Free Speech: Ruling in favour of the Estate of Michael Jackson mocks the artist, the consumer and the law

Peter Mills
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

One day — so the Sony story goes — Michael Jackson popped round to his old pal Eddie Cascio’s house and recorded twelve songs so banal as to be disturbing. Upon realising the inanity of the music, and being the artistic vanguard he was, Jackson then decided the only possible way to drag the tracks into some realm remotely noteworthy was to perform them as a mind-fuck meta-impersonation; that is, in the style of his notorious sound-slightly-alike, Jason Malachi.

Not content with even this degree of unorthodoxy, Jackson then chose to push the envelope yet further by singing said songs through a piece of pipe whilst standing in the shower.

The highlight of Paul McCartney’s Pipes of Peace album is the much-loved majestic duet between McCartney and Jackson known as Say Say Say. The song is widely regarded as a nugget of pop genius, in no small part due to it showcasing the phenomenal vocal abilities of its esteemed singers. The general consensus held by most discerning listeners is that — in spite of the title of the album — neither McCartney nor Jackson utilised pipes whilst recording the track.

No-one is sure exactly why or when Michael Jackson decided to start singing through pipes, but everyone definitely thinks it was a massive mistake. This is because when the technique was used for the Cascio sessions, it makes the unrivalled pop legend sound far less like he possessed a voice of unparalleled soul, one nurtured to perfection since childhood, and far more like he’s doing spontaneous drunken self-parodying rage karaoke.

For several years the pipe and shower scenario was the official reason given by Sony and the Estate of Michael Jackson as to why the songs don’t sound like they are sung by Michael Jackson. They even provided the reassurance that musicologists had been employed to authenticate the vocals.

Once summoned to discuss the issue in court, however, this stance quickly transformed to one of outright denial, with the defendants then claiming never to have said that Jackson sang lead vocals on the tracks.

On the eve of what would have been Michael Jackson’s sixtieth birthday, the court of appeal ruled in favour of Sony and the Estate of Michael Jackson.

The mind-blowing irony being that they won the argument through evoking their right to free speech.


Learn more about this unprecedented and disturbing case of bare-faced injustice at the hands of the Corpocracy:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/faking-michael/id1434372710?mt=2

“ Faking Michael is an investigative podcast series chronicling one man’s eight-year quest for the truth about a collection of 12 allegedly-fake Michael Jackson songs. After first hearing the songs in 2010, journalist and Jackson fan Damien Shields — author of the book Michael Jackson: Songs & Stories From The Vault — embarked on a personal mission to find out once and for all where the songs had truly come from, and how three of them — “Breaking News,” “Keep Your Head Up” and “Monster” — ended up on an official Michael Jackson album.”

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Father / Writer / Private Dancer

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