Michael Jackson
Michael

December 10, 2010, many fans are in excitement for the release of the first posthumous album by Michael Jackson...

The album in question is composed of 10 tracks almost entirely disconnected from each other, and from the first listen, it almost seems like a collection rather than an actual album of unreleased songs. The title used to launch the album is simply MICHAEL... frankly, there wasn't a dire need to listen to a Jackson album after his artistic decline which occurred 9 years earlier in 2001 with INVINCIBLE, but the fact remains that a release like this was predictable and even very obvious.

 Of course, the most devoted fans won't miss such an opportunity and will buy the album immediately. After multiple listens to this "album," many appreciable things are present, and there are several artistic highlights even in this work, albeit in a different manner compared to the chart-toppers launched in the late eighties and nineties, but for this kind of CD, it's just enough!

The album opens with the duet between Michael and Akon already recorded in 2006 but never officially released. Frankly, it's a completely meaningless song without any noteworthy artistic input, and it doesn't even seem that compelling to me. Releasing it as a single, in my modest opinion, seems more like self-harm, and I therefore disagree with Sony's choice (but I'm certainly not the one to change advertising plans). I don't want to list every single track in detail, but instead, I would like to focus on the most successful tracks of the album, which are in order "Hollywood Tonight," "Monster," "Breaking News," "Behind The Mask" and "Much Too Soon." In these 5 tracks, a minimal part of the true Michael Jackson can be seen again. The first 3 tracks I mentioned seem to be extracted from the Dangerous Album of 1991 also because they contain the same beats and electronic elements that characterized that CD, the last 2 are session tracks from Thriller and are also qualitatively superior... but these positive notes absolutely do not justify the entire album that maintains levels of artistic insufficiency (very predictable).

After listening to this work multiple times, I only thought whether Michael Jackson would have released this album if he were still among us. Most probably the answer would have been positive; Jackson had debts practically with many, and a new album accompanied by a grand tour would definitely have lifted the situation, but certainly, the choice of tracks would have been more careful and well thought out, but by now Michael is dead, and these works will most probably fill the shelves for years also because Jackson's archives are absolutely full!!!