Michael Jackson: Reminding Us From Beyond The Grave That This Is Indeed It
ARTIST: Michael Jackson TITLE: “This Is It” WEB DEBUT: Oct. 12, 2009 ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The title track from Michael Jackson’s forthcoming concert movie, a posthumously edited-together compilation of rehearsals for his ill-fated run at London’s O2 Arena, could be described as a “Free As A Bird” situation—the track is a fleshed-out version of a piano-and-vocals demo track that was recorded during either the sessions for Off The Wall or Dangerous. It’s a velvet-smooth midtempo ballad with Jackson’s brothers on backing vocals and none of the hitches edited out for post-processing posterity. There’s probably a reason that this slight track was left off the final tracklisting of whatever album it was slated to be on—as entries in Jackson’s catalog go, “This Is It” is fairly insubstantial, although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get chills the first time his disembodied voice came out of my computer speaker. WHERE TO HEAR IT: It’s streaming from Jackson’s official site, or you can hear it right here:
