Review Summary: Motown decides to release a new Michael Jackson album when 'Thriller' was dominating the world...
Michael Jackson became a superstar after his 1982 release, called "Thriller" and installed a Jacksonmania. Michael was the top performer that time. He was the best dancer ever, the best singer, the most popular man in the world. That's one of the few reasons that Motown decided to pull off some songs that Michael recorded when he was younger and hadn't even met Quincy Jones, yet. Michael sang those songs when was about 16 or 17. That happened back in 1974 or 1975, when The Jackson 5 weren't successful anymore and were planning to leave Motown and go to Epic Records.
Taking the chance since Michael was now a very famous person, Motown released in 1984 a collection called 'Farewell My Summer Love' and promoted as a new album by Michael and its songs were completely unreleased - something totally rare, since Motown released numerous Michael Jackson-related albums with lots of previously published material.
This album can't be compared with any of post-Motown Michael albums. It isn't no way. The quality and its production are no near from what had been heard from Michael at the time in both 'Off the Wall' and 'Thriller'. The nine songs were remixed and edited in an effort to make them sound up-to-date, a risk which I consider was good enough - that's because I've listened to their original versions, and I just didn't like them. The best songs in this album includes "Don't Let It Get You Down", the song title, "Call on Me" (due to Michael's awesome vocals even at that time) and "To Make my Father Proud" (which is similar to Michael's "Childhood" - from HIStory - because of their autobiographical nature). Another personal favourite is "Girl, You're So Together" because I enjoyed the last part of the song. Anyway, if you're really a fan of Michael Jackson, you ought to have it, because it will complete your collection, but, if you just like his most popular songs, I don't recommend this album.
