Michael Jackson’s New Song Is In Fact An Old Demo

Earlier in the week, Michael Jackson’s posthumous single was teased by everyone as the new song put together by the Jackson estate for the upcoming album XSCAPE. However, that’s not exactly the full picture when it comes to the newly released song.

As it turns out, Michael Jackson‘s track is just an old demo that’s been kicking around for years. Although the single sounds like Jackson could have recorded it today, a representative for Epic Records exchanged an e-mail with the publication Slate, and detailed that the “brand new” song is actually an old song that leaked. This new song that was teased this week is not from the album XSCAPE as once believed.

The track produced by Rodney Jerkins was touted as “vintage” Michael Jackson, and funny enough, it actually is vintage but with a sound that mixes in with today’s Top 40. It just goes to show that Jackson was well ahead of his time when it came to making music. The singer had a firm grasp of what was hot no matter the decade, even though in his later years Jackson fell off of Top 40 due to legal troubles.

According to Slate, the site was initially tipped off by a commenter at Stereogum, and then the journalist followed up about the track being old. Epic Records’ Lauren Ceradini confirmed with Slate that the new leaked song is not the official track listed on the XSCAPE album, even though all of the copies on YouTube come packaged with the official promotional image for the upcoming album.

Michael Jackson’s new album XSCAPE is set to hit shelves on May 13, 2014. One might think that the album title alludes to Michael Jackson literally escaping this album release. All jokes aside, the co-executors of Jackson’s estate are very confident about the upcoming release of the album.

“Michael was always on the cutting edge and was constantly reaching out to new producers, looking for new sounds. He was always relevant and current. These tracks, in many ways, capture that spirit. We thank L.A. Reid for his vision.”

The songs on Michael Jackson’s upcoming album are said to be “contemporized” by top producers in the industry in order to create the best music “you’ve never heard.”

The producers on the XSCAPE album include Timbaland, Rodney Jerkins, Stargate, and John McClain.

The original press release for XSCAPE by Epic Records said that the album would be available to pre-order on iTunes and everywhere on April 1, 2014.

[Image Credit: Epic Records]