About 45 seconds of “This Is It” went online on Sunday, just before its official Monday release. Just when Jackson’s estate and Sony Music Entertainment thought they ‘picked the song out of boxes of tapes in their archives,’ thinking that it was Jackson’s newest and last recording, the song turned out to be an old song recorded by Jackson and Paul Anka back in 1983. In fact, ‘Latin hip-hop singer Safire recorded and released the song in 1990 — under the title “I Never Heard”.’

The spokesman for Jackson’s estate admitted, “We picked the song because the lyrics were appropriate given the name Michael gave his tour. The song was written with the legendary Paul Anka.”

Anka, himself, said, “Somebody just innocently found this tape and did not know somebody recorded it with him. It was just a coincidence that the song’s first words were the same as Jackson’s last planned tour.” Anka added that it was ‘an honest mistake’ on the part of Jackson’s estate, and further says, “They realized the mistake. They apologized and they’ve given me rightfully what I own. It’s 50-50, right down the middle.”

According to Nielsen BDS, a company that tracks music airplay, Jackson’s latest hit ‘got widespread airplay on radio shows across the United States Monday.’ It was ‘the 21st most-played song on the 1,300 stations monitored by Nielsen, with at least 680 “spins” by mid-afternoon,’ according to the track-trending company.

Via CNN