Xscape

Fuelled by the MJ hologram at the Billboard awards, and because she’s a lifelong Jackson fan, Ter immediately went out and bought the “new” album. That was a week ago. In that time, we have both fallen to our knees at further evidence of his creative prowess, not to mention in love with the songs themselves.

Ordinarily, I cringe at albums released after an artist’s death. It’s hard to perceive such an exercise as anything other than a cash cow for the estate; a last-gasp attempt to grab what they can from desolate fans, and sometimes that’s exactly what it is.

“Xscape” is different, and not because I’ve always liked MJ’s music. The project team took part in a documentary that describes how they all came together as recording professionals, former colleagues and die hard MJ fans. They talk about their conditions for signing on, and describe in detail the remixing of the eight original songs featured on the album. The album includes the originally-recorded versions as well, as the vocals were complete at the time of MJ’s death. If he had lived, he would have been in the studio with these guys, and every song would have sounded exactly as it actually does. There are no disposable tracks on this album. Even the original recordings are exceptional—the production team have merely shot them into the stratosphere using their talents to complement the master’s. Jackson did nothing by half measures. He laid the foundation for this piece as if he planned its release in 2014. So it’s no surprise to me that everyone involved has stated quite seriously that each of them felt his presence in the studio as they worked.

This is no cheap ripoff culled from vocal fragments scattered throughout the vault. This is a real album of real songs—and sure, it could be the former and still top the charts and scoop all the awards because it’s Michael-freaking-Jackson, but when it does sweep the Grammys, I won’t be rolling my eyes in disgust. This record deserves to win.

It’s almost a cliché, how creative geniuses lead such agonized personal lives yet produce phenomenal art. Granted, if you’re not an MJ fan, this won’t mean much to you, but he’s not the only tortured talent whom the world eventually destroyed. In the film The Devil’s Violinist, a dying Niccolo Paganini refuses the last rites, but when the priest admonishes that he must be prepared to face God’s grace, the dissolute violinist replies, “Let me tell you something of God’s grace. He gave me a gift, then abandoned me in a world that couldn’t understand it.”