Tonight, Michael Jackson Will Become the First Person to Premiere a Music Video on Twitter
Though he’s been gone for several years now, new material from Michael Jackson just keeps on coming.
On Monday, the Jackson Estate and Epic Records (the label that owns much
of his material and continues to release posthumous songs and albums)
announced that a new video was coming from the King of Pop, and it is
set to be released in a unique way.
At 10 PM EST tonight, the music video for new single “A Place With No
Name” is set to be released via Jackson’s Twitter account, marking the
first such premiere for the social media site. While artists have always
used Twitter TWTR 0% to alert fans about new clips on YouTube and the
like, viewing videos within tweets is a fairly new feature, and Jackson
will be the first to actually debut a new video within a single tweet.
Before premiering in full on Twitter, a preview of the video will air on
a special Michael Jackson-themed episode of FOX’s So You Think You Can
Dance. The episode begins at 8 PM EST with a performance by all top
eight performers on the show choreographed by the Emmy award-winning
Travis Payne, who worked as both back-up dancer and choreographer for
Michael Jackson. Every performance during tonight’s broadcast will be a
rendition of a famous Michael Jackson song, all leading up to the new
video.
On top of the television and Twitter showings, “A Place With No Name”
will be shown on a massive screen in Times Square in New York City at
the same time.
“A Place With No Name” is Jackson’s reinvisioning of America’s hit
single “A Horse With No Name” and was originally recorded back in 1998.
It is one of many previously unreleased tracks on Jackson’s Xscape
album that takes what the King of Pop originally fashioned and finishes
it off with one of today’s top producers. To complete “A Place…”, Epic
hired superproducer StarGate, the team behind big hits for the likes of
Rihanna (“What’s My Name”, “S&M”, “Diamonds”), Katy Perry
(“Firework”) and Beyonce (“Irreplaceable”).
Crafted by award-winning director Samuel Bayer —who has previously
worked on videos with rock groups like Nirvana and the Rolling
Stones—created the video by attempting to follow Michael’s typical
vision for music films, which usually tell the song’s story in some way.
The short film also includes outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage of
Jackson shot during the production for “In The Closet” back in 1992.
While it is certainly no Thriller, Jackson’s Xscape
is already a critical and commercial success, debuting at number two in
the US and topping charts around the world. Lead single “Love Never
Felt So Good”, a duet with Justin Timberlake, became his first top ten
hit in the US on the Hot 100 since 2001’s “You Rock My World”.