Michael Jackson’s ‘Immortal’ Won’t Be His Last Album, Says Estate
Michael Jackson’s next posthumous album will be released in November and be chocked full of newly discovered outtakes and alternate versions of old hits, Epic Records announced on Monday.
“Immortal” is actually the soundtrack for the new Cirque du Soleil show, “The Immortal World Tour,” which debuted on Sunday. The album features an alternative version of the Jackson 5 hit, “ABC,” as well as a series of mashups and remixes. His first posthumous album, 2010’s “Michael,” reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in a brief, 3-week stint on the chart.
The new stage show and tour is comprised of more than 60 songs from Jackson’s catalog, but the album release will be available as a 15-track album or a deluxe 22-track album that will go on sale November 21.
Billboard.com spoke to Jamie King, the director of the Cirque production, who said “the big, iconic songs are there, with some other songs mixed and matched throughout. There’s some younger Michael in there as well, ‘Ben,’ the Motown stuff…It’s a mixed bag of tricks in terms of songs. It’s a music-driven show, so we’re making sure the music is the narrative that drives us and takes us on the journey.”
Jackson had a treasure trove of unreleased material upon his death in 2009. “Immortal” has the full backing of his estate, co-managed by attorney Howard Weitzman, who told us that in addition to the Cirque show, the Jackson estate is contemplating several other projects. The 25th anniversary of the “Bad” album in 2012 may be commemorated with a special package similar to 2008’s “Thriller 25,” while another set of unreleased material to follow 2010’s “Michael” collection is also being considered.
“It’s a pretty vibrant estate in the sense that it continues to generate not just catalog opportunities but plenty of other ideas,” Weitzman says.