Invincible was released on October 30, 2001. It was Michael Jackson's tenth and final studio album released during his lifetime. The reported production budget was approximately 30 million dollars, making it — adjusted for inflation and even in raw dollars — the most expensive album ever recorded. It remains the record holder.
The bulk of the album was co-produced with Rodney Jerkins, a young producer who had just come off a run of Destiny's Child, Brandy, and Whitney Houston hits. Recording began in October 1997 at the Hit Factory in New York and continued in bursts across four years at Record One in Los Angeles, Marvin's Room in Chicago, and Michael's home studio at Neverland. More than 100 songs were recorded, of which 16 made the final tracklist.
The most streamed track on the album today is Butterflies, a slow-burn R&B ballad written by Andre Harris and Marsha Ambrosius. It reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 without an official music video and remains one of the most-covered Michael Jackson songs of the 21st century. Speechless, an a-cappella ballad Michael wrote entirely by himself, is regularly cited by vocal coaches as one of the most technically accomplished lead vocals of his career.
Commercially, Invincible sold roughly 13 million copies worldwide — a figure that would define most artists' careers, but that failed to recoup the production spend and marketing budget. Michael publicly criticized Sony Music leadership for what he described as under-promotion of the album, an unprecedented public break between a superstar and his label.
Sony declined to fund a Michael Jackson world tour for Invincible. No singles were released after the first three. By 2003, the working relationship between Michael and his label was effectively dead. He would not release another studio album before his death in 2009.
Listening to Invincible today, the production still holds up. The drums are tighter and the bass is heavier than almost anything on Dangerous or HIStory. What the album lacks is the sense of scale and event that surrounded every previous Michael Jackson release. It arrived quietly. It sold quietly. And in its quiet, it turned out to be the last chapter.