J. Randy Taraborrelli, who wrote the authoritative biography "Michael Jackson: The Music and the Madness" and knew the singer since childhood, says Jackson's new album is up to the singer's exacting standards.
"The estate called me and said, 'Would you like to hear the album before anybody else?' and I thought to myself, 'Yeah, I think I would like to do that,'" Taraborrelli said in an interview on CBS' "The Early Show" Monday.
The album of 10 previously unreleased songs, "Michael," will be released Tuesday.
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Taraborrelli called it it a "great album… It really shows you Michael's versatility. I mean, this album shows, you know, his range in pop, R&B, hip hop, even a little bit of country."
After playing a snippet of the single "Breaking News," anchor Harry Smith asked Taraborrelli to weigh in on the debate over whether the vocals are truly Jackson's.
"Well, you know, the estate did its due diligence in this regard," Taraborelli said. "I mean, they talked to many people who worked with Michael Jackson over the years—artists, producers, arrangers, recording engineers—and they played the songs for forensic musicologists, two independent musicologists… Well, these guys actually analyze the sound, and they both came back with the same conclusion, that it was undoubtedly Michael Jackson, so I think everybody here did what they were supposed to do. The family had these concerns and they raised them, as well they should have, and the estate did what it should have done, which was to clear it up."
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He elaborated in a statement to TheWrap:
"The estate and sony did its due diligence where the matter of the vocals are concerned and gave me a chance to review all of the evidence they gathered to prove it is MJ on 'Breaking News.' I also got a statement from Bruce Swedien who was the recording engineer on 'Thriller,' 'Bad,' and just about all of Michael's adult hits. He knows Jackson's voice like no other recording engineer, and he confirmed for me that the voice is MJ's."
Taraborrelli added: "I was in the studo with Michael for much of 'Thriller' and 'Bad' and, actually, on songs going all the way back to the Motown days and so I know how he worked. He often laid down demo vocals, or 'scratch' vocals, with the intention of going back in later and perfecting them.
"The vocal on 'Breaking News' sounds like a rough unpolished performance to my ears, not the polished and perfected and fully realized MJ we know and love, but MJ as an interesting work in progress."