Product Description
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Michael is the first release in nine years of new material by
one of music's most beloved icons whose artistry continues to
touch new generations of fans. The album contains ten tracks,
produced by an esteemed group of producers along with Michael
Jackson. While primarily focused on songs that Michael worked on
recently, there are also earlier compelling tracks.
Review
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For a man who’s now been dead just over a year, Michael Jackson
has been awfully productive lately. This is his sixth posthumous
release since he collapsed and died on June 25 last year, his
body coursing with Propofol and Lorazepam, midway through
rehearsals for the This Is It tour. Yet Michael is notable for
being the first release thus far with any legitimate cl to
containing new, original material. Biographer Ian Halperin
cled that in the March before he died Jackson had recorded
over 100 songs he didn’t want released until after he died. The
first set of new songs, then; but almost certainly not the last.
Not that it’s a given proud perfectionist Jackson would have
wanted many of these songs to have seen the light of day even
when he had expired. New, it should be noted, is a word open for
manipulation when it comes to deceased multibillion-selling
artists. y closer Too Much Too Soon hails from the Thriller
era; Hollywood Tonight, meanwhile, is a scrap of a song dusted
off and tarted up from 2001’s Invincible sessions. If there is a
heaven, and if Tupac, Cobain, Presley et al made it through the
gates, chances are they’re consoling a wincing, visibly
embarrassed Jackson, cursing his inability to bolt the demos
drawer in Neverland’s vaults just that little bit tighter.
Michael is also a release notable for its special guests. 50 Cent
turns up on Monster, a song which is essentially Thriller
stripped of everything that’s brilliant about the tune, while
Jackson and Akon battle it out to be the dominant force on opener
Hold My Hand. Somewhere beneath the Senegalese-American’s "woos"
and "yeahs" there’s a passable Michael Jackson B side, but
anything that’s good about it spends the entirety of the songs
running time battling to break through. Marginally better is the
Lenny Kravitz collaboration (I Can’t Make It) Another Day, thanks
largely to just how energised Jackson sounds. Though the
guitarist does his best to sully matters by noodling all over the
top of it.
Last month Jackson’s mother Katherine cled that many of the
songs on Michael contain vocals that belong to voices that aren’t
her son’s. Record label Sony refute the cls, assembling a team
of former associates – studio engineers and the like – to give
creditability to their defence. But for anyone who feels
passionately about the legacy of Michael Jackson, his mother’s
caution is certainly worth consideration based on the content
here, regardless of the facts.
--James McMahon
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