Most of the time, when a singer dies, their new material releases screech to a halt. Granted, this isn’t always the case. Look at The Beatles and their song, ‘Real Love‘, it was released in 1996 (which just happens to be the year I graduated high school). John Lennon died in 1980, so it can be safely assumed he wasn’t in a recording studio with the other Beatles hammering out new tunes. Musicians have hours and hours of recordings of songs in various level of completion. It may be a first sing-through, something they’ve worked on but can’t get just right, or something that is nicely polished and they just don’t have room on a current album for the extra track. Releasing songs that have been previously recorded but not released can be a bit of closure for producers that worked with the act, for band mates and ultimately for fans.

Since Michael Jackson’s 2009 death, his estate signed a $250-million deal with Sony, which would oversee the release of 10 albums — both original and reissue collections — over the course of seven years. Adding to his magnitude of accomplishments from beyond, he also landed the No. 1 spot on Forbes’s Top-Earning Dead Celebrities List as his estate brought in more than $275 million in the year after his death.

Epic is announcing ‘XSCAPE‘, and eight song collection that “contemporizes” some unreleased material from Jacko’s archives. The album will drop on May 13 and is executive produced by Epic CEO, L.A. Reid, who was given access to Jackson’s archives by his estate. After curating a list of recordings, he worked with lead producer Timbaland and other producers to “add a fresh, contemporary sound” to them. A deluxe edition will also be produced to include all of the sourced recordings in their original uncontemporized form.

“Michael left behind some musical performances that we take great pride in presenting through the vision of music producers that he either worked directly with or expressed strong desire to work with,” Reid said in the press release. “We are extremely proud and honored to present this music to the world.”

While the final tour Jackson was preparing when he died is something we will never see, he will undoubtedly live on in the hearts of fans, friends and the airwaves.

If you find yourself in the midst of bar trivia games, here are a few fascinating tidbits about the late King of Pop that may come in handy.

1. MJ was a big fan of ‘The Three Stooges’
2. Thriller is the world’s best-selling record of all time with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide
3. Billie Jean was the first video by a black artist to air on MTV
4. He has waxworks in five Madame Tussauds museums across the world. Only Elvis Presley and Madonna have more
5. Speaking of Elvis Presley, Jackson married Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley. After their divorce, Presley was married to actor Nicolas Cage for a short time.

Needless to say, we are super excited about this.