CD CHOICE: Michael Jackson Michael, Sony ****

There’s still controversy surrounding Michael Jackson. This posthumous release has been the subject of intense internet gossip alleging that these songs have nothing to do with Jackson, that a vocal imitator is involved, that it’s a travesty and so on. The more moderate criticism has it that the songs here are just tarted-up demos that were rearranged and, in places, rewritten by a crack team of studio producers.

The reality is a bit more boring. These are Michael Jackson songs, and it is his voice (to the very best of my listening knowledge) on the album. What we’ll never know is how far these songs were advanced. Were they just given a studio burnish or have they been built up from their basic melody lines?

What is known is that Jackson did hoard songs. Some of his most popular songs were sometimes more than a decade old by the time he released them. Some of the material here goes as far back as the Dangerous sessions; other tracks are from his time living in Co Westmeath (a sentence that still feels funny to write).

The already released single, Hold My Hand(featuring Akon), is typically anthemic Jackson territory: a bit soft-centred but expertly arranged and executed. Hollywood Tonightdoes sound like it was given a bit of a make-over. There are Lady Gaga-like flourishes over the basic song structure that are not a million miles away from Wanna Be Starting Something.

Being a Michael Jackson album, there is the inevitably drippy "Why can't we all just live in love and peace together" ballad. Where it really picks up is in tracks such as Breaking News, which has the same sort of self-deprecating tone as Leave Me Alonein relation to Jackson's media ubiquity. It contains the lyrics: "Everybody wanting a piece of Michael Jackson/Reporters stalking the moves of Michael Jackson/ . . . They wanna write my obituary."

The almost doo-wop touches of The Way You Love Meand the acoustic stylings of Best of You mix easily here with the more dance-funk oriented numbers. At times, Jackson's unique musical genius still shines bright. See michaeljackson. com

Download tracks: Breaking News, Behind The Mask