This Is It debuted at number one in fourteen countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, and France.

The title track from the album, "This Is It", earned Jackson a nomination in 2011 for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.

Prior to his death, Jackson was planning on performing 50 concerts for his sold-out This Is It comeback shows in London at the O2 Arena from July 13, 2009, to March 6, 2010.

The press release announcing the two-disc album describes it as a "stand-alone companion" to the motion picture.

[4] On September 23, 2009, Sony Music Entertainment announced that it would release the song "This Is It" as a single to promote both the album and film.

[6] This Is It contains previously unreleased music by Michael Jackson, which consists of demos and instrumental versions of his songs.

[9] The disc contains three demo versions of Michael Jackson's "She's Out of My Life" (1979), "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" (1982) and "Beat It" (1982).

Vozick-Levinson described the album's track "This Is It" as being an "uplifting ballad" and felt that "if you're feeling generous" you can "count the minimally distinguishable" orchestra version of "This Is It" having thought of it as being a "decent if slight addition to Jackson's songbook."

Vozick-Levinson stated that while the album's second disc only contains four tracks that were unreleased, that included a "fairly unremarkable" spoken-word poem, after hearing Jackson "work out the vocal harmonies" for "Beat It," he, in particular, felt that This Is It was "well worth the price of admission (or at least a healthy chunk of it).

"[13] Brian Linder of IGN described This Is It as a "freshly designed" release of a greatest hits album, and that the album's tracks of an all-vocal arrangement of "Beat It" was "particularly awesome" and the acoustic version of "She's Out of My Life" allows Jackson's "vocals to shine without the distraction of dated '70s musical underpinnings."

Hines commented that, "On one level [of the album], it's an attempt to focus and draw attention to what Michael Jackson lived for, and not what he did.

Erlewine commented, "An important thing to remember when considering the soundtrack to This Is It: this entire film and CD project was never supposed to happen."

He noted that Jackson's death had "created considerable demand" for his final rehearsal footage and that This Is It was an "accompaniment" to the film.

[11] Andy Gill of The Independent strongly criticized This Is It describing it as being a "shoddy apology for an album" and felt that it was made just for a profit, commenting, As a cash-in attempt to scrape as much money from fans' memories with as little outlay as possible, however, it rivals RCA's ruthless (and still ongoing) reconfigurations of Elvis Presley's back catalogue.

His own father's immediate reaction to Michael's death seemed to involve the promotion of his own label, while his brothers quickly grabbed the opportunity to scour through a box of tapes and find a tepid old track not previously deemed worthy of release and add their own vocals to it (before taking the trouble to find out it was co-written by Paul Anka, who understandably sought remuneration for his work).

In the four months since his death, Sony and Motown/Universal between them have issued no fewer than five posthumous album packages: The Collection, Hello World, The Stripped Mixes, The Remix Suite, and now This Is It.