I will wait and see...his last posthumous album surprised us a bit with songs like Best of Joy, Monster, Behind the Mask, Hollywood Tonight, and Breaking News.
Sidenote: best of joy should of been a single. It was so beautiful
They need to stop milking the poor man, let him rest in peace you money Hungary bastards
I for one will not be buying this album even tho I love the King Of Pop
I will download it......for........free......
you can say that mostly to the media to STOP MILKING the King with their garbage,and let him rest in peace,but when it comes to his music,.I'm all here for never released songs
and yes I'm very aware they are milking Michael,but he has been milked off since he was 10 years old.and especially now for years after his death.
Here are some comments from listening party attendees posted on the UK based music site Pop Justice:
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wow. I went feeling very sceptical, as I always am about posthumous albums but bloody hell I was surprised.
It's the album that Michael would've released in 2014 if he was still around. Some brilliant tracks and standout tracks were:
Xscape
Slave
Do You Know Where Your Children Are
Place With No Name - samples Way You Make Me Feel
but all eight tracks were great…
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I was going to write almost the exact same post - it's a very strong album and much better than a posthumous release gets to be. You can definitely hear the Timbaland influences in some of the tracks, but they've definitely done a good job of retaining the authentic feel while making it modern. Some similarities to the 20/20 Experience and Bruno Mars, etc,. but then you remember quickly that these songs are what inspired those albums and not vice versa.
Do You Know... is one of the strongest choruses on the album, and Xscape feels very fresh. Slave To The Rhythm is a huge tune, but could have used a bit more oomph - some upcoming remixes should take care of that.
Impressed and pleasantly surprised!
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This album SHOULD sell by the bucketload but i'm not sure if it actually will, especially as only eight tracks
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I do agree it should sell very well, and seems the plan is really to go full blitz with the album across several platforms, so I think it has a decent chance of doing so.
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The first track on the album was Love Never Felt So Good, very breezy production.
I agree that there was definitely surprise in the room at the quality of the songs, and the enthusiasm went crescendo after the first couple songs - the latter half of the album seemed more modern and punchy. Couldn't single out a bad track, but I would say track 2 (forgot the name) and maybe 3 were the weaker ones.
No tracklist coming for a little while either! But I'm sure it will be all but clear from the inevitable blog reviews over the coming week. Slave to the Rhythm sounds exactly like the snippet in that Xperia ad - wish it had a bit more of a kick to it as the backing track is pretty much constant the whole way through, but it's still a massive jam.
Im so pissed off at there only being two brand new songs. All the others have leaked ages ago
This was always going to be the case. I'm excited to get Xscape on FLAC quality, and the others we only have so-so versions of, like Slave and Do You Know Where Your Children Are (pleasantly surprised they included this song, it's fantastic but the subject matter will have people coming for MJ with moronic jokes).
Really excited by the two videos... wonder if there's some of MJ in the studio
The word ‘contemporise’ was being used a lot before the playback which had us worried. Would this holy shroud-esque source material be ravaged by Black Eye Pea style pitch shifts or garish bro-step drops? Admittedly one track started with a vocoder but this was only for the intro. From the off-set the album had sharp beats and clear vocals – something even big fans would admit Michael’s latter albums lacked.
Despite this broad range of unreleased content, Xscape doesn’t feel like a bunch of off-shoots or a scrapbook of the discarded; the production team have managed to gell the collection of tunes in such a way that this feels like a flowing album of funky, disco-pop and modern day r ‘n’ b.
Some of the tracks felt familiar – one track has a very similar bassline to ‘Leave Me Alone’, another had a ‘la la la’ chorus not unlikeAmerica’s ‘Horse With No Name’ and penultimate track ‘Gangster’ had Jackson’s trademark voiced beats and harmonies, a la ‘Beat It’.
Xscape, then, feels more like a collection of B-sides from Off The Wall than a follow up to Invincible. Despite being very short, this latest release from the Jackson estate does a much more sympathetic job of recreating and reminding the world of the pop icon’s passion for making your feet tap and your head nod. Consider this a collection of undiscovered gems presented in a way that fans from all generations will appreciate.
Xscape can be pre-ordered now but will be released on Epic on May 13.
1. Love Never Felt So Good
2. She Was Lovin' Me
3. Chicago
4. A Place With No Name
5. Do You Know Where Your Children Are
6. Slave to the Rhythm
7. Blue Gangster
8. Xscape
1. Love Never Felt So Good
2. She Was Lovin' Me
3. Chicago
4. A Place With No Name
5. Do You Know Where Your Children Are
6. Slave to the Rhythm
7. Blue Gangster
8. Xscape
Saw this from press releases about the listening party too. It's odd to open the record with two back-to-back ballads but the build from Chicago to STTR will be incredible, and then the funk of Blue Gangster into uptempo Xscape to close before the bonus track is a good move! Ordered a digital version today, gonna buy a physical too when it drops in May