In a revelation that may raise the eyebrows of many, Gregg Musgrove claims he has found 12 unheard Michael Jackson tracks in an old storage unit located in California’s San Fernando Valley. His reports claim the storage unit had belonged to Bryan Loren, a music producer and singer who collaborated with Jackson between 1989 and 1991 – right before the Dangerous album.
Musgrove tells The Hollywood Reporter about the finds: a treasure trove of songs, some rumoured to exist but never heard and others are never known to have been done. Some titles include:
- Don’t Believe It
- Seven Digits
- Can’t Come Back
- Son of Thriller
- Truth on Youth
- She’s Got It Baby
- All the Truth You Need
- Call It Off
- She Got It
- Man In Black
- Work That Body
- A Pretty Face Is
- To Satisfy You
- Pressure
- Serious Effect”
Musgrove says just listening to those tapes left him with goosebumps. “To hear Michael Jackson actually talk and kind of joke back and forth [on the tapes], it was really, really cool,” he said. At least a few tracks offer up snippets of Jackson and Loren discussing creative ideas-there’s an intimate peek into the King of Pop’s creative process.
Even with all this hype, Musgrove’s attempts to reach out to the Michael Jackson Estate failed. The estate declined to purchase the tapes and even went ahead to write a letter stating the legal rights over them. Musgrove is free to sell the tapes, but the copyright over the recordings belongs to the estate.
This therefore indicates that the tracks cannot go to the public domain without receiving consent. Although this doesn’t mean that they can’t.
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The tapes mean a treasure trove to Michael Jackson fans and collectors, and it is said the collection would attract serious bidders with unheard tracks. Among these are those tracks that have Jackson rapping together with LL Cool J.
“I’ve gone to all the fan sites,” Musgrove said. “Some of these songs have been leaked a little bit, but others have never been heard by anyone.”
As the world of music is abuzz with this news, what is certain is that Michael Jackson’s legacy lives on until today, many decades after his death.
