14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has announced the release of a brand new album from Michael Jackson, called simply “Michael,” this December. The first song is already out – but fans and critics remain unconvinced that is really Michael singing on “Breaking News.”
The song, officially the first single off the upcoming album, is now streaming for a single week on the official website of the singer (as of yesterday, Monday, November 8).
Even before it came out in full, from the very moment when only a snippet was released, fans have been saying that that was not Michael on it. Critics are equally unconvinced.
What this means, word on the blogosphere has it, is that Sony actually got an impersonator to work from samples Michael recorded in his lifetime – and thus came up with an entire album to capitalize on the late King of Pop.
The official line is, of course, that Michael recorded the song back in 2007, while he and his children were living with music producer Eddie Cascio at his house.
Michael left behind about 300 completed tracks and even more unfinished songs, which is how the “Michael” album was made possible.
Still, many still don’t believe that’s Michael singing on “Breaking News.” The strongest argument with fans, aside from the different voice on the recording, is that Michael would never reference himself in a track – let alone do so repeatedly in a single line.
“Having listened to Jackson’s music non-stop as a teenager, the vocal comes as a shock because it doesn’t really sound like him,” Michael Cragg of The Guardian writes.
“Deeper and somehow flatter than on his last album, 2001’s Invincible, it sounds like a heavily treated guide vocal. There are the obligatory ‘hee hees,’ but as the synthetic horns and vinyl scratches appear in the final third, ‘Breaking News’ feels like a song Jackson wouldn’t have been happy to release,” the same reviewer states.
“Is there anything in the lyrics to this ‘new’ Michael Jackson song that identifies it as a Michael Jackson song? If it went ‘Everybody wanting a piece of Britney Spears,’ would it work any less well?” Jacob Ganz of NPR also asks.
Indeed, Britney Spears actually does have a song using about the same line, “Piece of Me.” Odds are Michael would not have agreed to release a song about such an obvious topic, treated in such an obvious manner.
A poster on the MJJCommunity forum claims to have it from a very reliable source that the voice on Michael’s upcoming album and the latest song is “50% not MJ’s.”
If it sounds like Michael, it’s because of lots of studio trickery – and a very good voice impersonator.
“For those who are interested, I spoke with my source on the phone for over 30 minutes tonight regarding this whole mess. This is coming straight from Sony: the vocals are over 50% not MJ’s, they did hire an impersonator to run over the majority of MJ’s pre-existing vocals and tried to hide it with production,” claims the commenter.
“The remaining Cascio tracks including ‘Monster’ are all in the same boat with some MJ vocals and some imposter vocals. There will be a big meeting tomorrow at Sony where they will discuss the future of this album,” the same source says.