The first new song by Michael Jackson to be unearthed since the star’s death was released online this morning. The single, “This Is It,” was posted on Jackson’s official website, calling it a “a brand new song” that “marks yet another exciting moment in music history for one of the world’s most revered artists; featuring backing vocals by Michael’s brothers.”
It should be noted that Jackson, who died in June after selling 750 million records worldwide, likely had zero intention of letting his brothers piggyback on this new single. The appearance of the other Jackson brothers is apparently a posthumous addition, and a cheap one at that. The song itself is, predictably, much more in the "Heal The World" vein than "Smooth Criminal," but with The King of Pop dead and gone, we'll take what we can get.
“This is it/ here I stand/ I’m the light of the world, I feel grand,” Jackson intones on the three-minute, 46-second ballad that starts with a simple count-in. His brothers join on the chorus, with gentle guitars joining an orchestral backing.
The single was planned as the theme of Jackson’s sold-out “This Is It” concerts that would have started this July in London’s O2 Arena - and, for the record, was not scheduled to include any of the other Jackson brothers. He announced the concerts in March, telling fans “This is it, these will be my final show performances in London.”
The song is the lead release on a two-disc album of the same name that will be available internationally on Oct. 26 and North America on Oct. 27 through Sony’s Columbia/Epic Label Group. The album contains music from the movie “Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” which will have a limited run in theaters from Oct. 27 and will also be on DVD and Blu-ray.
The album’s first disc features the original masters of some of Jackson’s biggest hits arranged in the same order as they appear in the movie. The disc ends with two versions of “This Is It,” one with an orchestral backing. No word yet on whether the other Jacksons were making fake string and horn-section sounds in the background, just to get in on the action.
Disc two offers previously unreleased versions of Jackson songs. It also has a spoken word poem from the star titled “Planet Earth” that has never been heard before.
Fansites claim that the single was originally recorded as a demo about the time of Jackson’s 1991 album, Dangerous.
