RocBrown
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Hey MJJC.
I've always seen MJ as an artist and not just an entertainer. I've longed to see unbiased(positive or negative)analysis of his work.
I decide to write up an analysis on one of MJ's most interesting works--the Dangerous album.
Here goes. Give me your own thoughts after you read.
According to Bruce Swedien–chief engineer for Quincy Jones and now Michael Jackson–the recordings for the next album started the day after the Bad album wrapped…however, one member of the team who created magic was missing…
Quincy Jones has revealed that during the sessions for Bad(the first album cover that revealed Michael’s skin as NOT brown)that Mike tried to confide in him about the health issues that were causing drastic changes in his appearance, namely that he was suffering from vitiligo…
Quincy–who had posed in many pictures with Michael, smiling warmly and embracing him affectionately–had made the world believe that he was a loving father figure to young adult Michael, responded very simply to Mike’s revelations…
“Bullshit…”
Quincy wished to hear no more and continued with work…
After the Bad tour wrapped, Michael had been convinced to deliver a project called Decade…Decade would be a greatest hits package with a few new songs…Though Mike was well aware of what he wanted, he needed someone to translate what he heard in his head to the machines in the studio…
Mike knocked around in the studio with longtime studio hands Bryan Loren and Bill Bottrell but he wasn’t getting exactly what he wanted…without Quincy, another studiomeister was needed…the word was out…
Once it was announced that Quincy would not be returning, the public collectively gasped…most people within and outside the industry mistakenly believed that Quincy was solely responsible for the genius behind MJ’s music…
Enter Teddy Riley.
The young wunderkind from Harlem singlehandedly reshaped the sound of R&B a few years earlier with his blend of aggressive grooves over hip-hop style drum programs. The sound was first explored with Riley’s own group, Guy and then spread over his many productions for other artists like Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat…it would be called New Jack Swing.
More collective gasping. People wondered what might happen to the classic Michael Jackson sound…
According to Teddy, he came to the studio with a CD of 10 grooves–just loosely arranged ideas…he hoped that Michael would choose a few…
Teddy pressed play on the CD, and he waited nervously…before he knew it, Michael started to dance…
When the groove that became Remember The Time came on, Teddy remembers that Michael stopped the CD and hustled him into the piano room of the studio…there he told Teddy that all songs must start on an instrument and asked him to play the groove on piano…
Teddy had hoped that Michael would accept a few of the selections from his groove CD…Michael took all of them…the Decade idea would have to wait–a new Michael Jackson album was underway…
According to Wikipedia, the sessions for Dangerous began on an interesting day–June 25, 1990…recording would take over a year and be turned in just weeks before release…
From the first beats of Jam, it was apparent that Michael would not be singing over Guy leftovers…
Teddy and Michael met at the mid-points of their sounds and blended seamlessly….Michael and Teddy deconstructed Teddy’s grooves and rebuilt them as songs…both men were inspired and the songs kept coming…they were finally forced to stop by the looming deadline…
For some reason, Mike decided to group all the Riley tracks except one on the first side of the album–which divides the album into suites…whether this was intentional is not known…
The Riley tracks are built on tense, funky grooves that eventually unfold until the listener is trapped inside a huge futuristic groove contraption…
Thematically, Michael takes himself out of his private fantasyland and plants himself in the middle of present day reality…
He contemplates the changes that the impending new millennium will bring and how people try to cope through their faiths in Jam…he challenges the public and the media to focus on ever present social issues rather than his eccentricities on Why You Wanna Trip On Me?…he explores the pent up sexual tension of a clandestine relationship on In The Closet…he takes us inside an emotionally abusive relationship on Can’t Let Her Get Away(Jackson plays the victim)
“I play the fool for you/I change the rules for you/but still you said goodbye…”
The side ends with Heal The World–a disgustingly saccharine rip-off of We Are The World…for some strange reason, Michael was extremely proud of this song, and even more inexplicable, it became a huge hit in some countries…within the context of the album it serves as a bridge to take us away from the hardcore reality and back into Michael’s private world…
The Riley suite is by far the most interesting material on the album…the music that Jackson and Riley create is almost brutal sounding…deep, pulsating electric funk grooves dressed with layers of space age adornments that come in cascading waves of sound…acoustic instruments are blended with synths, and as Michael claimed, handmade sounds programmed by Riley and Jackson…
