News

This Is It 

• Michael Jackson
• (Epic/Sony) 

Beat it – to death. A pseudo-soundtrack to a concert-less concert film is the first posthumous album of previously unreleased Michael Jackson material to hit the market, and while it’s a worthwhile memento, you have to think there are better things to come. The first disc of the two-CD set uses original recording masters apparently sequenced in the same order that the hits appear in the film. Its succession is dynamic: The lovely I Just Can’t Stop Loving You Most and the peppy idealism of Black and White, for example, sandwich darker exhilarators Thriller and Beat It. Most of us have already heard the something-missing single This Is It (available here in two versions, one more orchestrated than the other), but the treats are on an abbreviated second disc comprised of one unsophisticated but poignant poem (Planet Earth) and three demos. Jackson’s falsetto flutters against an acoustic guitar on the touching She’s Out of My Life, and the brilliantly naked sketch of Beat It features the King of Pop’s vocal harmonies on the chorus and his beat-boxing rhythm on the verse. It’s a peek behind the weird curtains of a genius – let’s hope there’s more of that in the vaults. Brad Wheeler