Three tracks from the 2010 posthumous compilation Michael have been taken from streaming services after continuous claims that the vocals of late pop legend Michael Jackson are impersonated in them.
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The tracks ‘Breaking News,’ ‘Monster,’ and ‘Keep Your Head Up,’ from the 2010 album Michael, were removed by the Jackson estate and Sony Music, according to Billboard, “as the simplest and best approach to move beyond the conversation associated with these recordings once and for all.”
The statement did not address widespread rumours that Jackson, who passed away in 2009, may not have recorded the vocals for the songs. The wonderful announcement and ongoing celebration projects are still the centre of attention.
The statement continued, “The focus remains where it belongs — on the exciting news and ongoing projects celebrating Michael Jackson’s legacy, including the Tony-winning Broadway musical MJ, the enormously well-liked Michael Jackson-ONE show in Las Vegas, an upcoming biopic, and the campaign to commemorate Thriller’s 40th anniversary, the best-selling album in history, in November.”
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The remaining tracks on the album are still accessible. It is just time to go past the distraction around the songs, thus nothing should be interpreted into this decision about the veracity of the records, it said. On the grounds that the King of Pop may have violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, a fan attempted to lead a class-action lawsuit against Michael in 2014.
The songs were taken down in an effort to “move beyond” the controversy, according to a statement from Jackson’s estate and Sony Music, which acquired the rights to unreleased material from the singer’s vaults in a massive $250 million deal in 2010. However, the statement effectively maintains that the vocals were not faked: “Nothing should be read into this action concerning the authenticity of the tracks,” it emphasizes.
It is simply time to get over the distraction around them, thus nothing should be interpreted in this action as implying anything about the veracity of the songs, it says.
The songs in question were the focus of an uncharacteristically vigorous legal fight by fans, which the estate ultimately won in 2018. They were supposedly recorded in 2007, two years before Michael Jackson passed away from an accidental overdose, alongside songwriters and producers Edward Cascio and James Porte. The three songs were apparently sung by an American musician named Jason Malachi, who reportedly acknowledged as much in a 2011 Facebook post, according to TMZ. However, his manager later refuted this claim, claiming the post was false.
In 2014, a fan attempted to organize a class-action lawsuit alleging that the liner notes of the CD, which identify Jackson as the singer, constitute a misrepresentation in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act.
The appeals court decided that the album’s cover and promotional materials were protected by the First Amendment because the estate and Sony were unsure whether Jackson sang on the three songs.
Elwood Liu, a California Appellate Justice at the time, stated, “Under these circumstances, Appellant’s assertions about the identity of the singer amounted to a statement of opinion rather than a statement of fact.”
The absence of personal knowledge in this case also renders the challenged comments by the appellants inadmissible as speech. After Michael Jackson died in 2009 from a propofol overdose, the first album of outtakes and unheard music to the surface was Michael, which was released in 2010. Even before it was available in stores, the star’s relatives questioned whether he had contributed to every song.
Jackson’s nephew Taryll wrote, “I tried so hard to stop this lunacy, but they wouldn’t listen. Jackson’s sister La Toya noted, “It doesn’t sound like him”. In a statement issued in response, Sony stated that it had “full confidence in the findings of our exhaustive research, as well as the accounts of individuals who were in the studio with Michael, that the vocals… are his own.”
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