She Drives Me Wild contains a drum track made exclusively of samples of car sounds…Michael’s pet tiger appears in the mix of another song…Remember The Time became an overplayed classic with its blend of driving drums and a sweet melodious synth groove under Michael’s measured and impassioned vocals…one could think of it as an update of Rock With You…In The Closet is a serpentine groove that explodes with a soaring bridge and is one of the best songs on the album…
one notable difference from other Jackson albums is the many sheets of vocal tracks–specifically on the Riley suite…Michael employs a gritty tone, a whispery tone, his full tenor, stacked harmonies, counter vocals, beatboxing, and sound effects to create a wall of vocals on the songs…headphones reveal this vocal tapestry in full…one is reminded of one of Michael’s heroes, Marvin Gaye, and his genius in multi-tracking his own vocals(Marvin would be a vocal inspiration to Mike throughout his career)…
one could argue that Riley’s work on Dangerous was his creative peak as a producer….Producing with Jackson challenged Riley to focus on his songcraft and structure as much as his sound design and layering(which he had developed on Guy’s sophomore album The Future)…from that point, Riley would rely on sampling in his work and would not return to that level of innovation again in his production career…
On side 2 of the album, the songs are borne not of the outside world, but from Michael’s inner sanctum…produced mostly by Michael with help from Bill Bottrell, the songs on side 2 are more “human” sounding rather than the hard edged funk giants on side 1…it seems that he is making an offering to pop fans with this less confrontational material
Mike’s vocals are more gentle and traditional in contrast to the snarly, gruff tone he employs on the Riley tracks…
Sorrow is a consistent theme on side 2…he goes back to the well on Give In To Me–the token rock track on Dangerous…it doesnt have the teeth of Beat It or even Dirty Diana and sounds very much catered for pop radio with its faux country rock feel…
He mourns his friend Ryan White on the elegant Gone Too Soon…even though Mike was vocally skilled enough to handle material like this, this is not the type of music Michael Jackson fans were into…and ironically, the lyrics seem to fit better as a eulogy for Michael rather than Ryan…this became clear when Usher sang the song at Michael’s memorial..
the standout track on side 2 is Who Is It…in this morose, aching, yet subtly funky track, Mike sings about the agony of being suddenly abandoned by a lover and the paranoia that results from it…he sings the verses in a choked tone of voice to evoke the grief of the character of the song…
Side 2 is rounded out by hands-held-in-the-air sing along Will You Be There…in the song, an embattled Mike prays for the love and support of people around him in his darkest hours…little did he know that those dark hours were right around the corner…musically, the intent is there but the execution leaves something to be desired…the spoken coda finds an emotional Michael in a tear filled prayer, which could be viewed as melodramatic, uncomfortable, or heartbreaking depending on the listener…
Keep The Faith is a blatant attempt to redo Man In The Mirror…the composition itself is really good, but the production chooses to use cold synthesized instruments rather than a warmer live sound and the song suffers for it…Michael gives a great vocal performance here and had he chosen to release this rather than Will You Be There, it would have made a better case for the non-Riley tracks on the album…
in a nice use of album sequencing, Jackson does the opposite of what he did with side 1 where he ended the Riley suite with a softer song–he ends side 2 with a Riley cut….
the title track had been demoed with Bill Bottrell and is available on The Ultimate Collection, but Riley’s version is FAR superior…
over a swirling, hypnotic Riley groove, Mike delivers a spoken word piece about a being seduced by a mysterious femme fatale…the bridge and chorus find Mike singing about the results of being taken in by such a woman…the groove is extended for dancing and brings the album to a nice close…
before the release of the album, Michael’s image in the press had taken a serious beating…the winds of change in both society and music made many wonder if the all the larger than life pomp and circumstance of Michael Jackson and 80’s superstars of his ilk were necessary anymore…
because of 2 ill-conceived but memorable publicity stunts(the Elephant Man’s bones and the Hyperbaric Chamber)pulled by Mike and his management to generate publicity for the forthcoming Bad album, he opened himself up to become a whipping boy for the tabloid an the mainstream press…it also didnt help that the Michael Jackson of 1991 looked drastically different from the Michael Jackson the world fell in love with in 1983…the word bizarre was tacked onto his name in almost every news item…
Would the record buying public care about this new Michael Jackson album?
