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  • Is That Michael Jackson’s Voice In Breaking News?

    Amidst the release of the Breaking News, the song that is streaming on Michael Jackon’s website that we wrote about earlier, are rumors that the vocals in the song aren’t actually Michael Jackson’s.

    If you listen to the song, you can definitely hear some blending of vocals, which isn’t uncommon in R&B music. Some of the biggest hit records have background vocals blended in to make a singer’s voice sound more full. But the rumors aren’t that Jackson’s vocals are being blended with someone else’s. The rumors are that Jackson’s vocals aren’t anywhere on the actual song.

    Check out what TJ Jackson, son of Tito, and one of the members of 3T wrote about the song earlier via his Twitter account:

    There’s many MJ vocal impersonators. Some better than others. But there is only ONE Michael Jackson. Deceptively merging shady vocals with MJ samples (from prior MJ records) will never fool me. Why they would ignore the obvious, look the other way and rush a suspicious track that was NEVER on my Uncle’s radar is beyond me. I’m disgusted, disappointed and saddened. And before the media starts to smear our name, just remember we are COMMITTED (as our Uncle Michael always knew) to protect his name and his amazing legacy he worked his whole life for. We have nothing to gain and we know they will try to drag our name through the mud. But we know how much he valued his legacy and his fans. And cheating either is unacceptable. “Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons”

    He went on to apologize to fans and said that he thought it was Michael Jackson mimic Jason Malachi and that if you listened to the a capella version of the song you’d hear, “Sampled breaths after sampled breaths mixed in with fake vocals to try to fool you.”

    The biggest Michael Jackson fan I know, Big Money Mike, who writes Popblerd!, sent me a note that said that he’s pretty sure the main vocals aren’t MJ’s.

    What does everyone else think? Listen to the song below and let us know. MJ or not?

    Michael Jackson – Breaking News by sheenabeaston

  • Michael Jackson’s New Song – Breaking News

    After announcing earlier last week that a new Michael Jackson album was on the way, Sony has launched a stream of his new song called Breaking News.

    The song is interesting musically and I imagine he could’ve put together a hell of a dance routine for it, but sadly, it’s not the lane that fans want to see his music go. Fans were tired of the “people are being mean to Michael” routine in 1995, and really, it’s a terrible angle to go back to. It’s 2010 and because of his passing, there are more Michael Jackson fans than there has been in many, many years.

    They don’t want to hear a paranoid Michael Jackson sing songs. If this is the type of material that is on the first posthumous album, I think many people are going to be disappointed.

    And maybe it’s just me, but it’s weird hearing him sing his own name.

    Check it out for yourself by going here: http://breakingnews.michaeljackson.com/.

  • Bitch Stole My Look – Song Edition: Cheryl Cole v. Ingrid Michaelson on “Parachute”

    When I was growing up, cover songs were usually by contemporary artists doing remakes of songs that were 15 or 20 years old: Phil Collins singing the Supremes, Club Nouveau singing Bill Withers, Joan Jett singing Tommy James and the Shondells. But back in the 50s and 60s, it wasn’t that unusual for multiple versions of the same song to compete for the same sales and airplay. This was especially true in the 50s when record labels would rush out “white” versions of R&B singles, like Pat Boone singing Fats Domino, or when any number of popular crooners would rush out singles of the latest Broadway hits. In 1955 alone, three different versions of “Unchained Melody” hit the top 10 and a fourth made it to #29.

    Ingrid Michaelson’s ”Parachute”
    But even in the 60s when singles were still the dominant force in pop music, you could hear multiple versions of the same song becoming hits right on top of each other. Less than a year after Gladys Knight and the Pips scored what was then their biggest pop hit “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” – it went all the way to #2 – Marvin Gaye took his own very different version of the same song all the way to #1.

    Cheryl Cole’s ”Parachute”
    But as albums and singer-songwriters became more popular in the late 60s and early 70s, it became a mark of artistic legitimacy to record original songs, to steer clear of covers. Now that singles are back, thanks to digital downloads; and now that anybody – regardless of talent level – can reach a huge internet audience via YouTube – “instant covers” are becoming more popular. So, with apologies to Joan Rivers and her Fashion Police, I’m introducing a new series here called “Bitch Stole My Look – Song Edition”, where two new versions of the same new song take each other on in a blogospheric cage match.

    First up is a song called “Parachute”. The song was written and demoed by quirky indie-pop songstress Ingrid Michaelson during sessions for her excellent 2009 album Everybody, but for whatever reason, it was determined that the song didn’t really fit on the album. Then late last year, the British pop starlet Cheryl Cole, formerly of the girl group Girls Aloud, got her hands on it and included a cover of it on her will.i.am-produced debut solo album 3 Words. In March of this year, it was released as a single and went Top 10 in the UK. Here’s Cheryl’s take on it:

    Cheryl Cole “Parachute”

    Last month, Ingrid Michaelson released a downloadable single of her own version of the song, and put out a pretty awesome video to go with it. Here’s Ingrid:

    Ingrid Michaelson “Parachute”

    Frankly, I love both versions of this song almost equally. Cheryl Cole’s is obviously the slicker version, but I love its sensuality and heightened sense of romance and drama. The vocal arrangements on Michaelson’s are a lot more interesting though and especially coming after her more mainstream sounding album Everybody, it’s a sweet and much more upbeat (to both Cole’s version of “Parachute” and the rest of Michaelson’s album) reminder of the quirky adorability of her first hit “The Way I Am”. I’m split on this one. Ingrid Michaelson v. Cheryl Cole goes into overtime.