Thread by @MichaelStems

HIStory: Past, Present and Future | A Thread

Hi everyone, this thread will be covering what went on in the studio during the History sessions. As a fair warning, I’d to remind anyone that everything said may not be 100% facts and you can correct me in dms/replies. With that being said, let’s enjoy history’s 25th anniversary

Michael and his team planned to record music at Record One(in Sherman Oaks) for a greatest hits package(a package that was planned since the late 80s), but unfortunately, an earthquake hit LA on the 17th of January(1994). It was short, yet devastating.

Michael was scared following this and decided to move him and his team to the Hit Factory, in NYC.

Since Michael was preoccupied with legal issues at the time, he sent Brad Buxer off to prepare the tracks that were previously demoed. Meanwhile, Bruce Swedien and Rene Moore wrote and made song ideas, one of them being “2 Bad”.

Michael also worked on Stranger in Moscow with Brad over the phone, and before Michael had arrived to NY in march, he already had the beatbox samples, and completed the piano/strings/drum parts for the song.

Sony wanted a greatest hits album to be released as fast as possible, but Michael didn’t like the idea at all. He really only worked at the Sony studio to appease Sony, so they could keep on eye on Michael’s progress.

Stranger in Moscow was the first song Michael and Buxer worked on, but I’ll go more in detail on that later. The two later moved to the Hit Factory with the others, due to Michael not liking the pressure from the Sony execs.

He recorded most of his vocals in Hit Factory’s Studio 3. Whenever he recorded scratch vocals, he preferred for the room to be empty as well.

After working on Stranger in Moscow, Michael brought back “They Don’t Care About Us”, a song that started in Dangerous sessions. Rob Hoffman likes to think Michael and Matt Forger started the song from scratch again, despite the idea originating from Dangerous.

Guitarist Trevor Rabin was invited to play guitar, as well as Slash, Jeff Bova, and Hoffman himself.

As spring and summer passed, the crew worked on “Money”, “Faces”, “In the Back”, “Innocent Man”, “2 Bad”, “D.S.”, and Morphine. Furthermore, he brought back “Little Susie”, and “Much Too Soon”, both from previous sessions.

“Innocent Man” is similar to Stranger in Moscow, where Michael’s mood during the allegations is turned into music. With lyrics like “Let the whole world be against me long as God knows I’m an innocent man.”

"If they won't take me in Cairo then lord where will I go. I'll die a man without a country and only god knew I was innocent now." and “Sometimes I feel just like a fugitive, I’m running for my life and deep inside I ask the question why, but I’m not running at all I’m-

just healing a lonely wounded heart, I wish I could fly away.”

Michael also wanted to work with composer David Foster, who had previously worked with him on “It’s the Falling in Love”.

At some point Foster’s children wanted to take Michael to the movies, so they disguised him in their own clothes, and put a cap on his head, turning it sideways. They tried to hide Michael’s curl but he insisted on leaving it out.

Surprisingly, the two(foster/michael) sat at the piano and couldn’t come up with anything.

In one of their sessions, David was trying to play a chord that Michael was hearing but he wasn’t able to get it right, and he told Michael to play it instead. MJ in turn tried playing it, but it didn't go so well.

In another session, they spoke about their favorite songs, which is when Michael brought up “Smile”, by Charlie Chaplin. After this conversation, Michael decided to record Smile himself.

MJ also wanted to work on a track he wrote, “Childhood”. It was written in his Giving Tree, and it was quite personal. “Childhood” and “Smile” were recorded with a live orchestra, on the same day, in the Hit Factory.

Michael recorded the vocals for Smile over 12 times, around 14 takes total. He wasn’t satisfied, but the orchestra was very impressed, so much so, that they gave Michael a standing impression when he went to go meet them.

Michael also asked Foster to help him finish “Earth Song”, last worked in the early 90s. Bill Bottrell says that Foster changed the outro vocals from falsetto to full voice, and added a guitar riff in the second verse. David also got composer Bill Ross for the orchestration.

Michael wanted to re-record some parts of his vocals, but they had to find the same microphone that was used years earlier, so it took some time.

Michael was still working on the album by June ‘94, casuing him to miss another deadline. The album was supposed to only have up to five new tracks, but he couldn’t stop creating and making more music.

Epic Records chairman Dave Glew states that Michael said he need to “cut two or three more tracks”, and the new deadline was for a pre-christmas release.

There was a meeting held with around 40 people to discuss getting Michael to finish the album before Christmas. It included “Michael himself, his mangers, producers, and individuals from every facet of the record company”.