The first shot from Dangerous was the peppy and VERY MOR pop rocker Black Or White(it opens side 2), which offers Mike’s rather simplistic view on race relations…the world premiere of the video on prime time TV and the controversy that ensued from it only served to heighten the suspense of whether a comeback would be embraced by the public…
the extended portion of the video features Michael in a dance of rage…on a darkened street, he employs lighting quick fancy foot work that leads to him raging against the racist graffiti he sees…he smashes the windows where the slurs appear…with each act of rebellious violence, he seems to feel a rush of sexual pleasure…he gyrates vigorously with his hands caressing his crotch–running his hands over himself as he winds his pelvis suggestively…finally, when he is done, he transforms into a black panther(symbolism that was quite intentional)and leaves the scene….anyone who wondered if Michael Jackson’s message of color blindness in the song meant that he had forgotten that he is a Black man in America was sent a subtle message by the segment…
Conservatives were outraged by both the violence and sexuality of the segment and called for its banning immediately, citing MJ’s influence on children as the main reason why his performance was offensive…and though they didnt say anything about it, I’m sure the black panther thing pissed them off royally…
The public spoke. Black Or White sailed to number 1 on the pop charts…the stage was set for the album’s release and the return of Michael Jackson…
The dichotomy of the video speaks to the dichotomy of both the Dangerous album and even Michael Jackson himself…there are two worlds for Michael–the one that he longs for and tries to create and the one that exists and resists change…the song Black Or White and the first segment of the video represents that Utopia where people of all nations dance together in unity, peace, and love…the second half of the video represents reality where there is violence, hate, anger, lust, and racism…Dangerous shows both worlds through one man’s eyes…
Critics were split on their view of the album…some loved it, some hated it…most were ambivalent…they felt that the album was too bombastic and that Michael’s new vocal approach was not to their liking…they felt it lacked the joy of past MJ albums and was too dark…
if anyone has paid much attention to Michael Jackson’s musical evolution, then they would know that his music has always come from equally happy and dark places in his psyche…
The depression and loneliness of the songs on The Jacksons’ Destiny album…songs like Heartbreak Hotel and Billie Jean…Thriller itself is about being attacked by zombies…Wanna Be Startin Something is about how gossip is never as harmless as it seems…Smooth Criminal is a graphic song about a woman being murdered in her home…Michael Jackson’s music has always had strong shades of darkness…it has never been all sunshine and boogie-ing with Michael Jackson’s adult music…even Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough was about an erotic sexual encounter(even though Mike denied it, the lyrics are clear)…it seems that when Black artists step away from the banal topics of romance, seduction, and partying, mainstream music critics complain about how the music isn’t fun…
Dangerous was no different…people accused Michael throughout his adult life of being out of touch with reality….in actuality, Michael was very aware of reality, which resulted in his desire to escape from it at times…in Dangerous, he confronted reality head on…
The cover art of Dangerous is a hint of what’s inside…illustrated by artist Mark Ryden, Dangerous is perhaps the best cover art of MJ’s career…MJ’s eyes only appear behind a mask, the mask is made up of various symbols that could perhaps represent a glimpse into the mind of Michael Jackson…one could spend much time analyzing the meaning of the imagery on the cover…
In totality, Dangerous is a dark and brooding work overall…it takes you deep into the soul of the tortured artist as he struggles to make peace with a world that does not seems suited to him, and that is far more interesting than the synthetic, safe pop of Bad…it wasnt the 70’s or the 80’s anymore, and those who expected to hear a Michael Jackson record built on those same musical values would be disappointed…Perhaps he realized that he played it too safe with Bad…the metallic funk moves Jackson into the the future instead of trying to play catch up…he takes Teddy Riley’s sound and reshapes it to suit his own musical intentions…he is not content to let the current music scene of the time dictate where his music would go, instead he takes the bull by the horns and leads the charge toward the millennium…
Dangerous is by no means a perfect album…Mike no longer saw himself as an just an R&B or soul artist–he saw himself as a global artist…he wished to serve the tastes of all of his fans, therefore diluting the power of the album…on the other hand, he was no fool–he knew that R&B was his bread and butter…he would continue to try to cover all bases with his remaining 2 albums…while some of the softer songs work, some are too mushy and serve only as roadblocks…taken as a whole, Dangerous is a trip through the mind of a complex artist as he tries to reconcile his spiritual aspirations(Keep The Faith, Heal The World)with his worldly concerns(In The Closet, Jam).
