Michael Jackson: back from the dead By Neil McCormick Music Last updated: November 8th, 2010
![]()
Somehow, it is no surprise to hear Michael Jackson is releasing a new album of original material in December. Death has long since give up its hold on recording stars, who seem to churn out new material from beyond the grave on a regular basis. Presumably the Devil has long since realised it is only good sense to exploit his monopoly on all the best tunes by installing a state of the art recording studio in hell, with the added benefit of air conditioning. What would be really exciting is if it turned out Tupac Shakur was rapping on one of the tracks, with Elvis Presley and John Lennon on backing vocals, and Jimi Hendrix on guitar.
The first of the new tracks is now available to be heard on line on the Michael Jackson website. Its called Breaking News, and it certainly lives up to its billing, with Jackson essentially announcing his own resurrection. “Everybody wanting a piece of Michael Jackson / Reporters stalking the moves of Michael Jackson / Just when you thought he was done, he comes to give it again.”
In other breaking news, zombies have taken Radio One and eaten the brains of all the presenters. The BBC have reassured listeners that this will not lead to any discernible drop in quality.
The truth, of course, is more prosaic. Jackson had been in recording studios, laying down material that neither he nor anyone else saw fit to release at the time for most of the last decade. But under the tragic circumstances, yesterdays out-takes and cast-offs have become tomorrow’s lost masterpieces.
Opening with newscast sound bites from Jackson’s court cases, this is Jackson in paranoid attack mode (a breathy, urgent style that saw him through classics like Billie Jean and BAD), with a soft toned but urgently staccato vocal fighting it out with a lean, loud Eighties-style drum machine beat, buoyed by a subtle rolling synth line, orchestral flourishes and a late burst of energetic horns. The chorus lifts up with multi-tracked vocals and flighty bursts of his trademark ooh-oohs and hee-hee-hees as he asks “Who is that boogie man you thinking of?”
It’s at these moments, when Jackson sounds most alive to the potential of the music, that the track suddenly hits you with its full poignant force. Listen to it here.
Judged strictly on its own merits, there would have been nothing particularly newsworthy about Breaking News, and it is questionable whether it would have been deemed strong enough to return the lost superstar to the top of the hit parade. But death is the most powerful marketing tool the music industry has. It looks likely Jackson will finally get the comeback he craved.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login
