A 24-second snippet of the full song was released posthumously by website TMZ.com on July 16, 2009, three weeks after Jackson's death.

[6][7] However, later on it was determined that Jackson died of a drug overdose of propofol and lorazepam and his death was ruled a homicide.

[8] On July 16, 2009, celebrity news website TMZ.com—the first media outlet to report the death—released a 24-second snippet of an unreleased Jackson song, "A Place with No Name".

[2] Prior to the leak of the original version in December 2013, a cover of Jackson's work was posted at YouTube in January 2011, recorded by a mysterious person with a pseudonym "Spino".

[18] Along with its tweet premiere, "A Place with No Name" was also shown on the Sony video screen in Times Square on Wednesday night at 10 p.m.

said "A Place with No Name" "has the same beat and sound as 'Leave Me Alone' from the 'Bad' era and is lyrically weak: we can tell why Jackson left it on the cutting room floor.

"[21] Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley—two members of the three part band—conveyed their gratitude toward Jackson for choosing their song as a musical template for "A Place with No Name".