Details On Two New Albums Michael Jackson Was Working On

Posted by Ashish on 07.03.2009

One of the two was a "instrumental" album of classical music...

Michael Jackson was working on two new albums before he died last week. One was to be a traditional pop album like the rest of his solo work, but the other was to be an instrumental classical album with no words.

Jackson was working on the pop album with songwriter Claude Kelly and Akon. Akon said after Jackson's death that Jackson was motivated by his fans, his kids, and the music. Akon said that Jackson wanted to perform the new material for his kids who had not seen him perform live.

"His kids are like his first priority, and they had never seen him perform live. He was trying to create the most incredible show for his kids," Akon said.

As for the second album, Jackson was working on it with composer David Michael Frank who said that he met with Jackson roughly two months ago and that is when Jackson told him that he wanted to do a classical album and needed help with the orchestration.

"He had two demos of two pieces he'd written, but they weren't complete," says Frank, who adds that he was impressed with Jackson's knowledge of classical music. "For one of them, he had a whole section of it done in his head. He had not recorded it. He hummed it to me as I sat at the keyboard in his pool house and we figured out the chords—I guess this recording I made is the only copy that exists of this music."

Frank added that Jackson had just called him a few weeks ago about the project.

"He mentioned more instrumental music of his he wanted to record, including one jazz piece," Frank says. "I hope one day his family will decide to record this music as a tribute and show the world the depth of his artistry."

Both Akon and Frank said that Jackson seemed totally healthy to them.

Akon: "He would always tell me to eat right and ask me if I was exercising and drinking water. He'd always stress you had to take care of yourself before you can go off and do anything else."

Frank: "He seemed totally healthy, not frail, and gave me a firm handshake when we met. He seemed in good health, had a good voice and was in good spirits. He was very skinny, but from what I knew, he was always thin. He was also taller than I pictured, but he might have been wearing some platform shoes. And he was impeccably dressed."

Credit: Billboard.com