These were three posthumous titles, present on the album Michael from 2010, released a year after his death, which would not have been sung by the king of pop.
The beginnings of the case date back to 2014. It was then that a fan, Vera Serovais taking legal action against Sony Musicwho released the disc, the Jackson Estate, and producers. Because, according to her, the songs “Monster”, “Breaking News” and “Keep your head up”, present on the disc, would not be sung by him. There would therefore be deception! Worse still: children and friends of Michael Jacksonas well as other artists, go in the same direction. Will.i.am told Rolling Stone magazine: “I heard ‘Breaking News’ on the net, and it’s not Michael, it disgusts me.”
Sound experts had also come to the conclusion that the voice we heard was not that of the singer.
Result: this summer, Sony Music removed the three contentious tracks from streaming services, but never formally admitted the potential wrongdoing. The record company and the rights holders had explained that they had decided to withdraw these songs because it was “the easiest and best way to leave the debates around this song behind us, for good”. This decision has nothing to do with the authenticity of these titles, they assured in a joint press release.
This marked the end of the procedure on Wednesday, when the parties accepted an arrangement whose details are not known.