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  • This Is It Delivers

    What was once planned to be one of the greatest concert shows of all time, This Is It was turned into a concert movie slash documentary slash inside look at a Michael Jackson’s last days.

    I had a bittersweet feeling going into the movie because I knew that for an hour and a half it would feel like he was still alive but when it was over, the reality would set in again. But as a Michael Jackson fan, I had to be there.

    There are several reasons why This Is It delivers and it will deliver in different ways for the different types of fans. For the hardcore fans, you get an inside look at what it takes to put together a Michael Jackson concert. You get to see Michael take control, not raising his voice once. Michael commands immediate attention and when he re-directs someone’s idea, he makes sure they understand he’s doing it to make the show better, and also out of love.

    For the new fans, Michael shows them a glimpse of his greatness. He goes through the motions of his entire concert and even at half speed, he shows off immense talent. There’s a great segment where he and one of his back-up singers walk through I Just Can’t Stop Loving You and at the end of the song, they go back and forth singing the last line to each other. Michael sees his back-up dancers and musicians watching him in awe and he gives them a bit more than just a walk through and for a few seconds, you see him as he would have done it for real.

    Michael Jackson's This Is It promo poster
    Michael Jackson’s This Is It promo poster
    For people who might not be big MJ fans but want to see this movie because of the hype, there’s not as much to love, though there are still some interesting aspects. You get to see how creative directors put a show together, though it’s not the focus of the movie. There are bits and pieces of the movie which focus on how Kenny Ortega and his team put sets together, try out dancers and musicians, and go through awesome choreography.

    But the biggest reason to see this movie is simply to hear Michael’s music in surround sound with other Michael Jackson fans. The music is blended in with the film perfectly and you can see how they visually wanted to represent it through elaborate sets and video.

    Because of the actual subject matter and footage used, in no way can this movie be must see or brilliant in the usual ways that movies can be. It would be better served as a DVD extra than a full length feature film, but because of the timing of Jackson’s death, it’s timely, and thus can work in a theater element when nothing else made in this same manner could. It’s also longer than you’d expect it to be since they go through all the songs that he was expected to perform in the actual concert starting with Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ and ending with Man In The Mirror.

    They had some really great ideas for Smooth Criminal, which included putting Michael into an old black and white film, They Don’t Care About Us, which featured all of his dancers multiplied by CGI into what looked like an infinite amount of marching soldiers, a new Thriller routine, and a great rendition of Earth Song. He kept favorites like Billie Jean and Beat It similar to how you remember them in their epic videos.

    Right before the end of his rendition of Man In The Mirror, Michael and Kenny Ortega get the entire group together for a huge group hug with words of affirmation and inspiration from MJ. He told them to give him their everything because they were going to give fans feelings that they’d never felt before. He closed it by saying that everyone was family.

    For nearly two hours, I was able to see a very alive Michael Jackson. I was able to escape the disturbing details of his death and just focus on the music and the performer, even though he was only going half speed.

    In the ending credits, the song This Is It plays and my thought was that this was truly it.

  • The Sublime Conundrum

    So here’s a question for all you music geeks out there. If a member of a band dies while said band is still active, does the remainder of the band still have the right to use the band’s name? Most would argue that something like this should be argued on a case-by-case basis.

    Take Alice in Chains, for instance. When Layne Staley passed away in 2002, many thought the band was done, after all, Staley was the lead singer. However, he was NOT the band’s chief songwriter. That duty fell to guitarist Jerry Cantrell. In this case, the band was successfully able to enlist a new lead singer and carry on the band name without fans being too bent out of shape. Hell, the band was practically given a hero’s welcome, as “Black Gives Way to Blue” blasted onto the charts in the Top Five.

    On the other side of the coin, take a band like Queen. No one will deny that Brian May and Roger Taylor are incredibly talented musicians. No one will deny that Paul Rodgers is one hell of a singer. But for better or for worse, Queen WAS Freddie Mercury. He gave the band its’ image, and even though the songwriting was split up fairly evenly, Mercury was so larger-than-life that anyone who comes after him is going to be looked at as a scab.

    This brings us to the band Sublime. The trio toiled along the ska/punk scene in California and released a couple of successful albums independently before sigining with MCA in 1995. Just as they were set to release their major label debut a year later, lead singer and songwriter Brad Nowell died from an overdose. The band effectively ended, but their careers were just beginning. Released months after Nowell’s death, “Sublime” went on to sell 6 million copies.

    The remaining band members, Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson, retired the band name, rounded up various musicians from the scene Sublime was a part of, and recorded and toured as the Long Beach Dub All-Stars. However, earlier this year, the two surviving members decided to tour with a new singer…as Sublime. Nowell’s survivors are none too pleased with this turn of events, and I don’t blame them.

    All things are not created equal in this type of situation. You’ve got to look at not only the departing member’s musical importance to the band, but also look at how much the band’s identity was shaped around that person. For example, Keith Moon and John Entwistle died, and The Who was still the Who, right? Talented as they were, they weren’t really the public face of the band. If Pete Townshend or Roger Daltrey was to leave, it would be a different story. I mean, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic are talented musicians, but can you imagine what would have happened if they tried to carry on Nirvana with a new lead singer?

    My opinion might not count for much, but I think that Bud and Eric should respectfully retire the “Sublime” name for good. After all, Brad essentially WAS the band.

  • Eureka!! Unearthed Jackson 5 Treasures

    Whenever a record company says they’ve found music by an artist that has been “recovered from the vaults”, I scratch my head. Like, do you guys have tapes in a dusty old storage room somewhere? I’m really not sure how that works. Particularly in regards to Motown-because stuff keeps turning up. Was there some shoddy bookkeeping going on or what?

    At any rate, in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, Motown unearthed a slew of previously unreleased Jackson 5 tracks and released them on a CD called “I Want You Back: Unreleased Masters”. While one might rightfully assume that this is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, I’m surprised to say that this material is pretty good. I wonder *why* this stuff ended up unreleased.

    I think you’ll be surprised by the quality of the songs. The first two appear to be from the J5’s original run of hits, while the later two date from after Michael hit puberty. These songs adopt a more democratic approach to vocals, and the last track, “I’ll Try You’ll Try” adopts the socially conscious approach that Marvin Gaye and The Temptations were famous for during that period.

    Definitely worth checking out.