The music industry’s promotional machinery has already begun surging to life in support of the song, from a splashy launch via Usher's performance at the iHeartRadio Music Awards to appearances in a handful of commercials for Jeep. There are three versions of “Love Never Felt So Good” on the deluxe version of Xscape: a duet with Justin Timberlake arranged by two of the album’s executive producers, Timbaland and J-Roc; a solo Jackson version, updated by the co-executor of his estate, John McClain; and the song’s original demo, a piano-and-vocals sketch hammered out by Jackson and Anka in the studio.
The duet version of “Love Never Felt So Good,” which brings the King of Pop and JT together in a way that only happened once while Jackson was still alive, is the album’s foremost bid for chart success; it landed on the Hot 100 at #20 after only three full days’ worth of tracking, thanks to strong sales and heavy radio play. Timbaland and J-Roc crib percussive elements from “Workin’ Day and Night", an Off the Wall highlight from 1979, and the song is kept brisk by those clicking beats and Jackson’s signature gasping, stuttering, and pseudo-beatboxing—give your monitor a grunt and a SHAMONE, just for kicks. This is the most modern version of “Love Never Felt So Good", but it suffers from Timberlake’s presence; though he gives it his best effort, he’s out of his league here. There is a grace and ease to Jackson’s vocal that Timberlake can’t match. Hearing him alongside Jackson is like watching a cross-country runner try to keep up with a bird.
That leaves the song’s demo, which is unfairly relegated to the deluxe version of Xscape (and not yet available online) along with the other pieces of source material used to put the album together. It’s a breathtaking display of unvarnished talent, physical and fluid, with ballast provided courtesy of a key-pounding piano take. Jackson slices and darts through space with grace and agility, his performance augmented with snaps, claps and vocal ad-libs; he gobbles up room, turning an unadorned sketch into something that feels fully realized through sheer force of will. The demo version of “Love Never Felt So Good” will go down as the most timeless one, the one that refreshes our belief in Jackson’s enduring genius.