Is This It? Michael Jackson’s new single
I walked into work today to find an email from michaeljackson.com informing me the new MJ single “This Is It” is available for streaming and so I streamed.
The song, an outtake from the Dangerous album, is split in two. The first part is blissfully pretty, the second part up an octave and not working, and the two line “This is it” bridge quite wonderful. The lyric is very controlled “I feel like I’ve known you for a thousand years, and you say you’ve never felt like this before” is Motown as taught at the feet of Smokey. So it 3/4 works.
And the problem isn’t the recently tacked on Jackson Brother’s harmonizing in the background, not even really the song itself which would’ve been easy enough to fix, it is Jackson’s incomplete vocal. Alix Wartell says MJ “Sounds like a little boy”, he often does most of the time and still manages to grow up but this time MJ completely fails to exert himself on the lyric or song, probably because it isn’t the finished product: there is no resolution either vocally or musically -it goes round twice and fades out. Sorta like MJ himself.
I wonder what else is in the vaults?
