Well it's been 2 years since the untimely death of the King Of Pop, and even through he is gone in the physical form, his legacy is still alive and strong. Cirque du Soleil is doing a world tour in his honor entitled Immortal. The concert's intent was that they were going to re-create and channel the spirit of Michael Jackson. The goal was that they were going to bring the closest thing to a MJ concert that you will ever experience live on stage.
Along with the concert, Sony released the soundtrack from the tour, which would make it the 2nd posthumous MJ album that has been released from the estate. Unlike the previous album last year, this album does not have no unreleased material. Instead it is a compilation album of remixes and mash ups of all of Michael Jackson's greatest hits.
Now let me be the first to tell that I am NOT a fan of MJ remixes. I HATED the 2nd half of the Blood On The Dance Floor album with all those techno remixes of MJ songs (with the exception of the Scream & History remixes), and I really ain't a fan of anybody else that got their hands on a Michael Jackson record and tried to remix it. Shit Kanye West of all people couldn't even get it right when he did that God-awful Billie Jean remix. So of course I was gonna be skeptical going in to this album, because Michael's music is TIMELESS and should NEVER be touched, and if you do touch it you BETTER do it right!
Now let me tell you right now, that this album is the BEST Michael Jackson remix/mash-up compilation album that I have EVER heard. They did a TREMENDOUS job with this soudtrack and it would have did MJ proud. Producer Kevin Antunes did an AMAZING job redesigning and re-imagining Michael's catalog and bringing the records brand new life. The estate gave Antunes total access to all of the original acapellas and instrumental tracks so he can do what he has to do to make a very unique experience for the listener. Antunes said his main goal with this project was that he wanted to keep the music familiar to the listener so you know that this was a Michael Jackson record just with a new twist.
When you listen to this album, you gotta listen to it from the very beginning, because ALL the songs really just flow into each other. It really does feel like Michael is giving you a concert live from heaven. One of the stand out tracks on here in my opinion is the They Don't Care About Us remixed track. He incorporated elements from the This Is It performance into the record and also added a full choir into the epic finale. Another stand out track is the Thriller mash up with Is It Scary and Threatened. He really want all out and brought a shit load more scary elements on to the song and really hit the horror theme out the park.
Other highlights from this album is how he stripped down certain parts of a song and he let MJ's vocals shine and you hear how powerful MJ's voice really was in the record booth. The perfect example of this is the I'll Be There track, where the Jackson brothers are stripped away, and it is just a young MJ's vocals over a solemn piano-only ballad that makes a young MJ shine even more then he did on the orignal. Even Janet Jackson and Heavy D appear on their respective records (Scream & Jam) to help give the songs a more complete feel.
If you are a Michael Jackson fan you will ABSOLUTELY LOVE this album, the only negative thing I can say about this is that we can never see MJ perform this live. All you can do is just imagine how he would portray this on stage if he ever had a chance to. I might just save some money and watch this tribute concert live when they come in my neck of the woods. Overall VERY good album, and I HIGHLY recommend ANY MJ fan to cop this...
Busby's Review: 5/5
~~Mr. Busby~~
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