Dangerous is a reminder that the Michael Jackson image presented in the media is a one dimensional caricature and that if one looks closely, there is a real man behind the mask watching it all go down…
I've always seen MJ as an artist and not just an entertainer. I've longed to see unbiased(positive or negative)analysis of his work.
I decide to write up an analysis on one of MJ's most interesting works--the Dangerous album.
Here goes. Give me your own thoughts after you read.
According to Bruce Swedien–chief engineer for Quincy Jones and now Michael Jackson–the recordings for the next album started the day after the Bad album wrapped…however, one member of the team who created magic was missing…
Quincy Jones has revealed that during the sessions for Bad(the first album cover that revealed Michael’s skin as NOT brown)that Mike tried to confide in him about the health issues that were causing drastic changes in his appearance, namely that he was suffering from vitiligo…
Quincy–who had posed in many pictures with Michael, smiling warmly and embracing him affectionately–had made the world believe that he was a loving father figure to young adult Michael, responded very simply to Mike’s revelations…
“Bullshit…”
Quincy wished to hear no more and continued with work…
After the Bad tour wrapped, Michael had been convinced to deliver a project called Decade…Decade would be a greatest hits package with a few new songs…Though Mike was well aware of what he wanted, he needed someone to translate what he heard in his head to the machines in the studio…
Mike knocked around in the studio with longtime studio hands Bryan Loren and Bill Bottrell but he wasn’t getting exactly what he wanted…without Quincy, another studiomeister was needed…the word was out…
Once it was announced that Quincy would not be returning, the public collectively gasped…most people within and outside the industry mistakenly believed that Quincy was solely responsible for the genius behind MJ’s music…
Enter Teddy Riley.
The young wunderkind from Harlem singlehandedly reshaped the sound of R&B a few years earlier with his blend of aggressive grooves over hip-hop style drum programs. The sound was first explored with Riley’s own group, Guy and then spread over his many productions for other artists like Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat…it would be called New Jack Swing.
More collective gasping. People wondered what might happen to the classic Michael Jackson sound…
According to Teddy, he came to the studio with a CD of 10 grooves–just loosely arranged ideas…he hoped that Michael would choose a few…
Teddy pressed play on the CD, and he waited nervously…before he knew it, Michael started to dance…
When the groove that became Remember The Time came on, Teddy remembers that Michael stopped the CD and hustled him into the piano room of the studio…there he told Teddy that all songs must start on an instrument and asked him to play the groove on piano…
Teddy had hoped that Michael would accept a few of the selections from his groove CD…Michael took all of them…the Decade idea would have to wait–a new Michael Jackson album was underway…
According to Wikipedia, the sessions for Dangerous began on an interesting day–June 25, 1990…recording would take over a year and be turned in just weeks before release…
From the first beats of Jam, it was apparent that Michael would not be singing over Guy leftovers…
Teddy and Michael met at the mid-points of their sounds and blended seamlessly….Michael and Teddy deconstructed Teddy’s grooves and rebuilt them as songs…both men were inspired and the songs kept coming…they were finally forced to stop by the looming deadline…
For some reason, Mike decided to group all the Riley tracks except one on the first side of the album–which divides the album into suites…whether this was intentional is not known…
The Riley tracks are built on tense, funky grooves that eventually unfold until the listener is trapped inside a huge futuristic groove contraption…
Thematically, Michael takes himself out of his private fantasyland and plants himself in the middle of present day reality…
He contemplates the changes that the impending new millennium will bring and how people try to cope through their faiths in Jam…he challenges the public and the media to focus on ever present social issues rather than his eccentricities on Why You Wanna Trip On Me?…he explores the pent up sexual tension of a clandestine relationship on In The Closet…he takes us inside an emotionally abusive relationship on Can’t Let Her Get Away(Jackson plays the victim)
“I play the fool for you/I change the rules for you/but still you said goodbye…”
The side ends with Heal The World–a disgustingly saccharine rip-off of We Are The World…for some strange reason, Michael was extremely proud of this song, and even more inexplicable, it became a huge hit in some countries…within the context of the album it serves as a bridge to take us away from the hardcore reality and back into Michael’s private world…
The Riley suite is by far the most interesting material on the album…the music that Jackson and Riley create is almost brutal sounding…deep, pulsating electric funk grooves dressed with layers of space age adornments that come in cascading waves of sound…acoustic instruments are blended with synths, and as Michael claimed, handmade sounds programmed by Riley and Jackson…
