1996 was not a good time to be Michael Jackson. The child abuse allegations against Jackson, and the general tabloid-driven chaos that surrounded him, had come to eclipse his music completely. Jackson’s 1995 album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I had been a commercial disappointment. In 1996, Jackson divorced Lisa Marie Presley. Jarvis Cocker mooned him at the Brit Awards. And Disney evidently rejected his offer to record songs for the Hunchback Of Notre Dame soundtrack.