Michael Jackson - The Essential (2CD) EAC-FLAC RePoPo

*******************************************************************************
Michael Jackson - The Essential (2CD)
*******************************************************************************

CD: Michael Jackson - The Essential (CD 1)

01. I Want You Back [0:02:58.57]
02. ABC [0:02:57.10]
03. The Love You Save [0:03:05.08]
04. Got To Be There [0:03:25.02]
05. Rockin' Robin [0:02:32.62]
06. Ben [0:02:46.18]
07. Blame It On The Boogie [0:03:30.40]
08. Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground) [0:03:45.54]
09. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough [0:03:56.35]
10. Off The Wall [0:03:46.00]
11. Rock With You [0:03:23.06]
12. She's Out Of My Life [0:03:37.20]
13. Can You Feel It [0:03:50.23]
14. The Girl Is Mine [0:03:41.68]
15. Billie Jean [0:04:52.72]
16. Beat It [0:04:18.03]
17. Wanne Be Startin' Somethin' [0:04:17.30]
18. Human Nature [0:03:45.73]
19. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) [0:03:58.55]
20. I Just Can't Stop Loving You [0:04:11.66]
21. Thriller [0:05:14.40]


CD: Michael Jackson - The essential (CD2)

01. Bad [0:04:06.52]
02. The way you make me feel [0:04:26.26]
03. Man in the mirror [0:05:18.72]
04. Dirty Diana [0:04:40.57]
05. Another part of me [0:03:46.46]
06. Smooth criminal [0:04:17.18]
07. Leave me alone [0:04:39.66]
08. Black or white [0:03:21.40]
09. Remember the time [0:03:59.67]
10. In the closet [0:04:48.61]
11. Who is it [0:03:59.42]
12. Heal the world [0:06:24.70]
13. Will you be there [0:03:40.24]
14. You are not alone [0:04:55.74]
15. Earth song [0:05:02.08]
16. They don't care about us [0:04:44.29]
17. You rock my world [0:05:08.25]

Album Review by Rob Theakston

There are several Michael Jackson greatest-hits compilations out there, each one
its own take on what should be the definitive portrait of the gloved one's
career. The Ultimate Collection, The Essential Collection (different from the
one here), and Number Ones have all surfaced in 2003 and 2004, and HIStory a few
years prior. Each one of these collections, while commendable in its attempt to
thoroughly document Jackson's accomplishments, has fallen woefully short in one
aspect or another. This has finally been rectified with this installment of
Sony's outstanding Essential collection. Starting with his campaign with his
brothers in the Jackson 5, this two-disc set tours through every important
single and every important fan favorite short of including his duet with Paul
McCartney on "Say Say Say" (the Beatle does, however, make an appearance here on
"The Girl Is Mine"). From Off the Wall to Dangerous, it's all here in one
concise package, making it the ideal reference point from which exploration into
his deeper catalog can begin. While die-hard fans will already have every single
song contained herein and may be weary to purchase another greatest-hits
compilation short of a greatest-hits compilation including his backing vocals on
Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me," this may be the only one fans and casual
listeners will ever have to purchase to get their fill of the King of Pop's
magic.

