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HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I

by Michael Jackson

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HIStory's 2 CDs (one hits, the other new) were Jackson's attempt to connect his glorious past to a dodgy present and--given it's commercial and artistic performance--cast a shadow on his future. Conceived as his formal coronation as the "King of Pop," HIStory's second disc instead presents Jackson as an epauletted, single-gloved Richard III. By turns paranoid, angry, bitter, sentimental, and, in one instance, possibly anti-Semitic, HIStory was less a collection of songs than a case history. A few tracks--mostly those produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis--are sleek, modern pop/soul, but too much of HIStory has the overblown vacuousness of a musician who knows his time is past, but is unsure as to how to react to the situation. --Steven Mirkin