Michael Jackson's posthumous eponymous album 'Michael' has leaked

Anyone heard it yet? Is it as horrible and ballad-soaked as we all expected?

50 Cent's on it, for what that's worth.

Oh christ.

lol

This is not a very good album.

shocked and surprised am i

Even the highlights sound like they're 15 years too late, e.g. Breaking News is an inferior version of Tabloid Junkie (which is an inferior version of Leave Me Alone (which is an inferior version of etc etc)). Sloppy production in places, too, which you just wouldn't get with MJJ, even in his dud years.

Best thing I can say about is that fewer than half the tracks are crappy ballads.

I'm still staggered that MJ can engender a multimegaprice contract for 'stuff that's already issued and compiled within a mile of it's life', along with "a bunch of half-finished tracks that can be added to each successive compilation" to "gradually reducing sales"...

I know, Elvis is still an industry. And there'd a million MJ impersonators....

Still, it's not the same.

it really is says capitalism

Album does improve greatly if you add ', Macaulay Culkin' to the end of every song title.

What I have heard is better than the last album he made when he was alive at least. But that is probably largely because I like better the way R&B influenced pop music sounds in 2010 than they way R&B influenced pop music sounded in 2001.

1. "Hold My Hand', Macaulay Culkin" (featuring Akon) Aliaune Thiam, Giorgio Tuinfort, Claude Kelly [39] 3:32
2. "Hollywood Tonight', Macaulay Culkin" Michael Jackson, Brad Buxer 4:30
3. "Keep Your Head Up', Macaulay Culkin" Michael Jackson, Eddie Cascio, James Porte 4:50
4. "(I Like) The Way You Love Me', Macaulay Culkin" Michael Jackson 4:33
5. "Monster', Macaulay Culkin" (featuring 50 Cent) Michael Jackson, Eddie Cascio, James Porte, Curtis Jackson 5:05
6. "Best of Joy', Macaulay Culkin" Michael Jackson 3:02
7. "Breaking News', Macaulay Culkin" Michael Jackson, Eddie Cascio, James Porte 4:14
8. "(I Can't Make It) Another Day', Macaulay Culkin" (featuring Lenny Kravitz) Lenny Kravitz 3:55
9. "Behind the Mask', Macaulay Culkin" Michael Jackson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Chris Mosdell 5:01
10. "Much Too Soon', Macaulay Culkin" Michael Jackson 2:51

trutru

Are you sure it's Macaulay Culkin, his voice broke, didn't it?
I reckon it's Omer Bhatti, the young Norwegian Jackson imitator that some loonies in the American press claim is his secret son. :)

50 Cent's on it, for what that's worth.

― altered boners (rennavate), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:28 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Within three weeks of the DVD release of Fiffy's film opus Gun. Fiffy got John Larroquette to play the villain, how can you go wrong!?
The movie looks like the sequel to 3000 Miles To Graceland that nobody asked for.

If nothing else I really do want to hear his take on "Behind the Mask". As far as I know that was originally going to be on Thriller but got cut for some reason...Eric Clapton of all people wound up doing a cover with the new lyrics...was pretty bad but I feel like MJ could really do a good job with it...anyone?

Music Week says it's largely based around sample of Behind The Mask with new lyrics written by MJ, and is supposeldy the best track on the record.

It's one of the better songs, and certainly one of the more interesting.

I keep listening to this. I don't yet know whether it's because (a) it's hilarious, (b) it's fascinating, (c) it's a train wreck or (d) I actually like it in some perverse way.

The songs are in no way his best or even his '90s best. It feels rather like he wrote and recorded most of them well after his fame had diminished and he wasn't really that talented anymore oh wait.

Slightly embarrassed to admit that (d) is correct.

Probably the biggest thing wrong with this album (apart from all the obvious things) is that it opens with a really quite dreadful R&B number that Jackson hardly features on and didn't even write. It doesn't sound at all like a Michael Jackson song, and consequently it puts one hell of a dampener on your attitude toward anything else the record might deliver.

All the other songs do sound like Jackson, though, and that's what makes it so compelling.

I think at least 95% of the vocal work that purports to be his actually is. There are moments when the processing is weird/severe enough that you're left wondering, especially 'Best of Joy' which sounds too youthful and high-pitched to have come from a 49yo, and much of 'Hollywood Tonight' which could well just be his untreated old-man voice.

'Hollywood Tonight' is orrite and 'Monster' is quite good, but '(I Can't Make it) Another Day' and 'Behind the Mask' are a genuinely successful one-two punch that make this whole cynical project worth hearing.

So ultimately it would sound legitimately like a MJJ album if (a) the lead track were set on fire and buried on some other planet and (b) all the cringeworthy ballads were shoved up the arse end of the record as per common practice with his '80s/'90s repertoire.

track 7 (breaking news) really sounds like an MJ impersonator...is his voice being treated??

