Quincy Jones On Michael Jackson’s ‘Xscape’: “It’s About Money”

Christina Lee | May 21, 2014 7:59 am

Quincy Jones can talk at length about Michael Jackson. As the producer behind Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad, he has for decades now. (His audio commentary for Thriller‘s 25h anniversary edition is highly recommended.)

For example, Jones recently broke down for CBC how for Thriller, he and Jackson would select less than 10 songs from the hundreds recorded. Then, they picked out the four weakest from that list. The process sounds tedious, though Jones is clearly still proud of the end result.

When asked about Jackson’s posthumous album Xscape, though, Jones was blunt.

“They’re trying to make money,” he said to CBC. “And I understand it. Everybody’s after money. The estate. The lawyers. It’s about money.” When asked whether the music bothered him, he said, “Yeah. But it’s not my business anymore. Ain’t none of our business.”

As Billboard points out, Jones recently filed a $10 million breach-of-contract lawsuit regarding Jackson’s posthumous projects. He says that master recordings he worked on were wrongfully edited and remixed, then released without credit, resulting in lost royalties.

As with most of the MJ proceedings following his death, this could get ugly.

Check out this recent interview for LA Reid‘s take on the album: