Sony Music announced this morning that on Oct. 12 it will release a new Michael Jackson single called “This Is It" -- the first previously unreleased recording to emerge since the superstar's death.
The song's debut will be followed by a blitz of posthumous releases from the King of Pop, including a two-disc album also titled This Is It (which hits retail internationally on Oct. 26 and North America on Oct. 27), featuring music that “inspired" the Sony Pictures movie Michael Jackson's This Is It.
The film, which arrives in theaters for a limited two-week run on Oct. 28, consists of rehearsal footage shot during the preparations for Jackson's planned comeback: a 50-date concert engagement -- also titled “This Is It" -- at London's O2 Arena.
According to a news release, the album's first disc features original album masters of many of the performer's biggest hits, sequenced as they appear in the movie. The CD ends with two versions of the song “This Is It," which includes backing vocals by the singer's brothers, the Jacksons.
Disc 2 contains “previously unreleased versions" of some of Jackson's most popular tracks -- in other words, it could contain alternative versions of some of the same songs on Disc 1 -- as well as a spoken-word poem, “Planet Earth," by the entertainer that has not been publicly heard until now.