She Drives Me Wild contains a drum track made exclusively of samples of car sounds…Michael’s pet tiger appears in the mix of another song…Remember The Time became an overplayed classic with its blend of driving drums and a sweet melodious synth groove under Michael’s measured and impassioned vocals…one could think of it as an update of Rock With You…In The Closet is a serpentine groove that explodes with a soaring bridge and is one of the best songs on the album…
one notable difference from other Jackson albums is the many sheets of vocal tracks–specifically on the Riley suite…Michael employs a gritty tone, a whispery tone, his full tenor, stacked harmonies, counter vocals, beatboxing, and sound effects to create a wall of vocals on the songs…headphones reveal this vocal tapestry in full…one is reminded of one of Michael’s heroes, Marvin Gaye, and his genius in multi-tracking his own vocals(Marvin would be a vocal inspiration to Mike throughout his career)…
one could argue that Riley’s work on Dangerous was his creative peak as a producer….Producing with Jackson challenged Riley to focus on his songcraft and structure as much as his sound design and layering(which he had developed on Guy’s sophomore album The Future)…from that point, Riley would rely on sampling in his work and would not return to that level of innovation again in his production career…
On side 2 of the album, the songs are borne not of the outside world, but from Michael’s inner sanctum…produced mostly by Michael with help from Bill Bottrell, the songs on side 2 are more “human” sounding rather than the hard edged funk giants on side 1…it seems that he is making an offering to pop fans with this less confrontational material
Mike’s vocals are more gentle and traditional in contrast to the snarly, gruff tone he employs on the Riley tracks…
Sorrow is a consistent theme on side 2…he goes back to the well on Give In To Me–the token rock track on Dangerous…it doesnt have the teeth of Beat It or even Dirty Diana and sounds very much catered for pop radio with its faux country rock feel…
He mourns his friend Ryan White on the elegant Gone Too Soon…even though Mike was vocally skilled enough to handle material like this, this is not the type of music Michael Jackson fans were into…and ironically, the lyrics seem to fit better as a eulogy for Michael rather than Ryan…this became clear when Usher sang the song at Michael’s memorial..
the standout track on side 2 is Who Is It…in this morose, aching, yet subtly funky track, Mike sings about the agony of being suddenly abandoned by a lover and the paranoia that results from it…he sings the verses in a choked tone of voice to evoke the grief of the character of the song…
Side 2 is rounded out by hands-held-in-the-air sing along Will You Be There…in the song, an embattled Mike prays for the love and support of people around him in his darkest hours…little did he know that those dark hours were right around the corner…musically, the intent is there but the execution leaves something to be desired…the spoken coda finds an emotional Michael in a tear filled prayer, which could be viewed as melodramatic, uncomfortable, or heartbreaking depending on the listener…
Keep The Faith is a blatant attempt to redo Man In The Mirror…the composition itself is really good, but the production chooses to use cold synthesized instruments rather than a warmer live sound and the song suffers for it…Michael gives a great vocal performance here and had he chosen to release this rather than Will You Be There, it would have made a better case for the non-Riley tracks on the album…
in a nice use of album sequencing, Jackson does the opposite of what he did with side 1 where he ended the Riley suite with a softer song–he ends side 2 with a Riley cut….
the title track had been demoed with Bill Bottrell and is available on The Ultimate Collection, but Riley’s version is FAR superior…
over a swirling, hypnotic Riley groove, Mike delivers a spoken word piece about a being seduced by a mysterious femme fatale…the bridge and chorus find Mike singing about the results of being taken in by such a woman…the groove is extended for dancing and brings the album to a nice close…
before the release of the album, Michael’s image in the press had taken a serious beating…the winds of change in both society and music made many wonder if the all the larger than life pomp and circumstance of Michael Jackson and 80’s superstars of his ilk were necessary anymore…
because of 2 ill-conceived but memorable publicity stunts(the Elephant Man’s bones and the Hyperbaric Chamber)pulled by Mike and his management to generate publicity for the forthcoming Bad album, he opened himself up to become a whipping boy for the tabloid an the mainstream press…it also didnt help that the Michael Jackson of 1991 looked drastically different from the Michael Jackson the world fell in love with in 1983…the word bizarre was tacked onto his name in almost every news item…
Would the record buying public care about this new Michael Jackson album?
