In the ticker-tape blizzard of tribute, reappraisal and hyperbole that followed Michael Jackson’s death, cold, hard certainties suddenly became difficult to come by. But while the world tried to work out which labels — genius, victim, entertainer, abused, abuser — best suited Jackson in death, it was left to the promoter of his planned O2 shows to choose the words that best set the tone of the next few months. “He was our partner in life,” the AEG promoter Randy Phillips said, “and now he’s our partner in death.”

If Phillips’s intention was simultaneously to pay tribute to Jackson while pledging to recover every cent that AEG had invested in the singer’s 50-date run at the O2, he really couldn’t have put it better. Weeks after his death, AEG was offering fans a “chance” to forego refunds in return for “souvenir” tickets to the shows.

With thousands gladly shelling out for such a dubious privilege, there’s no doubt that take-up for a film of the comeback that never happened will be similarly voracious. They’re still calling it This Is It — but, of course, there is no “It” any more. In an ideal world — one in which global pop icons stay alive long enough to honour their contractual obligations — films of rehearsals find their natural place on the “extra features” section of DVD menus. But, according to the concert director Kenny Ortega, the film promises to show us “a new Michael ... 12 years a dad, a businessman [and] an entertainer’s entertainer.” Not, then, a dad who dangled his youngest child over a Berlin balcony and settled out of court over child abuse allegations; not a “businessman” who consistently spent more than he earned. Not, perchance, an “entertainer’s entertainer” who did virtually no entertaining in his final decade. In the current climate, it may take a while for someone to get around to making that film.

But while AEG set about recovering its investment by hawking loveable rehearsal footage to Columbia Pictures, the Columbia-affiliated Sony Music has a somewhat easier job. As custodians of the Jackson who soared to the top of his vast potential with Off the Wall and Thriller, Sony could simply continue to issue compilations featuring his best songs in varying permutations, safe in the knowledge that they’ll continue to sell in perpetuity.

However, presumably restricted by the selection of songs that make it into the film, the only cut from the sublime Off the Wall of 1979 that gets an airing here is an acoustic demo She’s Out of My Life. Sitting alongside polished, unrevealing demos of Beat It and Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ on the bonus CD, it’s a forlorn presence.

If nothing else though, a perusal of the tracklisting affords an insight into the songs that Jackson deemed best suited to a live show. As with so many insights into Jackson’s psyche, the results aren’t always pretty. The brittle beats, hics and grunts of Jam and They Don’t Care About Us are shorn of the emotional generosity that once came as standard on a Jackson vocal.

If nothing else though, you can at least move to them — which is more that can be said for much of his more mawkish later output. Even if he didn’t continue to spend the years after he recorded Man in the Mirror buying emerald-eyed china leopards in Saudi Arabian malls, there would still be something lingeringly offensive about the proselytising platitudes that Jackson somehow felt uniquely placed to prescribe. A spoken word “piece” called Planet Earth and Earth Song, with its immortal inquiry, “What about elephants?/ Have we lost their trust?”, further remind us that, apparently, Jackson cared about the environment. It was presumably in search of an outlet for that missionary ecological zeal that Jackson lobbied to have Victoria Falls recreated for his ill-fated O2 shows.

Whatever This Is It purports to be, then, it’s certainly not a greatest hits. Much of the time, it would barely even pass muster as a Spotify playlist. The Jackson on whose genius most people are agreed is best represented here on a quartet of songs — Thriller, Billie Jean, Beat It, Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ — that helped to make their parent album the biggest-selling record to date. You probably have those already, and it would seem that Sony knows that — which is why it’s using the CD’s hitherto unavailable eponymous track as collateral in order to get you to buy a tranche of previously available songs.

This Is It, the song in question, won’t be made available as an individual download. But really, so what? The posthumously “finished” version of the mawkish, mid-paced meditation that its co-writer Paul Anka subsequently gave to the Latin artist Sa-Fire is a wisp-like presence at the end of this album. A slight creation on which to hang the title of an entire project. Completists won’t sleep until they own it. The rest of us may nod off by the second chorus. Mercifully, it turns out that the only reason to buy This Is It is no reason at all.

(Sony)

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