MICHAEL JACKSON - Xscape

It feels like yesterday, yet five years have already passed since the death of Michael Jackson. For LA Reid and the Epic team, it's time for a second album of unreleased material, arriving 4 years after the disappointing “Michael” (though it already ranks as the eleventh posthumous release under the Jackson name!). The timing is perfect: at a time when disco music has come back into fashion, one of the genre's most celebrated original exponents couldn't very well be left out.

This time “Xscape” plays it light; eight unreleased tracks gathered from various periods, though mostly from the 90s onward. With Timbaland leading the team of reworkers (also including J-Roc and McClain), these rediscovered demos have been “doped” with an r&b veneer bearing strong disco connotations, string arrangements and an arsenal of percussion on the more rhythmic tracks. It's all very enjoyable, in fact, but Timbaland's classic “signature” – those layered synthetic midtempo rhythms – has sounded unchanged for ages, a style perhaps fitting given the age of some of these songs, but is there really still anything here to excite the modern ear? Considering too that, without Jackson in the studio, it would have been sacrilege to twist the songs into something more interesting (see Timberlake's recent “Experience”, for instance), the work ends up being little more than a simple reupholstering job – well executed and respectful, but ultimately decidedly formulaic.

Not only that, but after a few enthusiastic early listens riding the wave of nostalgia, the album's other limitation quickly becomes clear: the sheer unmemorability of the songs themselves. There's absolutely nothing bad on "Xscape", but the faded aggressiveness of tracks like the title track, "Slave To The Rhythm" or "Do You Know Where Your Children Are" (a decidedly odd title, given the author's track record), simply can't compete with the songbook of his past.

The real curiosity, then, lies in the two older tracks. First and foremost the single "Love Never Felt So Good", a delightful song from the golden era straddling "Off The Wall" and "Thriller", and the graceful, muffled backing vocals of the ballad "Loving You", a leftover from the "Bad" sessions. But if this is meant to be a Battle of the Outtakes, then nothing on "Xscape" can match "Streetwalker", a track Jackson himself included on the 2001 reissue of "Bad" — one wonders whether he would have done the same with even one of the tracks found here.

In an unprecedented act of transparency, the deluxe version of "Xscape" presents the tracks exactly as they were left in their original form. A perfectionist like Jackson must be turning in his grave at the sight of these raw versions being released to the public; however, if this is indeed a nostalgia exercise, these demos are about as intimate as it gets. A trembling synth line on "Chicago", the simple human footstep of "A Place With No Name", or the 7" single played at 33 rpm in the intro of "Loving You" don't magically turn the songs into classics, but they do put the spotlight on the man himself, giving the fleeting illusion that he's still among us. And once again it's "Love Never Felt So Good" that rises above the rest, with a voice/piano demo (played by Paul Anka) that, in its simplicity, distills all of Jackson's art as a consummate vocalist: the rhythm kept with just a finger snap and flawless delivery — truly, nothing more was needed.

It would have been absolutely better to avoid turning the aforementioned "Love Never Felt So Good" into a duet with Timberlake as well, because hearing him say "lemme see ya move" to someone we know to be in an advanced state of decomposition sounds rather grotesque.

In the battle between the most die-hard fans, for whom "it's all wonderful", and the singer's eternal detractors, "Xscape" lands more or less in the middle. It's an album of two halves: a reworked version slathered in polish and gloss for the general public, and a deluxe edition capable of intriguing the most devoted fans. But overall, still nothing truly memorable.

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07/07/2014