The Jacksons have picked seven songs for their first new album in a decade and are heading into a California studio to record them, according to their label Modern Records. The album, which will include Marlon, Tito, Jermaine, Jackie and Randy Jackson, is expected to be released in the summer of 2000, and a tour is possible afterwards, label publicist Johan Grandin said.

Grandin was not certain if Michael Jackson would contribute to the album. "That's the million dollar question," he said. "Michael has a contract with Sony, so we can't ask him to be on the record. But he has made several public statements that he'll be on it, most recently in TV Guide a few weeks ago."

The group is still considering producers, musicians and additional songwriters. Rather than trying to capitalize on the fusion of soul, R&B and hip-hop found in the current pop landscape, the brothers are aiming for an album that will most likely pay deference to the funky soul music which the group took in new directions through the '70s.

Some of the early Jackson 5 material on Motown was formulaic, but when the group was on Epic Records, it developed what Rolling Stone album reviewer Mark Coleman called "a glossy, yet progressive pop-soul sound" that "plowed right through the '70s rock-disco barricade."

On the new album, "they'll do what they do best," Grandin said. "They don't want to reinvent the wheel. Their type of music has come back in vogue. There are a lot of remakes of '70s music in Europe right now."

For that reason, the label will target the release for London and Europe in addition to the U.S. Asia and South America are also considered strong markets for the group.

"They're one of the few bands you can market all over the world," Grandin said. "They sell way more outside the U.S., but I hope I'll be proven wrong on that."

The Jacksons signed a two-record deal with publicly-held Modern Records in March, 1999. Randy bought a controlling interest in the label in 1997 and is chairman and CEO of the company, which was started by Stevie Nicks and others as a private firm in 1980.