Era Guide: This Is It and the Chapter That Never Happened

On March 5, 2009, Jackson appeared at a press conference at the O2 Arena in London and announced a series of concerts there, which he described as his 'final curtain call' in London. The shows were promoted by AEG Live. The original announcement was for ten dates; demand led to the run being expanded to 50 concerts, scheduled from July 2009 into 2010.

It would have been his first major concert series since the HIStory World Tour ended in 1997. Tickets for all 50 dates sold out quickly after going on sale.

Rehearsals took place in Los Angeles in the spring and early summer of 2009, directed by Kenny Ortega, who had worked with Jackson on the Dangerous and HIStory tours. The show was planned as a large theatrical production, with new films, a large dance company and reworked versions of hits including Smooth Criminal, Thriller, Earth Song and They Don't Care About Us.

Michael Jackson passed away at his rented home in Los Angeles on June 25, 2009, at the age of 50. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled the death a homicide caused by acute propofol intoxication. In 2011 his personal physician, Conrad Murray, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Public reaction was immense. His music returned to the top of charts around the world, and his public memorial service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on July 7, 2009 was broadcast internationally.

Michael Jackson's This Is It, directed by Ortega and assembled from rehearsal footage, was released in October 2009. It shows Jackson working with musicians and dancers, adjusting arrangements and occasionally holding back his voice to save it. It was one of the most successful concert or documentary films released up to that time.

For many fans the film is valuable precisely because it is unpolished. It shows how Jackson worked: precise, collaborative, and focused on small details of timing and sound.

His estate has released posthumous albums, including Michael (2010) and Xscape (2014), the latter built around earlier recordings reworked by contemporary producers. Anniversary editions of Thriller, Bad and other albums have added unreleased demos and outtakes. The Broadway musical MJ opened in 2022.

Posthumous releases are always debated among fans, because Jackson was known for revising songs extensively before approving them. We recommend starting with the albums he completed himself, and treating later releases as a window into unfinished work.

The This Is It period is not a separate album era, which is why it is not one of the six results in our quiz. But it is the natural end point of the Invincible era's story: an artist planning a return, still refining the details of songs he had performed for decades.