When you heard Michael Jackson’s new single This Is It yesterday, you probably thought “Wow, Michael’s still got it.”
And you’re right. Michael Jackson has still got it. It’s just that ‘it’ in this case refers to an 18-year-old collection of obscure Puerto Rican pop songs. Because This Is It was first released in 1991 by an artist called Sa-Fire, who we haven’t heard of either.
What’s more, it’s been announced that Paul Anka will get half of the royalties from This Is It, ensuring him a massive payday. So just imagine how much bigger the payday would have been if the song was actually any good.
We don’t know about you, but yesterday we were actually pretty scared. It saw the first play of Michael Jackson’s first posthumous single This Is It and, terrifyingly, things went off without a hitch. That’s not the Michael Jackson way at all. There were no scandals, no spurious postponements, no giraffes sploshing around in pools of their own blood. It was all coordinated with a level of professionalism that would have made Michael Jackson blanch, if it was possible for his skin to get any lighter than it already was. Obviously.
Announcing a new single and then releasing it on time without any controversy isn’t the way to celebrate Michael Jackson’s life. Organising a tribute concert in Vienna and then cancelling it because nobody wanted to play there – now that’s the way to celebrate Michael Jackson’s life. This Is It had no problems, no snarl-ups, no snafus – which is why we were scared.
In retrospect, though, we shouldn’t have bothered. This Is It had plenty of problems, snarl-ups and snafus. We just had to wait for them to emerge. Problem number one was that This Is It was co-written with My Way writer Paul Anka – and originally titled I Never Knew – for a 1983 album that never came to fruition because of an argument between Jackson and Anka. This meant that Paul Anka would have to receive half of the royalties for the song’s re-release which, as he told TMZ, he was more than happy to accept:
“They realize it’s a mistake, they realize it’s my song, they realize it’s my production of his vocal in my studio and I am getting 50 percent of the whole project, actually, which is fair.”
And problem number two is that This Is It has already been released once, by a Puerto Rican singer called Sa-Fire 18 years ago. Here it is…
We’re over the moon that This Is It has turned out to be such a monumental balls-up. It’s how Michael Jackson would have wanted to be remembered. Obviously the Michael Jackson movie This Is It still poses a problem, but we’re sure that the producers still have time to bungle it in a respectfully Jackson-esque way before its release. Maybe they can prime the reels to catch fire 15 minutes in, or just recut the whole thing until it consists of nothing but home-recorded footage of a toddler carelessly hitting a yogurt pot with the back of a spoon for 45 seconds or something.
We know you can do it, This Is It producers. We believe in you!
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magnetite says
It would be better if there was a new video for it, but Jackson and Leni Riefenstahl aren’t working together very well. Creative differences.
tjrws says
FBI Sued In Madonna Case (mentions Michael Jackson and Sony)
http://www.judiciaryreport.com/fbi.htm
halo says
‘sprayers
Read this, I’m not all for conspiracy theories, but too many bold faced names to be a coincidence.
Wonder if Pellicano is the link that ties them all together. He worked for MJ too.
Who knows, maybe MJ was murdered. And if so, the motive is the usual one, MONEY
****
tjrws says:
October 13, 2009 at 10:46 pm
FBI Sued In Madonna Case (mentions Michael Jackson and Sony)
http://www.judiciaryreport.com/fbi.htm