MICHAEL JACKSON - Unreleased Motown, 1970-'75

Here's a little something different for the weekend, now that MichaelMania has slightly died down (sorry). The MJ live bootleg world seems to be limited mainly to shows from his final HIStory Tour, the best one of which I'll post next week. But HIStory is no one's favorite MJ album; pity there seems to be an online blackout of every Bad Tour boot except for the one I posted last week... luckily, that one is damn good.

MJ's early 1970s solo output is no one's favorite either, which isn't entirely fair. The music from his first four albums, released while doing double-duty as leader of the J5 (damn, these kids were prolific!), is short on funkiness, long on lush loveliness. It's mostly in the ever-so-'70s easy-listening mode, all bathed in swooning strings, but there are moments of piercing beauty throughout.

This extremely rare outtakes LP is as good a sampler of these songs as any. A word of warning, however: it can be heavy going and ultimately makes for a very, very sad listen. If you're any kind of Jackson fan, you might be in tears by the end of it.

MICHAEL JACKSON
Unreleased Motown: Looking Back to Yesterday
1970-'75 (STU) {LP rip @320 kbps}
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