Dan Beck states that “everyone gave Michael a presentation of what their area of the record company could do if this record was released before christmas”. Michael loved it, but he never stopped recording music.

Dan Beck was also the one who created the album title, which leaked that June. He had a meeting about the title, and Polly Anthony talked about how great it’d be if it the title was as great as Madonna’s “The Immaculate Collection”.

He figured Michael’s album also needed a clever play on words, and he noticed the darker theme in the music that Michael was making at that time. It seemed to be “his story”, and he played around with it until he came up with HIStory.

Michael loved his idea and thanked him for his “HIStorical thinking”.

In the summer of ‘94, Michael called Janet and discussed working on a duet. Janet said yes, and suggested that Jam and Lewis should produce/develop the track. J/L started working on it in september, and presented Janet with an assortment of grooves.

She picked the one that would become “Scream”, and when asked how she knew Michael would like it, she responded(laughing) “I know my brother”. (one of the grooves that wasn’t chosen later on became “Runaway”.)

Jam, Lewis, and Janet came to Hit Factory in October, and Michael ended up liking the track that Janet chose. By the next day, Michael had already thought of the melody, arrangement, and lyrics. Janet also worked on the lyrics herself, and came up with the title/bridge.

Once they got into the studio, Jam says, “The music comes on, and for about ten seconds, Michael just starts dancing around, stomping… snapping his fingers...clapping, which is really unusual. And suddenly, he just started singing.”

They were blown away, and told Michael his take was great, and he nailed it after four or five more. Janet later said that she’d record her vocals in Minneapolis instead.

J/L followed her, and recorded her vocal before sending Michael the rough mix. Michael then went to Minneapolis to re-record his lead vocal, and he and Janet ended up recording their background vocals together.

Later, Michael kept Jam and Lewis around for more work, and mentioned a track that the duo played for him earlier. It was the foundation for “Tabloid Junkie”, previously called “Tabloid Jungle”. Michael already had the concept, and wrote the melody/lyrics.

During those same sessions, he stated that he needed a title track, so J/L wrote and composed it with Michael. According to Jam, Michael wanted a “big anthemic song”.

It soon became a big production, and it featured an 80-piece orchestra, backing vocals from Boyz II Men, along with tape clips from news dispatches, and speeches. There were 160 tracks that needed to be mixed, and it didn’t take place until the last week of recording.

The choir was recorded at Westlake studio D, where “Man in the Mirror” was also recorded. Jam and Lewis also helped with “2 Bad”, and “Is It Scary”.

Fall 1994 came and went, and work stopped in december, continuing in january. Michael also flew to chicago to work on “You Are Not Alone”.

Futhermore, he worked with Babyface, resulting in “Why” and a handful of songs.

Back in LA, he worked with Dallas Austin, and they worked on a track that became “This Time around”. Austin was surprised by the freedom that Michael gave him, and he wasn’t really restricted creatively at all.

Michael also reached out to Biggie for the rap, to the surprise of many. After recording his take, he met Michael and nearly broke down, according to engineer John Van Nest. Big talked about how much he loved michael, and ended up asking for a photo.

“Come Together” was the final track that completed the tracklist, and the team were now in the final stretch. Despite being in the final week, they still needed to mix “Tabloid Junkie”, “HIStory”, and more.

On one of the final nights of recording, Michael also recorded the ad-libs included in the ending portion of “Earth Song”.

The team had to mix everything over the weekend, seeing as the tapes needed to be taken out for mastering on Monday. They had to print out the last few mixes late sunday night and early monday morning, in order for Bruce Swedien to take them Bernie Grundman’s for mastering.

Even with this being completed, there was still a problem with the mastering: they had to cut down the album to a size that fit on a CD.

Around seven minutes needed to be trimmed, and they had to negotiate with Michael about what needed to be cut out(footage exists of this I believe, just hasn’t come out).

Bruce Swedien had to come in as an authority figure, and laid it down for Michael to understand. They managed to do it in five or so hours, and they finished at dawn.

Next up is the track-by-track breakdown.

1. Scream
-first and only duet between michael and janet
-produced by jimmy jam and terry lewis
I pretty much covered everything else earlier in the thread

2. They Don’t Care About Us
-idea started in dangerous sessions
-rhythmic structure reworked for HIStory sessions

3. Stranger in Moscow(credit for zecon for the entirety of this breakdown, his channel will be linked below)
(1993) During a Moscow stop on the Dangerous Tour, the media is hassling every jet coming into land in case MJ is on board.

Russian officials step in and safely take Michael away from the airport. Michael writes a poem based on the frenzy and how lonely he feels at the time.

