Come And Get It: The Pearl Years, is a collection of unreleased Jackson 5 music unearthed from the vaults, dusted off, and given a bright shiny veneer by The Corporation's (Motown's old songwriting partnership responsible for hits like "ABC") Deke Richards. After three years of complete and utter trash from the vaults, this is the first post-humous release that actually matters. Not as history, not as product, not as stocking suckers so people can buy the same stuff yet again, and certainly not as the bare trolling of the barrel that seems to be all that is Michael Jackson's solo career.
This is the magic stuff that made J5, J5. 32 tracks that mixes bizarre covers of other peoples work, Motown classics, new material, and full length songs from all parts of their career. Maybe you aren't in the market for Michael just missing on "Feelin' Good" and being saved by his brothers but I am. Or a speeded up "You Can't Hurry Love" or a squeaky "Mama Told me Not To Come". Out of context they are second rate J5 covers, in context, surrounded by so many great unknown songs, they vibrate with life. Here a novelty tune, there a funk work out, the sound of MJ's steadily maturing, from a preteen bounce to a growing smoothness. This is J5 told another way. Maybe like Dylan's Bootleg Vol 1 – 3
Indeed, the album works as a reminded that much more than the king of Weird, Michael, and his brothers, were loved because they almost floated on air they were so light, so pleasing, such a blast. It's like the hard bass of funk was made lighter simply by the brothers presence. From the not follow up to "The Love you Save" ""If The Shoe don't Fit" (second track n the album, and no, of course it's not "The Love You save" but it is pretty excellent anyway, to a Motown by the numbers "If You Want Heaven" which burst out with a brace of horns, to a deep in the album "Makin' Life A Little Easier" with MJ taking the chorus and Jermaine taking the verses, through to a finishing end real treat demo "Mama's Pearls" -well remembered as the theme song to the J5 cartoon show, this is a relentlessly epic joy which, if it doesn't hang together like an album, is awful close to a retrospective of choices not made.
Deke Richards production work here s so fine that I am not very aware of it, it doesn't have the muddled mix and tinniness of demo work (or the crappiness of the Bootlegs that have floated around for decades). Indeed, the songs fit in seamlessly to the Jack 5's catalog. They sound great.
It is also a reminder that more than anything else, Jackson 5 were a collective hive of kids riding great songs up the charts with an effortless glee. And the rest is history.
Grade: A