MICHAEL Jackson is set to take over the music world once again!
Article by
www.mjtribute.com.au | 7/12/2010
As we all know, Sony Music and the Michael Jackson Estate recently announced that the new album,
"MICHAEL", will be released in mid-December. They also announced that a brand new song from 2007 entitled
"BREAKING NEWS" will be released as a gift to fans in promotion of the album. The full song will stream free of charge on michaeljackson.com for 7 days starting at
12am on Monday 8th November.
This is just the tip of the iceburg in relation to the new album "MICHAEL", which is being touted by those who have heard it to become one of the biggest, if not THE biggest selling album of recent times.
Later in November, as a follow-up to the free release of "Breaking News" on michaeljackson.com, Sony Music plan to launch Michael Jackson's first posthumous single to iTunes, radio and the charts worldwide. The song will be a track Michael Jackson recorded in 2008 with singer Akon, called
"HOLD MY HAND".
"Hold My Hand" has in fact already been heard by the public after the full track was leaked back on July 1, 2008. But luckily for MJ fans, Akon has revealled that the version set to be released as a single and feature on the "MICHAEL" album is actually a newly updated version with MORE Michael Jackson vocals than previously heard, and a new production. According to Sony Music the release will be acoompanied by a new short film (music video) and promotional campaign.
"Hold My Hand" will be the first of what Sony promise to be a string of MULTIPLE new singles released by Michael Jackson over the course of promotion for the "MICHAEL" album.
The majority of the tracks on "MICHAEL" will be new songs - recorded by MJ from 2007-2009 - a period when he was heavily involved with producers such as will.i.am, RedOne and Eddie Casio. A couple of tunes from earlier sessions will also make the cut, and have been beautifully re-produced to fit nicely amongst the new material. All the newly recorded material has also been re-worked by producers, mainly Teddy Riley (one of MJ's most prominent producers during Michael's life) in order to ensure the whole album flows from start to finish.
A song called
"MUCH TOO SOON" was confirmed by Sony as one of the tracks that will definitely be included on the album. The tune features a contribution from iconic Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel and was re-produced in 2010. Michael's vocals are said to be from the mid-80's while Tommy recorded his part in a London studio just a couple of months ago.
Producer Mark Ronson has also worked on a track for the album. He produced a song called
"LOVELY WAY" which was originally recorded many years ago. Again, production has brought the song forward in time to 2010. According to Ronson, "I was given a vocal track to work with but I never actually met Michael. It's in the vein of Elton John's 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' and John Lennon's 'Imagine'.
It is believed that either one or BOTH tracks Michael completed with will.i.am in 2007 will be included. The two song titles are
"IM DREAMIN'" and
"THE FUTURE". Nothing has been officially confirmed, although in a recent interview MJ Estate executor John Branca claimed there would indeed be will.i.am productions on the record.
Still no updates on the track
"ANOTHER DAY" which was produced by Lenny Kravitz back in 2000. In January of this year Lenny shared news that the song was intended to be the lead single from MJ's new album. On August 30th Kravitz confirmed by Twitter that he was working on a new mix of the song for the estate, but since then the flow of information has dried up. The song
"A PLACE WITH NO NAME", recorded by MJ in 1998 was also rumoured to be included many months ago, but nothing further has developed there either.
Rodney Jerkins (Producer of Michael's last studio album INVINCIBLE, including 2001 hit song YOU ROCK MY WORLD) has recently confirmed personally via Twitter that he was NOT involved with the production of "MICHAEL", but hinted that he may have been working on a different MJ project. Jerkins has frequently spoke of the fact that he and Jackson recorded MANY great songs that never got released - most of which he claims are BETTER than the ones that did get released on studio albums. Two examples are
"WE'VE HAD ENOUGH" and
"ESCAPE".
From what I can conclude, the only problem with the "MICHAEL" album seems to be that there is too much AMAZING material to fit on just one album, and therefor some incredible tracks will miss out. Jackson fans will be pleased to know the album has been previewed by a number of people in the music industry, and the response couldn't have been any better!
Harvey Levin, owner of celebrity news website TMZ recently spoke extensively regarding the album's potential after speaking to people who've previewed the album in full. According to those who've heard it, this album is not just "good" but "unbelievably good". Music execs and critics lucky enough to have heard the tracks say this album is better than anyone could have anticipated. So good in fact that some say the album will sell "off the charts" with Harvey Levin even daring to say sales could reach modern day "Thriller terriory"! One music critic said he will "eat his fedora" if the music doesn't go to #1 around the world.
More information to come.
In other news, there are now only 2 weeks remaining until MJ fans worldwide get to see the short film for
"ONE MORE CHANCE" for the FIRST TIME! The video, set to feature on the November 22nd global release of 3-DVD set
"VISION", was filmed back in 2003 and has never been released, until now!
Link:
CLICK HERE