Because there’s damn good money to be made in the dead pop star industry, Epic Records are releasing a second posthumous Michael Jackson album this month. Entitled Xscape, the collection features ‘contemporized’ versions of previously unreleased M.J. songs, which I guess is a fancy way of saying that the label ransacked the vaults for whatever they could find, and then enlisted producers like Timbaland and Stargate to remix them into some form the kids might enjoy.
A brand new song from the album, ‘Love Never Felt So Good’, premiered overnight at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, and shock horror, it’s actually really, really good. The song was originally written by Michael Jackson and Paul Anka back in 1983, and the following year, super smooth dude Johnny Mathis released his take on it. This new, updated version, based on Jackson’s original demo, goes one better by adding a dash of Justin Timberlake.
The opening bars sound very much like your typical Timberlake-Timbaland joint, but then the song bursts into beautiful colour, with a disco groove that recalls the best of Michael Jackson’s classic Off The Wall. This version can be found as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of Xscape, with a Jackson solo cut appearing on the regular version.
The album comes out on May 9, and while this is just the first single, we may need to prepare for the possibility that a posthumous cash-grab might, for once, end up kicking ass.
via Vulture
Photo: AFP via Getty Images
