Posted as a comment on HuffPost by dogolvr:

Joe, Joe… You didn’t cite me for my comment about the Pachelbel! ;-) Hold My Hand was not a variation on the introduction to Pachelbel’s Canon, it was a play on the entire piece!

Michael Jackson loved to play with classical music. Words like audacious, chutzpah, or ballsy come to mind when I think about MJ’s use of classical music. The first time I heard “Will You Be There” I actually laughed out loud – from the delight of encountering the kind of creative impudence one rarely experiences. I mean who would do it? Who would lead into a pop song with the most profound section of Beethoven’s great Ninth Symphony? I still get a good chuckle from that brazenness. But the real gutsiness of that act was that it worked. And it worked well.

In Hold My Hand, we have a different kind of example of MJ’s play with classical music. He used the structure of Pachelbel’s Canon (all of it) and put his song right inside that existing structure. But, I get ahead of myself. I am using the past tense because that was the original leaked version, the one Akon said the world wasn’t ready for. Maybe the world still isn’t. Akon has tampered with MJ’s playfulness for the obvious purpose of getting a number one single. I, for one, was saddened. A lot.

Hold My Hand is a beautiful song and beautifully performed by both MJ and Akon. I never thought I’d be saying this, but the use of that hollow, metallic “auto-tune” sound adds a gorgeous touch. It provides sheen to the voice. Leave it to MJ to teach us that it is not the tool but how it is used which matters. So, I want to clearly state that I like the song and like the singing. The original was genius. That’s what will be getting played on my CD player.

For those who don’t realize what the Pachelbel Canon sounds like, it is here: http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=JvNQLJ1_H­Q0&feature;­=related. As soon as you hear it, you will realize you know it. This ensemble, with the Baroque organ, sounds similar to MJ’s leaked version of Hold My Hand. You can easily hear that the opening chords are similar. But in the just-released, new version, someone has changed the chord progression and bass line (which is what Mr. Vogel called the “intro”). The old, leaked version of Hold My Hand preserved the “feeling” of Pachelbel – it has a placid calmness, a sense of peace (which is the feeling one has when holding another’s hand). The new version doesn’t – it has a sense of urgency before the vocal line even starts from the chord progression changes and all the little “extras” that have been added.

(When, oh when, are musicians going to understand that less is more?)

A Canon is basically just a round. We all sang them in school. Probably Frere Jacques is the most famous. One musical line is repeated in another voice. To make it more musically interesting, once one player hands off their musical line to another, that original player begins an embroidered version of the original musical line (that is a variation). The same thing happens in the original Hold My Hand. Michael captured the gentle sense of motion and interplay between the melodies, building up and falling back much in the same way Pachelbel did. He duplicated that lovely pulsing feeling in the section just past the two minute mark. And he duplicated both the motion and volume arc (building to a climax in the center and then receding away). But all of that is changed in the new version.
The original Hold My Hand has a gentle maturity which illustrates the lyrics – gone is the anxiety in Whatever Happens (“don’t let go of my hand”). But it is also not the impassioned (still young) rush of the wave that washes over everything in its path in this new Hold My Hand. I prefer ease to angst here. Michael knew exactly what he was doing the first time around. (You can look up the original version on YouTube. I’m not going to cite one because Sony has been removing them.)

Akon is too young and inexperienced to realize that what he thought was finishing was tearing down. Michael knew that songs need structure and the character of a song comes from its structure. That’s why the Estate and Sony are struggling over these songs. You tamper with the structure and you change the integrity of the house. This song may please the fans. Probably it will go to number one. But, the structure of Michael Jackson is no longer there (which is more of a problem than “excessive flourishes and sentimentalism”).
The controversy in the last week is about Michael’s voice, whether it is authentic or not. But, as I see it, that is not the issue. The important issue that is getting ignored in the frenzy is Michael’s musical voice – is that authentic or not. Once again, as with Breaking News, this song is not Michael’s musical voice. It is not his compositional or production style. What I wonder about is whether anyone who Michael worked with really understood what he was doing musically. Certainly, Akon did not, as he demonstrates by the changes he made in this song.

By changing the chord structure and bass line, the climactic arc of the song, the ebb and flow of the melodic lines, and last but not least the non-verbal vocalizations of Michael, Akon destroyed the structure of this song. So, my final comment must be about those vocalizations. Michael Jackson did not have the hiccups (as in Jo Koy’s famous stand up routine). His non-verbal vocalizations made musical sense. I don’t know if it is because of the authenticity controversy or just some misguided notion about a song not being Michael if there are not a lot of Oooos, aows, dahs, or hee heees, but all (not some, all) of the ones Akon added in this song make no musical sense whatsoever. Plus, they are so obviously from other songs; I can name each song that each vocalization comes from! Why do it? Less is more!

The worst offense is at the end, with the little sob from She’s Out of My Life. Hold My Hand is not sad! Why does it need a sob at the end? Other than that incredibly obvious reason to leave it out, the more important musical one is that the sob typifies the changes made by Akon. He took a simple, pure and playful musical moment and made it romantic, passionate and then maudlin. Maybe he should have changed the lyrics too. Oh wait…. he did.

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