The continued string of posthumous Michael Jackson releases continues. Later in the year, expect the unreleased Freddie Mercury collaborations, but until then you can make do with a post-production collaboration with the modern day Freddie Mercury, Justin Bieber.
Sorry, did I say “modern day Freddie Mercury”? I meant “modern day Leif Garrett”. You probably don’t know who Leif Garrett is, and you’d be wise to keep it that way.
The song is called Slave 2 The Rhythm, and it follows MJ’s latter day attempts to appear down wid da kidz at the expense of writing a decent song. In fairness, much of Jackson’s solo career did put commercial success over creative possibilities, which is why every album he did after Thriller pretty much followed the Thriller format (a funky song to open, a rock song, a few slow songs mixed in, a song that reflected whatever was popular at the time, a “save the world” type song from Bad onwards). However, at least up until 1991’s Dangerous he backed it up with great pop songs. This began to change on 1995’s HIStory album, where around 50% of the album was decent enough, but was hindered by a host of self-indulgent trite. By the time we get to 2001’s Invincible, you get the feeling that he’s really starting to phone it in. In fact, this song is apparently from the Invincible sessions…
Anyhow, the point I’m making is this; a lot of people accuse Jackson’s estate of exploiting his legacy for a fast buck. But, really, he’d started doing that himself.
And that brings us to this Justin Bieber “collaboration”. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Jackson would have collaborated with Bieber anyway. He always featured the commercial golden boys of the era on his albums. It was likely his way of appearing more contemporary. And listening to Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo on Beat It, it’s often hard to argue with the results. But there’s something quite off-putting about this whole production.
The first problem is Bieber (who’d have thunk?). Is it just me, or is he trying to do a Michael Jackson impression here? At one point I thought it was Jackson singing when it was Bieber, it was only when Jackson’s superior vocals came in and blew Bieber completely off the mike that I realised my mistake and felt dirty as a result (although, when I did mistake Bieber for Jackson, I did think "Michael sounds like shit". It really shows how little character Bieber has in his vocals and how much MJ had, even on a bad day.
The second problem is the lyrics.
She dances at the break of dawn
And quickly cooks his food
She can’t be late, can’t take too long
The kids must get to school
She’s a slave to the rhythm
She’s a slave to the rhythm of
A rhythm of love, a rhythm of love
First of all, “food” and “school” don’t rhyme. Second of all, this is a very uninspired metaphor. Here we have two millionaires singing about the life of an ordinary woman who cooks and takes her kids to school. Why? Apparently, they had no time to consider why they were bothering to tell us this because they had to get to the chorus, which builds up to one of the most over-used phrases in the history of popular music. “Rhythm of love”. Wow. Talk about anti-climatic.
Eventually, over two minutes into the song, we’re finally given some conflict in the story;
She danced the night that they fell out
She swore she’d dance no more
But then she did, she did not quit
And she ran out the door
She danced through the night, in fear of her life
She danced to a beat of her own
She let out a cry, swallowed her pride
She knew she was needed back home
But I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel about this. Dudes, you’re telling a story. Is she abused by her husband? Is she suffering from postnatal depression? You say she wasn’t appreciated, but is that just how she feels, or is that the reality of the situation? How did they fall out? Was it his fault? Was it hers? Are you even talking about her husband? THIS IS NOT HOW YOU TELL A STORY. I need to be invested in the character before I give a shit that she tried to leave and then go back. For all I know, she’s just a whiny bitch going through a mid-life crisis and has started going out clubbing and wearing a mini skirt because she wants to be 21 again.
Musically, this is just another dull-as-fuck dance tune production, that actually sounds pretty similar to a 1997 remix of Jackson’s song HIStory that was released as a single to promote his Blood On The Dancefloor remix album.
But there’s no groove to it. MJ’s best dance songs all had GROOVES. They made me do the lame white guy dance. I couldn’t help it. All this makes me do is yearn for the DJ to throw on Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ or Get on the Floor instead. It’s really dreadful. It’s dull, it’s uninspired, it’s lazy. There’s no atmosphere. The Michael Jackson of 1982 wouldn’t have even considered recording this. If this song didn't have Michael Jackson's name attached to it, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would give a shit.
In all fairness, it was culled from an unfinished demo. I don’t want to blame Bieber too much, that would be a cop out and the demo version posted above doesn't exactly suggest Michael had anything special to begin with. It's an outtake from his worst album...consider that. It wasn't good enough for his worst album.
But, this is bad even for Bieber. For Michael, it’s truly woeful.
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