by Joseph Vogel
On September 16, Jackson announced his intention to raise $50 million for those affected by the 9/11 attacks. Like “We Are the World,” that effort would include a vehicle song to raise funds. “I want the whole world to sing it,” he said, “to bring us together as a world, because a song is a mantra, something you repeat over and over. And we need peace, we need giving, we need love, we need unity.”
The song Jackson chose was called “What More Can I Give.” It was born out of a track he had started back in the early ’90s in response to the Los Angeles riots. It was renamed and completed in 1999 after a conversation with South African president Nelson Mandela. “We discussed the concept of giving,” Jackson said, “and the words, ‘what more can I give’ kept coming into my mind.”
In the days after September 11, Jackson felt it would be the perfect anthem for the moment and began reaching out to his peers. “I believe in my heart that the music community will come together as one and rally to the aid of thousands of innocent victims,” said Jackson in a statement. “There is a tremendous need for relief dollars right now and through this effort each one of us can play an immediate role in helping comfort so many people. We have demonstrated time and again that music can touch souls. It is time we used that power to help us begin the process of healing immediately.”
Fellow artists responded to the call. Within days, dozens of major singers were onboard, including Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Céline Dion, Usher, Mary J. Blige, Luther Vandross, Tom Petty, Santana, Jennifer Lopez, and members of *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. Not only did they participate in the song, but many also performed at a benefit concert Jackson helped put together called “United We Stand: What More Can I Give” held at RFK Memorial Stadium in Washington, DC.
Unfortunately, Jackson’s song never saw the light of day in 2001. The reasons were as petty as they were muddled. In part, it had to do with the media discovering that the producer of the song, Marc Schaffel, had a background in making pornographic videos. Apparently, this put off McDonald’s, which was supposed to distribute the charity song at its restaurants, and the chain pulled out. There were also rumors that Sony killed the song over fears that it would compete with Jackson’s upcoming album.
“What More Can I Give,” then, became a casualty of a complicated web of backroom maneuvering. It also foreshadowed the fraught path that lay ahead for Michael Jackson, even for something as seemingly straightforward as a charity single.
THE DIGITAL ERA
Fear also seeped into the music industry as record labels and artists alike scrambled to adapt to tectonic changes in how music was discovered, listened to, and distributed.
Internet file sharing represented a kind of midway point between recording songs on a blank cassette tape or CD and streaming. For many in the music industry, it posed an existential threat. If listeners were simply able to share songs for free online, why would anyone go to a store and pay money for a CD?
The insurgent company at the center of this crisis was Napster. Launched in 1999 by two teenage developers, Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, Napster’s rise was stratospheric. Almost overnight, high school and college students across the country were elated to discover that just about every song they could imagine—from new hits to obscure demos—was available online. For music fans, it seemed too good to be true.
Almost immediately, Napster found itself entangled in a legal battle with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) over copyright infringement, as well as with many songwriters. Parker and Fanning defended their company by arguing that since they were not profiting from the music and users were not exchanging it commercially, it was essentially like friends exchanging CDs. As it battled legal action, Napster generated twenty-five million users in less than a year, becoming the fastest-growing website in history. By 2001, in spite of legal challenges, its popularity peaked at a staggering thirty-eight million users. But eventually, in July 2001, Napster was forced to shut down.
By then, however, the file-sharing genie was out of the bottle. Many music fans described it as a revolution in which the music was being liberated from an obsolete corporate system. Industry executives—and many artists—weren’t as jubilant. This was their livelihood, they said. File sharing was akin to stealing.
Music sales had already been on the decline in the late ’90s. Now, even though enthusiasm for music seemed to be as strong as ever, the bottom line continued to drop. CD sales went from 730 million in 2000 to 593 million in 2005. In the United States, meanwhile, total revenue for music sales and licensing fell almost 60 percent from 2000 to 2010, from $14.6 billion to $6.3 billion.
Meanwhile, record stores slowly but surely began to disappear. What to do about all this became the defining issue of the decade for a disoriented music industry. “The Internet,” wrote Rolling Stone, “appears to be the most consequential technological shift for the business of selling music since the 1920s, when phonograph records replaced sheet music as the industry’s profit center.”
Potential solutions divided executives, artists, and listeners alike. Some prominent musicians, including Metallica and Dr. Dre, were quick to denounce file sharing, calling it destructive and dishonest (both filed lawsuits against Napster). Others, including Radiohead and Chuck D, felt it generated enthusiasm for music, particularly for new or lesser-known artists.
But the transformation was undeniable and unstoppable. By 2010, music distribution and consumption had been fundamentally altered. It was the dawn of iPods, streaming, and digital music. By the end of the decade, more music was being purchased digitally than physically.
POP REVIVAL
The music scene in the late ’90s, meanwhile, was experiencing something of a pop revival—especially teen-oriented pop. The New York Times described it as “a general return—post-grunge, post-gangsta—to peppy, happy-faced pop songs: a reaction to too much self-importantly gloomy music.”
Not that rock and hip-hop were dead: groups like Radiohead and Pearl Jam could still pack stadiums and sell records, while rapper Eminem became the bestselling artist of the 2000s. But even hip-hop was moving more toward pop with artists like Puff Daddy, Will Smith, and Nelly leaving behind the grittiness of gangsta rap and finding huge success on radio and MTV.
The pop insurgence started with teen groups like Hanson and the Spice Girls. The Spice Girls, in particular, took the world by storm with their hit song “Wannabe” and its unabashedly upbeat pop feminism. Then came the Backstreet Boys, who became the most successful boy band since the Jackson 5, producing fourteen Top 40 hits and selling more than 130 million albums in just a few short years. Their 1999 album, Millennium, sold a staggering eleven million copies in the United States in its first year alone, spawning hit singles like “I Want It That Way” and “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely.”
Following closely behind was *NSYNC. Their breakthrough came in 2000 with the release of No Strings Attached. Propelled by the lead single, “Bye Bye Bye,” the album racked up an unprecedented $2.4 million in sales in its opening week, the most in music history. No Strings Attached became the bestselling album of the decade, launching Justin Timberlake to stardom.
The late ’90s also ushered in a host of new female pop stars. At just eighteen, Britney Spears became one of the biggest forces in the industry. Her debut album,…Baby One More Time, dropped in 1999 and became a radio and MTV sensation. It went on to sell more than twenty-five million copies, and the title track became the most popular single of the year. Christina Aguilera, likewise, dominated the airwaves with hit singles like “Genie in a Bottle,” “What a Girl Wants,” and “Come on Over (All I Want Is You).”
A number of other boy bands, girl groups, and teen icons emerged in this period, including 98 Degrees, Usher, Brandy, Monica, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, and Destiny’s Child (which eventually launched the solo career of Beyoncé).
The
turn of the twenty-first century also saw the Latin Explosion—a boom of Latin crossover artists who met unprecedented commercial success. After his hit single and sizzling music video, “Living La Vida Loca,” Ricky Martin elicited comparisons to Elvis Presley. Artists like Enrique Iglesias, Marc Anthony, and Jennifer Lopez also became stars. Meanwhile, Santana’s landmark 1999 album, Supernatural, featuring the smash hit “Smooth” with Rob Thomas, stayed at the top of the charts for twelve weeks and earned eight Grammy Awards, more than any album since Thriller.
TAKE IT A STEP FORWARD
Michael Jackson’s reentry into this diverse new musical landscape was difficult to predict. On the one hand, many aspects of the pop revival were a tribute to his work: his dance moves, his vocal style, and his sound were all over the new scene. The emerging generation of pop icons—including Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Usher, and Beyoncé—practically worshipped him. When Jackson made a surprise appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards during *NSYNC’s performance of “Pop,” the group seemed so awed and overwhelmed that their only reaction was to freeze.
By the beginning of the new millennium, there was a sense that America was finally ready to give Jackson a chance for a major comeback.
In a 1999 front-page feature for TV Guide, he was asked who he believed his audience was now, twenty years after his solo career had begun. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I just try to write wonderful music, and if they love it, they love it. I don’t think about any demographic. The record company tries to get me to think that way, but I just do what I would enjoy hearing.” Asked if he thought people would finally be able to forget the sensationalism and focus on his music, Jackson was realistic: “I don’t think so ’cause the press has made me out to be this monster, this crazy person who’s bizarre and weird. I’m nothing like that.” “Is there anything you can do to change that impression?” Jackson was asked. “Well, all I can do is be myself,” he responded, “and create from my soul. But they take that and manipulate it.”
Still, Jackson was excited about the future. “I think the best work is coming,” he said, “but I would like to go into other areas, not keep doing album after pop album.” Among his many plans was to finally break into film—both in front of and behind the camera. While he had continued to make groundbreaking music videos, his last involvement in a full-length feature film was The Wiz back in 1978. After a series of bad breaks—including a planned Peter Pan movie with Steven Spielberg that fell through in the ’80s and a Sony-backed film called Midknight (directed by Batman set designer Anton Furst) that failed to materialize in the early ’90s—he was finally scheduled to play the lead role in a new film called The Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe. He was also interested in doing an album of classical music and a children’s book. “I think it’s going to be totally different than what I did before,” he predicted. “The idea is to take it a step forward and to innovate or else why am I doing it? I don’t wanna be just another can in the assembly line.”
FAMILY LIFE
In 1998, Michael Jackson turned forty. The ’90s had been a turbulent decade for him personally and professionally. In January 1996, after just twenty months together, he and Lisa Marie Presley divorced. Having lived most of his life alone, Jackson wasn’t used to the commitments and compromises of marriage. Moreover, by the mid-1990s his life and career had become enormously complicated. As Presley later explained it, she asked him to choose between her and the “vultures” and “sycophants” who surrounded him. “I was so angry [at the time],” she reflected, “because I felt that we had such…we were so united. Then at some point he pushed me out.”
Soon after, Jackson married his longtime nurse, Debbie Rowe. Jackson first met Rowe in the late ’80s while making visits to his dermatologist, Arnold Klein. The two became good friends—such good friends that Rowe made Jackson an unusual offer: knowing how much he wanted to be a father, she offered to have his child via surrogacy. In interviews, she described it as a “gift.” She believed Jackson would be an amazing father and she wanted to help make that happen.
Originally, marriage never entered into the discussions. But, ultimately, Jackson decided it would be the right thing to do. Soon after, Jackson and Rowe took the plunge. The couple were married on November 14, 1996, in a private ceremony in Australia. Less than four months later, on February 13, 1997, Jackson’s first son, Prince Michael, was born. Jackson called it the best day of his life. “Words can’t describe how I feel,” he said in a written statement. “I have been blessed beyond comprehension and I will work tirelessly at being the best father that I can possibly be. I appreciate that my fans are elated, but I hope that everyone respects the privacy that Debbie and I want and need for our son. I grew up in a fish bowl and will not allow that to happen to my child. Please respect our wishes and give my son his privacy.”
On April 3, 1998, Jackson and Rowe announced the birth of another child, this time a girl. They named her Paris Michael Katherine. Michael adored her. They developed a lifelong bond. Indeed, when Michael died in 2009, it was eleven-year-old Paris who bravely insisted on saying something at her father’s memorial in front of more than a billion people, watching on television and online. “I just want to say, ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you can ever imagine, and I just wanted to say I love him so much,” she said in tears.
Rowe and Jackson divorced amicably in 1999, with Jackson retaining full custody of the children. Jackson’s youngest child, Prince Michael II (nicknamed “Blanket”), was born a few years later, by surrogacy, on February 21, 2002.
More than anything, Jackson wanted to give his children the “normal” childhood he never had. He wanted them to have privacy (thus the masks they wore in public to protect their identity); he wanted them to be educated (they were privately tutored); and he wanted them to feel loved. By their own accounts, he succeeded. In interviews, they speak of a father who could not be more different than the “freak” portrayed in the media: he taught them, they say, to be polite, respectful, and grateful; he introduced them to music and movies and art; he showed them different countries and cultures; he talked to them and read to them. “Nobody but my brothers and I experienced him reading A Light in the Attic to us at night before we went to bed,” said Paris in a 2017 interview. “Nobody experienced him being a father to them. And if they did, the entire perception of him would be completely and forever changed.”
While they were not a traditional family, they were a family—and that’s all that mattered to Michael. With Prince, Paris, and Blanket, he finally had something beyond his music that he felt he could give himself to completely and unconditionally.
BREAK OF DAWN
The buzz in 1999 was that a new Michael Jackson album was imminent. Rumors had been leaking in tantalizing pieces. That year Jackson divulged one of the tracks he expected to be on the new album, “a millennium song about the world and the environment” he had cowritten with David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager, called “I Have This Dream.” Sager described it as “a song to take us into the new millennium with hope.” She said Jackson seemed to have a greater sense of peace and purpose (most likely due to his children), and the song reflected this. “It’s the most amazing track I have ever heard—it is a timeless classic that is just way too uplifting. No one will believe this record.”
The list of rumored collaborators for the album, meanwhile, was as long as it was intriguing: Puff Daddy, Will Smith, Jay-Z, Wyclef Jean, Brandy, Jodeci, Sisqo, R. Kelly, Lenny Kravitz, Babyface, Justin Timberlake. Jackson had indeed worked with several of these artists for the new album. In 1999, he met up with Lenny Kravitz at the legendary Marvin’s Room Studio (named after Marvin Gaye) to record a soaring cosmic rock song called “Another Day.” According to Kravitz, it was just the two of them in the studio. “It was one of the most amazing musical experiences I’ve ever had. It was done by two people who respect each other and love music. That w
as it.”
Jackson also worked with Babyface for the third album in a row, cutting a handful of new tracks, including “Angel” and “Do You Love Me.” Neither would make the final track list for Invincible, although another Babyface-penned track brought in at the last minute in 2001, “You Are My Life,” did.
Yet most of the work Jackson had done to this point was with a small circle of lower-profile figures. Throughout 1998 and 1999, Jackson developed more than a dozen songs with longtime friend and musician Brad Buxer, sometimes at Neverland and sometimes at Record One or Record Plant in Los Angeles. Among them were gems like “Beautiful Girl,” “The Way You Love Me,” “Monster,” “Hollywood Tonight,” “The Lost Children,” and “Speechless” (only the latter two would ultimately make it onto Invincible).
For “Hollywood Tonight,” Jackson scribbled the lyrics on stationery from the Beverly Hills Hotel before recording it. According to Buxer, Jackson dictated nearly all the parts of the song to him by phone—two layered bass lines, the opening Gregorian chant, the “westbound, Greyhound” harmonies, the operatic bridge, and the whistling in the outro—before they recorded the actual demo at Record Plant.
Other songs materialized in a similar way. In a recorded phone message regarding “The Way You Love Me,” Jackson sings the throwback doo-wop melody and beatboxes the drums. “We worked beautifully together,” recalled Buxer. “Michael was no-nonsense. If you were there, you were there to work. He’d say, ‘If you don’t sweat, there’s nothing.’ What was most important was the craft, the art. It was an extremely pleasant, fun time for me….You knew at the end of the day you would have something. It never got old, it never got stale.”