The first shot from Dangerous was the peppy and VERY MOR pop rocker Black Or White(it opens side 2), which offers Mike’s rather simplistic view on race relations…the world premiere of the video on prime time TV and the controversy that ensued from it only served to heighten the suspense of whether a comeback would be embraced by the public…
the extended portion of the video features Michael in a dance of rage…on a darkened street, he employs lighting quick fancy foot work that leads to him raging against the racist graffiti he sees…he smashes the windows where the slurs appear…with each act of rebellious violence, he seems to feel a rush of sexual pleasure…he gyrates vigorously with his hands caressing his crotch–running his hands over himself as he winds his pelvis suggestively…finally, when he is done, he transforms into a black panther(symbolism that was quite intentional)and leaves the scene….anyone who wondered if Michael Jackson’s message of color blindness in the song meant that he had forgotten that he is a Black man in America was sent a subtle message by the segment…
Conservatives were outraged by both the violence and sexuality of the segment and called for its banning immediately, citing MJ’s influence on children as the main reason why his performance was offensive…and though they didnt say anything about it, I’m sure the black panther thing pissed them off royally…
The public spoke. Black Or White sailed to number 1 on the pop charts…the stage was set for the album’s release and the return of Michael Jackson…
The dichotomy of the video speaks to the dichotomy of both the Dangerous album and even Michael Jackson himself…there are two worlds for Michael–the one that he longs for and tries to create and the one that exists and resists change…the song Black Or White and the first segment of the video represents that Utopia where people of all nations dance together in unity, peace, and love…the second half of the video represents reality where there is violence, hate, anger, lust, and racism…Dangerous shows both worlds through one man’s eyes…
Critics were split on their view of the album…some loved it, some hated it…most were ambivalent…they felt that the album was too bombastic and that Michael’s new vocal approach was not to their liking…they felt it lacked the joy of past MJ albums and was too dark…
if anyone has paid much attention to Michael Jackson’s musical evolution, then they would know that his music has always come from equally happy and dark places in his psyche…
The depression and loneliness of the songs on The Jacksons’ Destiny album…songs like Heartbreak Hotel and Billie Jean…Thriller itself is about being attacked by zombies…Wanna Be Startin Something is about how gossip is never as harmless as it seems…Smooth Criminal is a graphic song about a woman being murdered in her home…Michael Jackson’s music has always had strong shades of darkness…it has never been all sunshine and boogie-ing with Michael Jackson’s adult music…even Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough was about an erotic sexual encounter(even though Mike denied it, the lyrics are clear)…it seems that when Black artists step away from the banal topics of romance, seduction, and partying, mainstream music critics complain about how the music isn’t fun…
Dangerous was no different…people accused Michael throughout his adult life of being out of touch with reality….in actuality, Michael was very aware of reality, which resulted in his desire to escape from it at times…in Dangerous, he confronted reality head on…
The cover art of Dangerous is a hint of what’s inside…illustrated by artist Mark Ryden, Dangerous is perhaps the best cover art of MJ’s career…MJ’s eyes only appear behind a mask, the mask is made up of various symbols that could perhaps represent a glimpse into the mind of Michael Jackson…one could spend much time analyzing the meaning of the imagery on the cover…
In totality, Dangerous is a dark and brooding work overall…it takes you deep into the soul of the tortured artist as he struggles to make peace with a world that does not seems suited to him, and that is far more interesting than the synthetic, safe pop of Bad…it wasnt the 70’s or the 80’s anymore, and those who expected to hear a Michael Jackson record built on those same musical values would be disappointed…Perhaps he realized that he played it too safe with Bad…the metallic funk moves Jackson into the the future instead of trying to play catch up…he takes Teddy Riley’s sound and reshapes it to suit his own musical intentions…he is not content to let the current music scene of the time dictate where his music would go, instead he takes the bull by the horns and leads the charge toward the millennium…
Dangerous is by no means a perfect album…Mike no longer saw himself as an just an R&B or soul artist–he saw himself as a global artist…he wished to serve the tastes of all of his fans, therefore diluting the power of the album…on the other hand, he was no fool–he knew that R&B was his bread and butter…he would continue to try to cover all bases with his remaining 2 albums…while some of the softer songs work, some are too mushy and serve only as roadblocks…taken as a whole, Dangerous is a trip through the mind of a complex artist as he tries to reconcile his spiritual aspirations(Keep The Faith, Heal The World)with his worldly concerns(In The Closet, Jam).
Dangerous is a reminder that the Michael Jackson image presented in the media is a one dimensional caricature and that if one looks closely, there is a real man behind the mask watching it all go down…
