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"You Rock My World"

Date range confirmed in Mike Smallcombe’s “Making Michael” (“Michael spent most of May 1999 recording at both Sony Music Studios and the Hit Factory… The very first demo that was played to Michael was called ‘You Rock My World’...Work on the album ground to a halt in early June, when preparations began for two benefit concerts Michael was performing in South Korea and Germany later in the month.”)

Bruce Swedien, audio engineer, Monster Cable interview (June 11, 2001) (mirror) (archived mirror)

Monster Cable: Since "You Rock My World" is the first single, is it fair to say it is representative of the album overall?

Bruce Swedien: "You Rock My World" made itself known over a year ago. We knew that it was going to be a cornerstone of the album and it set the mood and the feel for the rest of the music. If we would work on a piece of music, or somebody would bring something to us; if it didn't live up to that standard, then forget it. In fact, we recorded a ton of stuff that we didn't use. A lot of times a real good piece of music will never get on the album, only because it just doesn't fit. You know Michael loves drama. If the music doesn't have drama, if it's just a derivative of a piece of music without drama, Michael's not going to go for it. There is a lot of drama on this album, though.

Mike Smallcombe, “Making Michael”

The very first demo that was played to Michael was called ‘You Rock My World’. After hearing the track, Michael asked who was doing the melodies. “It was me,” recalls LaShawn Daniels, “and he [Michael] says, ‘Shawn can you sing the melodies in my ear?’ And I’m like, ‘Are you serious dude?’ He‘s like, ‘Yeah just sing it in my ear.’ I go right next to him and I gotta pull towards his ear and I start singing. Then he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ‘No. Let’s change this part.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, my god!’ I couldn’t even continue and I had to stop. I said, ‘Mike, listen, I appreciate you being so cool, but you can’t be this cool with me because I don’t really know how to take it. I don’t even know what to do right now. And I can’t concentrate on the melodies because I’m singing to Michael Jackson.’ And he burst out laughing and just made us comfortable.”...

Songs [Bruce Swedien and Stuart Brawley] started mixing in the first couple of weeks at Marvin’s Room include ‘Break of Dawn’ and two Rodney Jerkins tracks, ‘You Rock My World’ and ‘Privacy’, the latter of which is another attack on the media. Swedien said the team knew ‘You Rock My World’ was going to be an album cornerstone. “It set the mood and the feel for the rest of the music,” he said.