Michael Jackson's posthumous album released to mixed reviews

Dec 14, 2010, 0:27 GMT

Los Angeles - In life, people either loved or hated Michael Jackson. Judging by the mixed reviews of his first posthumous album released Monday, not that much has changed.

The 10-track disc, Michael, was culled together by a team of producers from the hundreds of songs that Jackson had recorded prior to his death in 2009, as he was preparing for a long-awaited summer comeback tour.

The album has courted controversy, with fans alleging that the vocals were performed by Jackson impersonators, while some of Jackson's family and his collaborators argued that the famously perfectionist artist would never have wanted half-finished works to see the light of day.

The release marks Jackson's first studio album since 2001's Invincible, but the most chilling review preferred to refer to Jackson's signature 1982 recording Thriller.

'He danced with zombies in the video for Thriller; now he returns, reanimated,' said John Pareles of The New York Times.

Noting that Jackson's estate is expected to release troves of other material that Jackson had worked on before his death, Pareles sounded underwhelmed: 'Michael, frankly, is not a great start.'

Joey Guerra of the Houston Chronicle was similarly unimpressed.

'Most of the songs have a bare-bones feel, with slick production working hard to replace the lack of finished vocals,' he opined. 'Several of them are good, but none of it feels essential. Still, it's a much more satisfying listen than 2001's Invincible, Jackson's last proper studio album.'

Rolling Stone magazine's Jem Aswad called it 'the most frustrating kind of posthumous release.'

'It's a patchwork of mostly unfinished songs,' Aswad wrote, 'recorded over decades and tidied up after the artist's death, without a single theme or collaborator - let alone the vision of their creator - to hold them together.'