Album Summary

The Ultimate Collection is a box set by American singer and recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 16, 2004, by Epic Records and consists of four audio CDs and one DVD. The album sold 57,000 copies in 2004 alone, and on May 16, 2013, it was certified Platinum as a multi-disk package by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for physical shipments of 200,000 copies in the United States. The DVD marked the first physical release of Live In Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour, initially an HBO concert special in 1992, which was later released as an individual title on July 25, 2005. The set also features a 60-page booklet that contains photos and text by the American music critic Nelson George summarizing the artist's career.

Much of the music is drawn from the height of Jackson's career, particularly from the studio albums released by Epic: Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I, and Invincible, plus the remix album Blood On The Dance Floor: HIStory In The Mix.

Notable tracks on the box set include the first release of the demos of songs such as P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground), Cheater and the original demo of We Are The World featuring Jackson as a soloist. The set also contains eight unreleased songs, including In The Back, Beautiful Girl, The Way You Love Me and We've Had Enough.

The song The Way You Love Me was remixed for the posthumous album Michael with the title (I Like) The Way You Love Me, and was released as a single on July 8, 2011.

The previously unreleased content from this box set was later included in an iTunes-only collection similarly titled The Ultimate Fan Extras Collection in 2013.

The Ultimate Collection box set also contains songs previously out of print:

• Enjoy Yourself is 15 seconds longer than the original album version.

• The full version of You Can't Win was originally only available on its 12-inch single.

• Sunset Driver was originally recorded in 1979 and 1982 (the 1979 version remains unreleased), but was left off the Thriller album. The demo version can be found on Thriller 40.

• Someone In The Dark was recorded in 1982 and first released as a two-part song on the E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial LP audiobook, and later included in a shorter version in the 2001 Special Edition of Thriller.

• Both the early version of Dangerous and Monkey Business were recorded in 1989 and were previously available only on the rare 2001 Special Edition acetate of the Dangerous album, which was ultimately cancelled.

• Someone Put Your Hand Out was originally recorded in 1987 and re-recorded in 1991. The song was released as a Pepsi-supported cassette single in Europe to promote the Dangerous World Tour.

• On The Line was recorded in 1996 and featured on the Get On The Bus movie released the same year. It was also part of the Ghosts boxset released in 1997, but containing an earlier fade out.

• You Are Not Alone is 15 seconds longer than the album version, featuring more vocals.

• We Are Here To Change The World is a previously unreleased song recorded in 1985 and used in the Disney World short film Captain EO.

• Scared Of The Moon was recorded in 1984 in the pre-Bad sessions.

• Michael recorded a demo of We Are The World in 1984 with his vocals only.

• Cheater was recorded in 1987 during the Bad sessions and reworked in 2001. The 2001 rework remains unreleased.

• Fall Again was recorded in 1999 during the early Invincible sessions.

• In The Back was recorded between 1994 and 2004 in the Invincible sessions.

• Beautiful Girl was recorded in 1998 and 2004 in the Invincible sessions.

• (I Like) The Way You Love Me was recorded between 1998 and 1999 during the Invincible sessions. A reworked version was released on Michael.

• We've Had Enough was recorded between 1999 and 2000 during the Invincible sessions.