Listen: The ‘New’ Michael Jackson Single Released Friday, ‘Love Never Felt So Good’

Michaal Jackson, the “King of Pop,” may have tragically passed away well before his time, at age 50 in 2009, but he left behind a vault full of unfinished songs and on Thursday, a “new” Michael Jackson single was heard for the first time.

The song, “Love Never Felt So Good,” debuted at the iHeart Radio Music Awards Thursday night, May 1, and goes on sale from iTunes and other online outlets Friday morning. But you can hear the track right now by listening below.

The single is part of a new album, Xscape, which features eight formerly unheard tracks from the Michael Jackson vaults. The new album of old tracks follows the 2010 release of Michael, the first album to mine the unreleased Michael Jackson library, under a deal by Jackson’s longtime label, the Sony-owned Epic Records, that gives the label rights to all of the unreleased Michael Jackson recordings.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, a demo version of the track was leaked earlier. But the version to be included on Xscape features what the label calls “contemporized” production values on what was originally a demo track for a song written in 1983 — the year after the landmark Michael Jackson album Thriller — by Jackson and Paul Anka.

The record label describes the track as “a magic combination of the new and the original production that retains the track’s analog, early 80s feel, while also sounding right at home with the disco-soul inflected music of today.”

Michael Jackson and Paul Anka came up with “Love Never Felt So Good” in the same writing sessions that produced “This Is It,” the track that was to be the theme song for the Michael Jackson comeback tour that was aborted by the singer’s sudden death on July 25, 2009.

“This Is It” later became the theme to a documentary film about preparations for the Michael Jackson comeback that never was.

Below is audio for the new — but actually 31-year-old — Michael Jackson single, “Love Never Felt So Good.”