Dangerous (Michael Jackson album)



Dangerous is the eighth studio album by American singer Michael Jackson. It was released by Epic Records on November 26, 1991. Jackson, Bill Bottrell, Teddy Riley, and Bruce Swedien co-produced the album. Dangerous was Jackson's first album since Forever, Michael (1975) not produced by longtime collaborator Quincy Jones. The album incorporates R&B, pop, rock, and a new genre in vogue at the time, new jack swing. