Jackson’s posthumous songs ‘may not really be him’
Doubts over tracks on final album as legal papers claim Sony admitted vocals weren’t the singer’s
WHEN an album of previously unreleased songs by their hero Michael Jackson emerged a year after his death, it seemed, some astute fans feared, too good to be true.
Yesterday, it appeared those suspicions may not necessarily have been unfounded, as Sony was caught up in an extraordinary dispute over whether three songs were really performed by the late singer himself.
A court case, which dates to the release of album Michael in 2010, saw a fan of the singer take on Sony Music Entertainment, alleging songs on the record were not sung by the late artist.
After enlisting the help of a forensic audiologist, Vera Serova took the case to court to establish whether Breaking News, Monster and Keep Your Head Up had been falsely promoted.
Lawyers filed documents claiming Sony had conceded the lead singer “may have turned out not to be” Jackson, alleging “it turned out that these songs were sung by a Jackson impersonator”. But the record label insisted it had not admitted Jackson “did not sing on the songs”, emphasising that it was a hypothetical argument and the case was not intended to rule on authenticity.
Sony initially said that “extensive research” and witness accounts gave them “complete confidence” that the vocals were genuine.
However, documents submitted to the Court of Appeal in Los Angeles now quote a lawyer for the company as telling a court: “We are submitting now it may have turned out not to be [Michael Jackson].”
While lawyers representing Ms Serova wrote in court papers that Sony had “conceded that Jackson might have been not the singer on the... tracks”, they added that the company “maintained that they nonetheless had the right to deceptively sell the tracks as Michael Jackson songs because the attribution of the tracks to Jackson was constitutionally protected noncommercial speech”.
Last night Zia Modabber, represent- ing Sony and the Jackson estate, said: “No one has conceded that Michael Jackson did not sing on the songs.”
Sources suggested any such statement was made for the benefit of legal argument and “only for the purposes of this motion”, about whether the protection of free speech under the First Amendment would still give them the right to sell the music under the late artist’s name
The case continues this week. Sony released the songs after two producers, Eddie Cascio and James Porte, claimed Jackson recorded them in their basement in 2007 with no other witnesses present. Numerous members of the Jackson family insisted at the time that the vocals were not his, and Ms Serova’s forensic audiologist concluded that they “very likely did not belong to Jackson”.
According to the documents, Mr Modabber said his clients had taken the producers at their word. He insisted that did not mean Sony and the estate were wrong to pass the songs on to consumers.
After hearings in 2016, Judge Ann Jones ruled in Ms Serova’s favour to compel Sony and the estate to stand trial over the songs’ release. But lawyers went to the Court of Appeal this week to try to halt the case, arguing that they still had a right to sell the songs under Jackson’s name.