Very simple, it did not feel like a Michael Jackson album. It felt like something NSYNC, Britney Spears or The Backstreet Boys would have done (sans a few of the sappy songs). It wasn’t a horrible album, in fact for any of the aforementioned acts, it would have been STELLAR! However, this is Michael Jackson we’re talking about, he raised the bar so high that this tracklist was automatically going to fail at the moment of release. Not to mention it didn’t have any good videos to accompany it. YRMW (video) is a lame Smooth Criminal esque rehash with a clearly medicated Michael half assing his way through it and Chris Tucker being over the top to try and salvage it. I won’t even acknowledge Cry.
This album had not ONE iconic song on it, instead just a collection of decent songs. The vocals on almost every track were a bit too much, leaning far too heavy into the gritty rock vocals where not needed. In an album that’s mostly R&B, he should have tried to lean more into his boyish vocals and left the grit to the songs where it fits I.E. Unbreakable, Invincible, Heartbreaker and a few others. Another aspect that held this album back were recycled themes done worse. Songs like Privacy come to mind, when compared to Scream, Tabloid Junkie, WYWTOM etc, it’s just lame. Then his humanitarian songs, when compared to MITM, Earth Song, HTW, WATW etc they just don’t do it for me at all.
It will forever blow my mind that with all of the INCREDIBLE outtakes that he had at the time, he and Jerkins chose this! Michael could have had an album that DESTROYED every other album he made before it, but chose mediocrity. It just seemed around this time, between his album, his health, his appearance and so forth, his heart just wasn’t in it and I feel people could feel that. Granted I was 10 at the time and caught up in MJ fever so I was happy to get anything he put out, but in retrospect, it’s obvious he wasn’t feeling it. For crying out loud he wasn’t even performing the background harmonies on the majority of these songs which has always been something I love about Michael’s songs. His harmonies are top notch and just gorgeous. I believe wholeheartedly that his over medicating had a lot to do with his piss poor decisions around that time. Just sucks that was his last album and he never got to try and out do that one.