Michael Jackson: Hello World: The Motown Solo Collection
“DID you ever want something that you know you shouldn’t have?” intones the 12-year-old Michael on the spoken intro to Ain’t No Sunshine, “and the more you know you shouldn’t have it, the more you want it”.
Which as a comment on the singer’s apparently drug-induced death is heartbreakingly apt.
Compiled before his untimely demise and packaged, rather ironically, like a child’s picture book, Hello World includes every solo track Michael recorded between 1971 and 1975, Got To Be There, Ben et al, plus a host of rarities.
Sometimes shrill, often overwrought, it’s still a beautiful and vital body of work but the billion-dollar question is, was there anything left over from Thriller and Off The Wall?
(Hip-O-Select/Motown, 3 discs)