Michael Jackson Left Behind Tons Of Unreleased Music; Was Working On New Albums

In the week since Michael Jackson died there has been plenty of speculation as to how much music the pop star left behind in his private vaults. But now the picture is starting to clear up; for fans of the King of Pop this could mean a wealth of posthumous new releases for years to come.

According to the AP, Jackson had a mountain of unreleased recordings in the vault when he died — material that includes unused tracks from studio sessions, plus more recently recorded songs made with Akon and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am.

Billboard is reporting today that Jackson was working on two albums at the time of his death: one in the pop style that most people associate with Jackson, and another that would consist of an instrumental classical composition.

Tommy Mottola, who from 1998 to 2003 was chairman and CEO of Sony Music, which owns the distribution rights to Jackson’s music, said there are ‘dozens and dozens of songs that did not end up on his albums.’

“People will be hearing a lot of that unreleased material for the first time ever. There’s just some genius and brilliance in there.”

Mottola said the release of new music could continue for ‘years and years — even more than Elvis.’

That’s a pretty telling statement. It seems the Michael Jackson machine will chug along for a long time to come, perhaps bigger than its ever been.

Even with the outcry of emotion this past week for Jackson, one still has to be amazed at the sales resurgence of the pop star. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Michael Jackson albums and Jackson-related compilations hold the top nine positions on Billboard’s Top Pop Catalog chart, all making huge jumps in the days following the singer’s death

According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. retailers sold 415,000 albums by Michael Jackson in the four days following his death, according to Nielsen Co.’s SoundScan, compared with fewer than 10,000 copies in the previous full week. More than half of those album sales were digital downloads made on services such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes and Amazon.com Inc.’s AmazonMP3.

In addition, the artist sold more than 2.3 million digitally downloaded songs since his death. That compares with 37,000 song downloads during the previous week.

The oldies are always goodies, but what about all those supposed unreleased songs?

It remains a little fuzzy as to who actually owns the rights to the unreleased recordings, and an unnamed label source told the AP that no new projects or compilations are in the works yet.

This where the lawyers get involved; we don’t know if Jackson left instructions regarding the music, but entertainment lawyer Steve Gordon, who worked at Sony in the 1990s, told the AP that Jackson owned some of his master recordings and others were owned in partnership with Sony.

Sony retains exclusive distribution rights for anything Jackson produced while under contract to the company.

You have to imagine Sony execs are burning the midnight oil trying to figure out how to best approach the unreleased material – and if there is a box of tunes sitting somewhere by all means it will get released one day. Book it.

And let’s not forget that AEG Live, the company that was promoting Jackson’s 50-date “This Is It” concert series at the O2 Arena in London, is supposed to have 100-plus hours of Jackson’s rehearsal footage and recordings that could be used to create the pop star’s first-ever live album release. Tell me that won’t do big numbers.

(Hard to believe there hasn’t been a live album prior. You can find Jackson 5 live on CD, but besides the bootlegs I have seen of Michael Jackson solo, a live album would definitely fill a void in his catalog.)

The mourning will eventually subside, but business is business and the marketing push behind any ‘new’ Michael Jackson music will be massive.

And just think if the music turns out to be any good.

Are you anxious to hear Michael Jackson’s unreleased music?

Further Reading:

• Michael Jackson Tribute Concert Cancelled
• Michael Jackson To Receive Lifetime Achievement Grammy
• This is It Earns Over 100 Million Dollars
• This Is It: Movie Review Redux
• Michael Jackson’s Glove Sold for $48,000
• Hear Michael Jackson’s Single, This is It
• Michael Jackson’s MTV VMA Tribute
• Michael Jackson Finally Laid To Rest In L.A.
• What If Michael Jackson Is Still Alive?
• Prince Considering A Michael Jackson Tribute Performance
• Videos of Speeches and Songs at Michael Jackson’s Memorial
• Michael Jackson’s Death Boosts Album Sales
• Michael Jackson’s Life in Pictures
• Michael Jackson: Life in Videos
• Michael Jackson Has Died