Jackson, Michael

I was looking forward to a new album of Michael Jackson material after not having anything new since 1995. Unfortunately, Invincible was a bore. I never got into this, I listened only twice, and never made it all the way through. I think part of the problem (for me) is that most of the songs sound pretty much the same. I still have it, because eventually I'll give it another chance.

Well, this album is from 1982 originally, but I jumped at the chance to pick up this redone version. Thriller is one of the best albums I've heard in my lifetime, and a new version with some extra stuff was right up my alley. A lot of people think it's weird that I like things like Black Sabbath, Metallica, and the like, and like things like Michael Jackson. All I can say is a good song is a good song - and there are lots of good songs on this album.

This double CD had one CD of greatest hits, and a second CD of new material. The new material had a few good songs, but most of it was uneven to me (the highlight was a duet with his sister Janet). The greatest hits were mostly things I already had, this was more of a "He put out something new, so I'll get it" purchase. If you don't have his albums before this, it might be a worthy pickup then.

A good Jackson album, and it includes a song of his that rarely gets much discussion - Jam. I love the "smoothness" of this album. It sounds like it flows well, and the songs themselves have a nice melodic feel to them, it's a very solid album to me. Overall as an album, I think I like it better than Thriller, although Thriller has some stronger individual songs.

Michael's followup to Thriller isn't as accessible as Thriller was, but there are some really great tunes on here, including one (Smooth Criminal) which was recently covered by another band (Alien Ant Farm).