What’s the story alleging an impostor sang Michael Jackson’s parts on a 2010 album?
It’s been a while since we’ve had a major conspiracy set in the music industry, but there is one that has been smouldering for a couple of years.
Back in 2014, Vera Serova, a huge Michael Jackson fan, brought a class action lawsuit against Sony Music, the Jackson, estate and a dude named Eddie Cascio, who worked with MJ before he died. Serova contends that Cascio–with the knowledge of MJ’s family and the record label–created some fake Michael Jackson songs which were then passed off as the real thing on the 2010 album, Michael.
The suit alleges that the voice heard on three songs, “Breaking News,” “Keep Your Head Up,” and “Monster” (which featured 50 Cent), were actually sung by a Michael Jackson impersonator.
Sony fired back with a countersuit, but a judge threw it out. The case continued.
This week reports emerged that Sony had admitted in court that it was not, in fact, Jackson singing on those songs and that an impersonator was responsible. That was Tuesday (August 21).
Friday (August 24), Sony denied that they had said any such thing at all.
Given that Sony and the Jackson estate have a ten-album/seven-year deal to release Michael Jackson albums–a deal that could be worth a quarter of a billion dollars–anything that calls the authenticity of these recordings into question is a bad thing.
More background at Variety.
