*Michael Jackson is said to have a treasure trove of unreleased recordings in the vault when he died — music that is almost certain to be packaged and repackaged for his fans in the years to come, notes the Associated Press.
*Michael Jackson is said to have a treasure trove of unreleased recordings in the vault when he died — music that is almost certain to be packaged and repackaged for his fans in the years to come, notes the Associated Press.
The material includes unused tracks from studio sessions of some of Jackson's best albums, as well as more recently recorded songs made with R&B singer/producer Akon and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am.
"There are dozens and dozens of songs that did not end up on his albums," said Tommy Mottola, who from 1998 to 2003 was chairman and CEO of Sony Music, which owns the distribution rights to Jackson's music. "People will be hearing a lot of that unreleased material for the first time ever. There's just some genius and brilliance in there."
The releases, Mottola said, "could go on for years and years — even more than Elvis."
As previously reported, Nielsen SoundScan said Wednesday that three of his records — "Number Ones," "Essential Michael Jackson" and "Thriller — were the best-selling albums of the week, and 2.3 million tracks of his have been downloaded in the U.S. alone.
Mottola, who has described himself as the "shepherd and gatekeeper" of Jackson's catalog and is familiar with it better than anyone, said that for every album Jackson made — including classics like 1979's "Off the Wall" and 1982's "Thriller" — he recorded several tracks that didn't make it onto the records.