- At the same time, Brad Buxer is working on tracks for the Sonic 3 game, he has a tape full of these tracks to bring to Michael's hotel room in Russia to play him to show the progress they were making on the game tracks.

Michael was in a bad mood still and didn't want to hear it. He told Brad to go to the piano and start playing that instead.

- Brad takes one of the chord sequences he composed for the Sonic 3 game (end credits) and plays it at a slower tempo, and Michael writes a melody based on the poem he wrote earlier.

- They recorded the first demo with Brad on piano and Michael on vocals and nothing else.

- Brad continues to work on the song for the next 2 years. It's unclear when certain things were done exactly, but he played the general unfinished arrangement he came up with for Michael, and Michael loved it.

- When the HIStory sessions are starting to begin, Brad plays the song he's been working on down the phone to Bruce Swedien and he loves it.

- Towards the end of the songs production, Brad brings in Steve Porcaro and Steve Lukather. Lukather plays some short guitar licks whilst Porcaro adds some extra percussion, the sax licks and a new synth bass track.

- The song is pretty much complete. It gets a few mixes before Michael is happy with the final one, and it is 6:13 long.

In the master, they cut down the song and made two separate length edits, one that is 5:45 and one that is 5:30. The full version of the song only has extra saxophone licks and piano solos at the end.

4. This Time Around
-michael has an alt vocal take that was used in the maurice mixes of the song(link it)
-biggie recorded two takes, one being restrained than the final one used on the album

5. Earth Song
june '88: earth song/what about us was created
september '88: the first demo is recorded with bill b.
july '89: work on the song is resumed at westlake studio d with Bill
october '91: it was cut from dangerous

jan. '94: work continued for the history album
march '95: the final adlibs are finished
nov. '95: released worldwide as the third single from history
-was also supposed to consist of three parts(iirc, i’ll have to double check on this later)

6. D.S.(link handwritten lyrics)
-song is about Tom Sneddon, only called D.S. to avoid legal trouble
-the title and written lyrics were originally T.S., and he’s clearly saying Tom Sneddon anyways

-uses a small fragment from “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by Yes.
-developed primarily with brad buxer and chuck wild.

7. Money
-5 inch track reduced to 4’42 due to CD restrictions
-three different bass lines are used
-was supposed to be the third/fourth single of HIStory

8. Come Together
-originally appeared in moonwalker
-recorded in october 1986
-michael almost recorded “You Know My Name” instead

-michael didn’t want the track to be changed at all
-was supposed to be on the Days of Thunder soundtrack
-was supposed to be on the “Decade” album, but the entire album was replaced by Dangerous
-released as a Bside to Remember the Time

9. You Are Not Alone
-apart of a pair of demos that were presented to michael, other one being “All My Life”, later sung by K-Ci & Jojo.

10. Childhood
-supposed to be performed at the One Night Only special with french mime Marcel Marceau
-footage of Michael recording the song exists, though every leaked copy was removed from websites and it’s no longer shown at seminars

11. Tabloid Junkie
-originally called “Tabloid Jungle”, they felt like the tabloids were hunters and michael was the prey

12. 2 Bad(credit to Zecon for the mix, channel will be linked below)
-uses the demo of “king of rock” by run-dmc
-michael spent hours listening to multitrack versions of sly and the family stone songs to find ideas

13. HIStory
-has more than 192 tracks
-backing vocals from boyz II men

14. Little Susie
-written down in jackson’s notebook from 1979
-around 45 seconds was cut from the intro
-originally recorded with an orchestra before being re-orchestrated by steve pocaro with all synths
-they tore apart a bunch of music boxes to form a sample set for the intro

15. Smile
-recorded 14 takes, ended up using the first one
-was supposed to be the last single of the album
- was also supposed to be performed at “Wetten Dass?” and the Royal Variety show in England

huge thanks to zecon for allowing me to use his stranger in moscow info and his 2 bad mix, please check out and subscribe to his channel, he makes amazing mixes and content
youtube.com/channel/UCmK6d…

check out john cameron's musicology episode he did on history, great listen and it'll probably be more accurate with more detail on history's sessions.
lnkfi.re/JCHistory25

sources:
"Man in the Music", written by Joseph Vogel
"Making Michael", written by Mike Smallcombe
"All the Songs", written by Richard Lecocq & Francois Allard
i forget the title since i don't have the book on me, but i used Joseph Vogel's earth song book as well

And that concludes my History thread! Thanks so much for the support and feel free to follow this account for more, and my main, @cosmicsolara
i also did a thread over Invincible, stay tuned for a post-invincible thread as well

https://twitter.com/MichaelStems/status/1242580938011348994?s=20