KevinTRod
"This Is Crap"
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A 2009 album by Michael Jackson that was released posthumously.
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Rating:
-2
I have to tell you folks: This whole Michael Jackson death thing is getting to be the stuff of parody. As if the release of bloopers as a “major motion picture” wasn’t bad enough, but this album release from Sony is so much more offensive on so many levels. Now I don’t want to berate Sony too much because there WAS a movie titled “This Is It” released in theaters which meant a soundtrack album was to shortly follow. And from the outside it appears that this was a project of great love and care. The album comes in a digibook that can hold the two CD’s comfortably inside.When you open it up you are treated to a beautiful 40 plus page glossy booklet with pictures and information on the concert that would have likely been the pinnacle of MJ’s career. This is a lovely package when you look at it, and it looks very nice on any album collectors shelf. Pop in the CD though and the ugly truth rears it’s ugly head: These are nothing but repackaged songs. Ignorantly I assumed they’d use the concert recordings found in the picture, but rather then master those for CD they decided to take songs that have been reissued to death and sell them to loyal fans once again.
Well, except for “They Don’t Care About Us.” To my knowledge that’s only on the “HIStory" album. Now the thing is these songs are classic songs. They are still great. They sound great. But...they sound great on all the other albums too. These are not the best these songs have ever sounded and real MJ fans have multiple copies of these songs. I know that MJ’s death inspired a spike in sales for his albums and the record companies would be fools to not take advantage of that. But this year alone we got at LEAST four new compilation albums from Sony! Plus with “HIStory,” “Number Ones,” “The Essential Michael Jackson,” and many more, did we really need this to be a similar repackaging of old material?
Now to be fair there is SOME new material! An unreleased song titled “This Is It” gets two versions on this release: A studio recording and an orchestra recording. Both versions sound great, but this is far from his best unreleased song. Then we have a second disk with three demo tracks and a poem MJ wrote (and reads for this release) called “Planet Earth.” The poem is certainly interesting and nice to have, but most demos aren’t worth the time to listen to them and neither are these. Why would one bother to listen to the clunky demo recordings when they can listen to the cleaned up and professional studio recordings? Besides, is any of this worth having a second disk anyway?
This release would not have been a problem if the concert recordings were what was on this disk. At least it would be slightly different then what we’ve already bought multiple times, but the last thing I feel I needed was another greatest hits compilation from MJ. Is this going to be the norm from now? Release a new compilation collection with one unreleased song every time? I hope to God this isn’t the case. MJ’s music is great but if have all his music this is a tough recommendation. And if you’ve never bought an MJ CD before then buying “The Essential” collection would make for a better investment then this. Because aside from the gloss packaging there’s almost nothing we haven’t already heard before.
Grade: ** stars (and the only reason it gets an additional star is because this music IS still good)
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Sean_Rhodes
November 14, 2009
I was at the store the other day and almost decided to buy this... but then I wasn't sure because I wanted live, rehearsal recordings of the songs. So when I looked on the back and such my first thought was... no way. The thing doesn't even tell you they're NOT live recordings from the rehearsal or anything like that. I already own MJs albums... and like you said, they've been released... several times. How many more times can you put Billie Jean on a CD? Every MJ greatest hits collection has it (and there are A LOT of compilations of MJ's greatest hits).
KevinTRod
November 14, 2009
I must have four alone and with the exception of those one or two new songs I really don't need them because I already own all his albums.
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Scotman
November 08, 2009
Good review, but you say at the end two stars, yet graded it minus two. Any minus grade has to be really, really bad (in my opinion) and you do say that the music is still good. Would you consider changing that?
Scotman
November 09, 2009
I checked out some of the This is It tracks from Amazon.com that lets one sample the audio. It's a two disc set and though I did not play all the audio, to say you can get this stuff anywhere else is an incomplete statement. The "clunky" demo recordings are actually raw and quite interesting. No instrumentation, just acapella vocals. John Lennon had done some of this kind of thing, too as I recall. The CD is not as bad as you're making it, but I have to buy and listen before I can make a definitive review. Thanks.
Scotman
November 13, 2009
As you can see on the cover, the cover clearly says the music was "inspired" by the movie. Never says soundtrack. The Disc 2 I thought was cool because of the raw "making of" quality. And rather than buy multiple "greatest hits" I would rather get this one. Great little book, too. will write a new review on this -- plan on more than -2, since his music is worth more than that. :)
KevinTRod
November 14, 2009
Scot, I always love reading your responses as they tend to keep me on my feet, but this whole "inspired" thing would just make the CD worse. Inspired is usually tacked onto an album when new music is compiled from different bands because it was "inspired" by the movie (usually this is not the case and the movie is supposed to sell the music). The fact that the only new material is the "This Is It" song would make this grade lower. The second disk may be raw and interesting, but you're not going to listen to it for fun, and with all the space they could have at least put MORE demos on the disk! And once again that whole negative whatever thing is completely in response to Lunch's $%(#ed up grading system. The CD get's two stars. That is not a recommendation. If I give it two stars on their scale I'm recommending it. Therefor it gets negative two stars. And there are better MJ greatest hits CD's out there. I always recommend HIStory. If for no other reason then the first disk has most of the hits and you get a second disk of new material.
Scotman
November 14, 2009
OK, I get it. I admit I'm not as adept at music reviews and such, but the CD's from what I understand are remastered and sound a lot better than my old cassettes! You are right that Sony could have done so much more, but I still like having this collection. You made good points.
KevinTRod
November 14, 2009
Well if you're upgrading from a cassette then I guess this WOULD be a pretty big improvement! So I'm glad you got this because it's certainly a step up from that. But for those who have many of his GH collections then this is just one more compilation.
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About the reviewer
Kevin T. Rodriguez (KevinTRod)
Kevin T. Rodriguez is an aspiring film journalist. He's more comfortable typing a review then doing an on-camera appearance, but he loves doing the occasional rant. Whether it be on movies, eBay, or comics, … more
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About this album
This Is It is a two-disc compilation album that features the music of American pop and R&B musician Michael Jackson, released October 26, 2009 on Epic Records. Its release coincided with the release of Michael Jackson's This Is It, a concert film documenting Jackson's rehearsals for a concert series of the same name.
The album has sold over a million copies worldwide in it's first two weeks of release, including 581,000 in the US.
This Is It is Michael Jackson's sixth No.1 album on the American Billboard 200 album charts.
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The album has sold over a million copies worldwide in it's first two weeks of release, including 581,000 in the US.
This Is It is Michael Jackson's sixth No.1 album on the American Billboard 200 album charts.
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