Michael Jackson
Invincible

THE REVIEW

The brand "Michael Jackson" has unfortunately become synonymous with "pedophilia," "bleached skin," "psychopath." Just mention his name to trigger negative reactions from the public, which is such a pity! I believe there should be a distinction between his private life and artistic life, but it seems the latter has been forgotten by a large part of the population, not only due to the countless gossip stories of the tabloid press but also because of a lack of creativity from the artist (subjected to continuous psychological stress and victim of a corrupt system in the record industry). What happened to Michael Jackson?

Invincible is his last album (2001), a collection of new songs after 10 years from his underrated masterpiece Dangerous. 10 years of waiting and an epic production cost (the most expensive album in history!), fans in delirium, press and media ready to assault the new work of the "monster," so many years of waiting and so much hope to hear a new masterpiece album... But unfortunately, something has changed! And not for the better.

Invincible is a ReB album that divides itself between classicism and technology, a journey that aims to explore Michael Jackson's world by retracing his origins (a brilliant performer of melodic and rhythmic ballads who changed the history of pop forever) and his current state (an artist capable of adapting to modern times using contemporary means to appeal to the new generation, with electronic and futuristic songs), but this experiment unfortunately only half-succeeded! The feeling you get listening to this album is like being in a Ferrari Testarossa that just can't start; there's technology, millions of dollars, countless special guests (including Carlos Santana in the beautiful and Latin-flavored "Whatever Happens" and the late Notorious B.I.G. sampled in "Unbreakable") but he's missing... Michael Jackson is missing!! We are faced with a skilled interpreter but nothing more, the charisma, style, and emotions he could convey with previous albums, his screams, his genius flair, are gone! What can be perceived during the listening is only "methodology," as if Jackson was forced to make this album (a plausible hypothesis for many). The primary aim (which failed) of this record is to appeal to the new generation, starting with three rhythmic songs conceived for dance floors, ranging from futuristic ReB to pure electronic. The three songs are "Unbreakable," "Heartbreaker," "Invincible," which manage to engage the listener but not for long; the synthetic rhythms and rather slow execution speed become boring in the long run. The best of the three is undoubtedly "Unbreakable" (classic piano, marked percussion, Michael's stunning voice, and a splendid choral finale), but six minutes and twenty-five seconds are too long, and this is precisely one of the main flaws of the album, too many songs and too long (sixteen songs of almost 5/6 minutes each!!!). If Michael Jackson disappoints a lot in the futuristic field (remember that the songs from the Dangerous album were considered 15 years ahead of their time and still today the sounds of the album are sampled to create current music!), he always manages to convey emotions in his ballads. "Break of Dawn" is the first ballad of the album, a great song suitable for making love, sung divinely but slightly monotonous toward the end, "Heaven Can Wait" passes almost unnoticed and below average, "You Rock My World" was the single that brought Michael Jackson's name back to the forefront (number one single in Great Britain and fourth in Italy), a song not up to par with the artist but manages to fairly recall his vocal and musical origins, the only success among the 16 songs!. "2000 Watt," "Threatened" and "Privacy" are songs to fill the clubs (especially the former two, while the third is a protest rock against the tabloid press), they are danced at first, but as usual after ten listens interest already drops. I think the main defects of this album are largely due to Michael's collaborators, the days of the brilliant Quincy Jones are a distant memory, this record was produced by Rodney Jerkins who worked with Britney Spears and Destiny's Child, and the songs were composed by three people!! Absurd things for an album by the greatest pop artist of the century! The Michael composer is missing. Nevertheless, the album offers a couple of gems entirely written by Michael Jackson, the masterpiece "Speechless" (one of the highest moments of his career, introduction and finale a cappella, it was compared to "Imagine" by John Lennon) and the very sad but beautiful "The Lost Children," but two songs are not enough to uplift an album in my opinion too mechanical and soulless, Michael chose the wrong collaborators.

This album was considered a FLOP! A flop of 10 million copies!!! This just goes to show that the name Michael Jackson is still big, 10 million copies are sold by a successful group at the end of their career, but for Michael Jackson, it's a flop!! Fans (and Michael himself) claim that Sony boycotted the album due to financial issues. Sony wanted to gain control of the billionaire copyright catalog of The Beatles, owned by Michael, but he refused to renew his contract and President Tommy Mottola decided to withdraw the promotion of Invincible... it was war!. Others, however, claim that the failure of the album is solely due to the poor quality of the product. The truth will never be known, the only thing known is that this album lacks "soul," but it is still a quality album, its author is now a victim of a system leading him to self-destruction (which, of course, he has also sought himself) increasingly sidelining the artist (relying mainly on the wrong people). What saddens me is that today's generation could not experience the true power of this music genius, and they are now "Convinced" that Jackson is anything but something good. I don't know if this media phenomenon will one day manage to reassert itself as a great music artist to the new generation, but for the sake of record, it's right to remember what Michael Jackson represented for the world of music from the '70s to the mid-'90s. The greatest pop star on the planet, and without exaggeration, the most famous pop/rock artist of all time. With the hope of a return to the limelight, all we have left is to play yet again that masterpiece of "Off The Wall/Thriller/Bad/Dangerous" on our CD player and keep dreaming.