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29 March 2024

Jackson's posthumous single This is it release 'a mistake'

Jackson's This is it album and his rehearsal film will be released on October 28. (AFP)

Published
By Agencies

Michael Jackson "stole" the tapes of a song released almost four months after his death and his estate did not initially credit its co-author, said the songwriter at the centre of the controversy.

Hours after the release of This Is It on the internet on Monday, singer/songwriter Paul Anka revealed that he co-wrote the song with Jackson in 1983 but was not given due credit on the new version. He said Michael Jackson "stole" the original tapes of the song from his studio, and threatened legal action against Jackson's estate to secure royalties from the production.

The song also appeared to have had a previous incarnation as I Never Heard, a single recorded 18 years ago by Puerto Rican R&B singer Safire and credited to Jackson and Anka.

In a video posted on TMZ.com, Anka – a teen idol in the 1950s and 1960s who famously penned the lyrics to Frank Sinatra's My Way – said Jackson "stole the tapes".

"He took the tapes out of my studio," said Anka.

But he stressed the issue had quickly been "resolved", and that John McClain, a record producer named by Jackson as an executor, assured that the proceeds from the single would be split with Anka.

"They realised it's a mistake," Anka said in the video. "They realised it's my song, they realised it's my production of his vocal in my studio, and I'm getting 50 per cent, actually, of the whole project, which is fair."

Arranged by McClain, the song features backing vocals by Jackson's brothers and was released online around the world nearly four months after the singer died in Los Angeles of a prescription drug overdose at the age of 50. Fans will be able to buy it when a two-disc album hits the shelves in two weeks to coincide with the October 28 worldwide release of the Jackson rehearsal-footage movie, This is It.

"The song was picked because the lyrics were appropriate because of the name Michael gave his tour," said a spokesman for Jackson's estate. "We are thrilled to present this song in Michael's voice for the first time, and that Michael's fans have responded in unprecedented numbers. The song was co-written by the legendary Paul Anka." Aside from changes in lyrics, the song sounds markedly similar to I Never Heard. Both share the same vocal and piano line, although the latter track boasts new overdubs from Jackson's brothers.

Rob Stringer, Chairman of the Columbia/Epic Label Group, a subsidiary of Sony Music which reportedly has dozens of unreleased Jackson songs in its vaults, said he was unaware of the similarity to the Safire single until Jackson fans discussed it online, the New York Times reported.

McClain, who is also a co-producer of the This is It album, had said in a statement on Monday that the song "only defines, once again, what the world already knows – that Michael is one of God's greatest gifts".

Some critics begged to differ. Jon Pareles, the Chief Pop Critic of The New York Times, said in a blog it "won't be on anyone's list of best Michael Jackson songs, even if it's a very long list" and hoped there was something better in the Michael Jackson vaults of album outtakes.

Sony Music said the first disc of the upcoming album will feature some of Jackson's greatest hits plus two versions of the "new" single. The second disc will include unreleased versions of some of the singer's classic tracks and a spoken word poem entitled Planet Earth performed by Jackson and never heard before.

The film will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place this year in London, said Sony. It was the subject of a $60 million (Dh220m) deal between Jackson's estate and closely held concert promoter AEG Live and Sony's Sony Pictures unit.

Sales of Jackson's records spiked after his death on June 25, and the release of the movie and album will add to the value of the Thriller singer's estate, estimated at around $400m.

 

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