Three songs from Michael Jackson’s posthumous 2010 album ‘Michael’ have been removed from streaming services amid ongoing suspicions that they contain forgeries of the late pop icon’s vocals.
“The Estate of Michael Jackson and Sony Music decided to remove the tracks ‘Breaking News,’ ‘Monster,’ and ‘Keep Your Head Up,’ from the 2010 album Michael as the simplest and best way to move beyond the conversation associated with these tracks once and for all,” Sony Music and the Jackson estate said in a statement on Tuesday, July 5.
The statement did not address persistent rumors that the songs might contain vocals not recorded by Jackson, who died in 2009. “Focus remains where it belongs—on the exciting news and existing projects celebrating Michael Jackson’s legacy, including the Tony-winning Broadway musical MJ, the enormously popular Michael Jackson-ONE show in Las Vegas, an upcoming biopic, and the campaign to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Thriller, the best-selling album in history, in November,” the statement continued.
“The album’s remaining tracks remain available. Nothing should be read into this action concerning the authenticity of the tracks—it is just time to move beyond the distraction surrounding them,” it concluded.
In 2014, a fan attempted to lead a class-action lawsuit alleging that Michael’s actions amounted to a misrepresentation punishable under California’s Unfair Competition Law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, based on the suspicion that the King of Pop was not the lead singer on the tracks, which were believed to have been recorded two years before Jackson’s death.
The appeals court noted in its decision that neither the administrators of Michael Jackson’s estate nor Sony recorded the songs and thus could not comment on who took part in the vocal sessions.
