Immortal [Deluxe Edition] Michael Jackson

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Editorial Reviews

Unlike the Beatles, Michael Jackson's body of work lends itself to the kind of glitzy mash-up soundtrack Cirque du Soleil requires -- which is a roundabout way of saying the soundtrack to their 2011 production Immortal feels a little sounder than the Beatles' LOVE. Of course, LOVE is by far a more ambitious work, creating new songs out of old samples, whereas Immortal is unabashed Vegas glitz, songs truncated or elongated to the demands of the stage, audio drops of music videos or interviews triple underscoring already apparent sentiment. Producer Kevin Antunes never recontextualizes the original recordings; he favors hits-on-parade medleys, letting the hooks -- the melodies, the rhythms -- sink in before moving on to the next snippet. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that roughly half of the album is devoted to music made after Bad: after he parted ways with Quincy Jones, Jackson flitted between attempts to reconcile with hip-hop and old-fashioned showbiz. Here, the latter overwhelms, bending all the disco and dance to its sensibility; it's an effective soundtrack for a lavish, expensive dance production. [This deluxe edition splits the set into two discs and adds seven additional bonus tracks.] Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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