Probably the biggest thing wrong with this album (apart from all the obvious things)

I haven't heard this yet, so this is an honest question, what are the "obvious things"?

frogbs: I dunno. I reckon the verses sound pretty much how he would sound at the age he was when he recorded it. The 'hee-hee-hee' bits are the moments that stand out for me (is that what you're talking about?), but there's so much vocal overdubbing in those choruses that it's feasible he didn't lay it all down before he died. I read somewhere that Teddy Riley has spoken about how much he had to treat Jackson's voice for this song. It's hard to know. Beyond all that it sounds exactly like the sort of thing Jackson would have written, but he never wrote this stuff alone anyway so who knows.

jvc: I meant the fact that it was slapped together by various ring-ins after the bloke died, their cynical reasons for doing this album at all, Jackson probably not wanting any of it to be released etc etc.

Please excuse the crap sentences, I just woke up.

MJ sounds like more of a real presence on this album than Britney did on Blackout. But it's still not very good, sounds like a load of Dangerous outtakes, unsurprisingly. (I Like) The Way You Love Me is genuinely good though.

I wonder how many of the 60-odd remaining songs are also Dangerous outtakes.

Behind The Mask is properly good! Not surprised to find out it's several decades old.

Almanac - I've listened to it a few more times and I think I'm starting to come around. I think it's really easy to be cynical about this sort of thing given the way it's assembled. I would actually applaud the effort if there were not 9 more albums like this on the way. I would imagine if they could find a good MJ impersonator he could be worth a millions dollars because the real MJ isn't going to say shit anymore. Given the way Sony has handled everything I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

I've had "Behind the Mask" on repeat for a while. The sax solo is totally out of place but the song itself is really damn good. Could have been on Thriller, better than most of the stuff on Bad.

Hate that sax solo for marring what is far and away the best song on the record.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/files.posterous.com/jamesfurey/Cr7dLdefhpkEGKX3oEyWcK74jkn2yS5AKA4nslLmxGnCGyjgpDs6PYwTVIIu/sax.gif?AWSAccessKeyId=1C9REJR1EMRZ83Q7QRG2&Expires=1291901979&Signature=dqiCxlqmHeUkpj0uR3g7ETcjoOI%3D

The sax was probably part of the song, given that sax was in bloody everything in the '80s (didn't Reagan make it compulsory?).

One vocal which really surprised me yesterday was 'Hollywood Tonight'. I had resigned myself to believing it wasn't his voice, but the start of the third verse has a treatment which is very obvious if you're listening through headphones. It's a reminder of just how much effort the producers had to put in just to get these songs sounding polished and complete.

Oh and it's very easy to assume it's not his voice, because Jackson set the precedent himself when he sent in an impersonator for the singing parts of that Simpsons episode. Even in death nobody believes him anymore.

The sax was probably part of the song, given that sax was in bloody everything in the '80s (didn't Reagan make it compulsory?).

Sax and broccoli. :)

I read that as "Sex and broccoli. :)" and thought you'd finally flipped.

Lack of movement itt is fitting imo.

Reviews are rolling in and they're all suitably average so far. allmusic write-up sums it up pretty well.

One thing that's annoying me a bit is the repeated whine about people pissing on Jackson's legacy. It's pretty well known that he owed a lot of people a lot of money, so it's hardly a surprise that his creditors would line up to squeeze every last drop out of everything he left behind (or not, if you believe the conspiracy theories).

Oh and WORLD'S LARGEST POSTER, therefore u+k album release.

http://www.rwdmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Michael_Poster_640.jpg

Haha WAU that's ridiculous.

This album is simultaneously a dispiriting mess and not significantly worse than Invincible.

Yeah, I played Invincible again to see which is worse and Michael is definitely ahead.

'invincible' is underrated imo

Slightly disappointed with the name of this album btw. The last few had set up a loose sequence of increasing defiance: Off the Wall -> Bad -> Dangerous -> Invincible -> Immortal would have been cool, not MICHAEL.

Immortal would have been the right one.

I see Michael as a deliberate attempt to humanise him. You can imagine him saying it in his icky man-boy voice.

X-Post I agree "Immortal" would have been a really great title for this album.

Teddy Riley has seven children: Dante Horne (26), Dejanee (Deja) Riley (22), Nia Riley (21), Taja Riley (18), Tiarra (Bobbie) Riley (16), Lil Teddy (7) and Samar Riley (5).

Good work, weird bloke.

we've polled the "best version of Behind the Mask" a few times:

BEHIND THE MASK POLL (has a nsfw image down thread)
Which is your favourite version of Behind the Mask? (only 2 months ago!)

weird that one of the poll options was by (the awesome imo) "Jichael Mackson"

also weird that when you search ilx for "behind the mask," the 3rd result is an MJ thread that has nothing to do with this totally awesome song: Michael Jackson - just a normal regular guy, hiding behind a mask of insanity?

i feel like this is a weird bermuda triangle of musical forces ILX accidentally tapped into