Biography by Steve Huey

Michael Jackson was unquestionably the biggest pop star of the '80s, and
certainly one of the most popular recording artists of all time. In his prime,
Jackson was an unstoppable juggernaut, possessed of all the tools to dominate
the charts seemingly at will: an instantly identifiable voice, eye-popping dance
moves, stunning musical versatility, and loads of sheer star power. His 1982
blockbuster Thriller became the biggest-selling album of all time (probably his
best-known accomplishment), and he was the first black artist to find stardom on
MTV, breaking down innumerable boundaries both for his race and for music video
as an art form. Yet as Jackson's career began, very gradually, to descend from
the dizzying heights of his peak years, most of the media's attention focused on
his increasingly bizarre eccentricities; he was often depicted as an arrested
man-child, completely sheltered from adult reality by a life spent in show
business. The snickering turned to scandal in 1993, when Jackson was accused of
molesting a 13-year-old boy; although he categorically denied the charges, his
out-of-court settlement failed to restore his tarnished image. He never quite
escaped the stigma of those allegations, and while he continued to sell records
at superstar-like levels, he didn't release them with enough frequency (or, many
critics thought, inspiration) to once again become better known for his music
than his private life. Whether as a pop icon or a tabloid caricature, Jackson
always remained bigger than life.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born August 29, 1958, in Gary, IN. The fifth son of
steelworker Joe Jackson, Michael displayed a talent for music and dance from an
extremely young age. His childhood was strictly regimented; from the start, he
was to an extent sheltered from the outside world by his mother's Jehovah's
Witness faith, and his father was by all accounts an often ill-tempered
disciplinarian. Joe began to organize a family musical group around his three
eldest sons in 1962, and Michael joined them the following year, quickly
establishing himself as a dynamic stage performer. His dead-on mastery of James
Brown's dance moves and soulful, mature-beyond-his-years vocals made him a
natural focal point, especially given his incredibly young age. Dubbed the
Jackson 5, the group signed to Motown in 1968 and issued their debut single in
October 1969, when Michael was just 11 years old. "I Want You Back," "ABC," "The
Love You Save," and "I'll Be There" all hit number one in 1970, making the
Jackson 5 the first group in pop history to have their first four singles top
the charts. Motown began priming Michael for a solo career in 1971, and his
first single, "Got to Be There," was issued toward the end of the year; it hit
the Top Five, as did the follow-up, a cover of Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin."
Later in 1972, Jackson had his first number one solo single, "Ben," the title
song from a children's thriller about a young boy who befriends Ben, the highly
intelligent leader of a gang of homicidal rats. Given the subject matter, the
song was surprisingly sincere and sentimental, and even earned an Oscar
nomination. However, the momentum of Jackson's solo career (much like that of
the Jackson 5) soon stalled. He released his fourth and final album on Motown in
1975, and the following year, he and his brothers (save Jermaine) signed to Epic
and became the Jacksons.

In 1977, Jackson landed a starring role alongside Diana Ross in the all-black
film musical The Wiz, a retelling of The Wizard of Oz; here he met
producer/composer Quincy Jones for the first time. Encouraged by the success of
the Jacksons' self-produced, mostly self-written 1978 album Destiny, Jackson
elected to resume his solo career when his management contract with his father
expired shortly thereafter. With Jones producing, Jackson recorded his first
solo album as an adult, Off the Wall. An immaculately crafted set of funky
disco-pop, smooth soul, and lush, sentimental pop ballads, Off the Wall made
Jackson a star all over again. It produced four Top Ten singles, including the
number one hits "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You," and went
platinum (it went on to sell over seven million copies); even so, Jackson
remained loyal to his brothers and stayed with the group.

No group could have contained Jackson's rapidly rising star for long; however,
there was still no sign (if there ever could be) that his next album would
become the biggest in history. Released in 1982, the Quincy Jones-produced
Thriller refined the strengths of Off the Wall; the dance and rock tracks were
more driving, the pop tunes and ballads softer and more soulful, and all of it
was recognizably Michael. Jackson brought in Paul McCartney for a duet,
guitarist Eddie Van Halen for a jaw-dropping solo, and Vincent Price for a
creepy recitation. It was no surprise that Thriller was a hit; what was a
surprise was its staying power. Jackson's duet with McCartney, "The Girl Is
Mine," was a natural single choice, and it peaked at number two; then "Billie
Jean" and the Van Halen track "Beat It" both hit number one, for seven and three
weeks respectively. Those latter two songs, as well as the future Top Five title
track, had one important feature in common: Jackson supported them with
elaborately conceived video clips that revolutionized the way music videos were
made. Jackson treated them as song-length movies with structured narratives:
"Billie Jean" set the song's tale of a paternity suit in a nightmarish dream
world where Jackson was a solitary, sometimes invisible presence; the anti-gang
-violence "Beat It" became an homage to West Side Story; and the ten-minute-plus
clip for "Thriller" (routinely selected as the best video of all time) featured
Jackson leading a dance troupe of rotting zombies, with loads of horror-film
makeup and effects. Having never really accepted black artists in the past, MTV
played the clips to death, garnering massive publicity for Jackson and droves of
viewers for the fledgling cable network. Jackson sealed his own phenomenon by
debuting his signature "moonwalk" dance step on May 16, 1983, on Motown's
televised 25th anniversary special; though he didn't invent the moonwalk (as he
himself was quick to point out), it became as much of a Jackson signature as his
vocal hiccups or single white-sequined glove.

