"When we went into the studio, the idea was that he was going to sing it first and then Janet would go in and sing after him. So Janet's sitting there, me and Terry are sitting there, and Michael goes in. Before he sings, he's just real calm and quiet, 'Can you turn my headphones up a little bit?' Then all of a sudden the music comes on and he starts dancing around the room, hitting all his signature moves. And he's like, wearing a breacelet or something while clapping – you're not really supposed to do that when you're on the mic, but it didn't even matter. When it was over, I swear to God, it was just silence in the room. He said, 'How was that?' We're like, 'Yeah, that sounded really good.' And I turned and looked at Janet and she said to me, 'I'll just do my vocal in Minneapolis.' It was like, 'I'm not going to do my vocal right now.' Obviously he just killed it, right?

 

So we go to Minneapolis with Janet, where she does a great job on her vocal. We send it to Michael, he goes, 'Wow, Janet sounds great. Where did she record that vocal?' I said it was in Minneapolis. 'I'm coming to Minneapolis.' So Michael comes to Minneapolis to re-record his vocal, and it was a real glimpse into his competitive nature. It didn't even matter that it was his sister. It was just like, 'No. I have to redo it. She did hers, I have to redo mine.' It was just crazy, his competitiveness even with his own sister. But it was that drive for perfection. And the original vocal he did in New York ended up being probably 90 percent of the vocal on the final song."

~ Jimmy Jam (om inspelningen av "Scream")