter/X, podcasts, interviews), including family members like his sister La Toya, who claimed to own a hard drive of 100 unreleased songs.[4]

The online leaks still continue to this day, notably with the recent incident from January 2023, where Sundberg's laptop was stolen with 50GB of unreleased material being shared on forums, which was referred to by some as one of the "wildest music leaks in years".[5] The Michael Jackson Estate and Sony Music have capitalized on the unheard songs as well, having released various reissues of Jackson's studio albums (Special Editions[6][7][8], Anniversary re-releases[9][10][11]), or compilations of strictly previously unreleased tracks (e.g. The Ultimate Collection, Michael, Xscape).

The following the list mentions all titles that have either leaked online, released, or are confirmed to be real titles.

Key

  • Italic - The track remains unavailable.
  • Bold - The track leaked partially or snippets of it did.
  • Underlined - The track has been leaked in full, released in one way or another, or performed live.

Note

This list is divided by eras; it doesn't necessarily mean some of these tracks were made for the album or even for any record by Michael.

Songs

Steeltown/Motown/The Jacksons (1967-1999)

The Jacksons Unreleased


Off the Wall (1978-1979)

Off The Wall (1979 Cover)


Post-Off the Wall (1980)

Thriller (1981-1982)

Cover (5)


Post-Thriller (1983-1984)


Bad (1985-1987)

AlbumArt -B5020207-474E-4720-FCED-6D2EF5F22C00- Large


Post-Bad (1988)


Dangerous (1989-1991)

Cover


Post-Dangerous (1992-1993)


HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1994-1995)

Cover (2)


Invincible (1997-2001)

Michael Jackson Invincible Album Cover


Post-Invincible (2002-2006)


11th Studio Album (2007-2009)

Unreleased


Unknown

Unknown date of creation

Unreleased songs by Michael Jackson with an unknown date of creation.

Unknown snippets

  • Unknown snippet #4 - (Loudspeaker listen)
  • Unknown snippet #5 - (Loudspeaker listen)
  • Unknown snippet #6 - (Loudspeaker listen)

Spoken pieces

Demos for Michael Jackson

Unreleased songs and beats made by other writers, producers, or artists for Michael to work on.

Never-realized collaborations

Collaborations between Michael Jackson and other artists, that were planned to be created but ultimately never came to be.

Album demos

Popular misconceptions

  • "Blue Powder" was written and performed by Michael's driver, Gary Hearne. Brad Buxer, one of Jackson's producers helped with some of the production, but Jackson himself had none in involving the song's creation.
  • The 2009 song under the title "Cry" is actually "I Want You To Stay" by Marsha Ambrosius (from Floetry). The song was written for Jackson and submitted to him a few weeks before his passing, but it was never recorded by him.[13]
  • "Do the Bartman" was never recorded by Jackson, but solely by Bryan Loren who just name-dropped him in the lyrics.
  • "Fly Girl" isn't a collaboration between will.i.am and MJ. will.i.am only played the track to Jackson during the Access Hollywood interview in 2006, but Michael had no involvement with the creation of the track.
  • Despite fans believing this is a unreleased song, "Kreeton Overture" isn't, as it was featured as the intro to the Victory Tour and is also known as "Sword In the Stone".
  • The tracks "Angels Descend", "Ashes to Ashes" or "Ceiling Dance" aren't unreleased songs from Blood on the Dance Floor or even tracks Michael produced, they're all pieces of music written by Nicholas Pike for and included in the Michael Jackson's Ghosts short film.

References

  1. ↑ Stop Playin' (Jackson worked on the track with T-Pain and Usher, but after the demo leaked he dropped the works. He never recorded his vocals.)
  2. ↑ Xscape (song) (After the track leaked in 2002, his legal team threatened online users, that if it doesn't stop being spread Michael will never release it, which he never did himself.)
  3. ↑ Hold My Hand (After the demo leaked in 2008, Jackson and Akon decided to stop the works as the two wanted a fresh, unheard comeback track for the King of Pop. However, he seems to have wanted to work on it again as seen on notes from 2009).
  4. ↑ https://exclaim.ca/music/article/at_least_100_unreleased_michael_jackson_songs_face_uncertain_future_after_latoya_swipes_hard_drives
  5. ↑ https://americansongwriter.com/50-gb-of-unreleased-michael-jackson-content-stolen/
  6. ↑ Off the Wall#Off the Wall: Special Edition
  7. ↑ Thriller#Thriller: Special Edition
  8. ↑ Bad#Bad: Special Edition
  9. ↑ Thriller 25
  10. ↑ Bad 25 (album)
  11. ↑ Thriller 40 (album)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOARoYX7m0&t=813s
  13. ↑ https://open.spotify.com/track/7gyJffcGCEkFnMaCgcBP0Y?si=1aecfd799a3b4ec4
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