Showing no signs of slowing down, Thriller just kept spinning off singles,
including "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," the airy ballad "Human Nature," and
"P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"; in all, seven of its nine tracks wound up in the
Top Ten, obliterating conventional ideas of how many singles could be released
from an album before it ran its course. Thriller stayed on the charts for over
two years, spent 37 nonconsecutive weeks at number one, and became the best-
selling album of all time; it went on to sell 25 million copies in the U.S.
alone, and around another 20 million overseas. Naturally, Jackson won a slew of
awards, including a record eight Grammys in one night, and snagged the largest
endorsement deal ever when he became a spokesman for Pepsi (he would later be
burned in an accident while filming a commercial). At the end of 1983, Jackson
was again on top of the singles charts, this time as part of a second duet with
McCartney, "Say Say Say." In 1984, Jackson rejoined his brothers one last time
for the album Victory, whose supporting tour was one of the biggest (and
priciest) of the year. The following year, he and Lionel Richie co-wrote the
anthemic "We Are the World" for the all-star famine-relief effort USA for
Africa; it became one of the fastest-selling singles ever.

Even at this early stage, wild rumors about Jackson's private life were
swirling. His shyness and reluctance to grant interviews (ironically, due in
part to his concerns about being misrepresented) only encouraged more
speculation. Some pointed to his soft-spoken, still girlish voice as evidence
that he'd undergone hormone treatments to preserve the high, flexible range of
his youth; stories were told about Jackson sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber to
slow the aging process, and purchasing the skeleton of John Merrick, the
Elephant Man (Jackson did view the bones in the London Hospital, but did not buy
them). Jackson bought a large ranch in California which he dubbed Neverland, and
filled it with amusement park rides and animals (including the notorious pet
chimpanzee Bubbles), which only fueled the public's perception of him as a
somewhat bizarre eccentric obsessed with recapturing his childhood. He also
underwent cosmetic surgery several times, which led to accusations from the
black community that his gradually lightening skin tone was the result of an
intentional effort to become whiter; a few years later, Jackson revealed that he
had a disorder called vitiligo, in which pigment disappears from the skin,
leaving large white blotches and making direct sunlight dangerous. One of the
rumors that was definitely true was that Jackson owned the rights to the
Beatles' catalog; in 1985, he acquired ATV Publishing, the firm that controlled
all the Lennon-McCartney copyrights (among others), which wound up costing him
his friendship with McCartney.

During his long layoff between records, Jackson indulged his interest in film
and video by working with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola on the 3-D short
film Captain Eo. The special-effects extravaganza was shown at the enormous
widescreen IMAX theaters in Disney's amusement parks for 12 years, beginning in
1986. Finally, Jackson re-entered the studio with Quincy Jones to begin the
near-impossible task of crafting a follow-up to Thriller. Bad was released to
enormous public anticipation in 1987, and was accompanied by equally enormous
publicity. It debuted at number one, and the first single, "I Just Can't Stop
Loving You," with vocal accompaniment by Siedah Garrett, also shot up the charts
to number one. Like Thriller, Bad continued to spin off singles for well over a
year after its release, and became the first album ever to produce five number
one hits; the others were "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Man in the
Mirror," and "Dirty Diana." Jackson supported the album with a lengthy world
tour that featured a typically spectacular, elaborate stage show; it became the
highest-grossing tour of all time. Although Jackson's success was still
staggering, there were faint undercurrents of disappointment, partly because of
the unparalleled phenomenon of Thriller (Bad "only" sold eight million copies),
and partly because the album itself didn't seem quite as exuberant or uniformly
consistent when compared to its predecessors.

Jackson took another long hiatus between albums, giving the media little to
focus on besides his numerous eccentricities; by this time, the British tabloids
delighted in calling him "Wacko Jacko," a name he detested. When Jackson
returned in with a new album in late 1991, he'd come up with a different
moniker: "the King of Pop." Dangerous found Jackson ending his collaboration
with Quincy Jones in an effort to update his sound; accordingly, many of the
tracks were helmed by the groundbreaking new jack swing producer Teddy Riley. As
expe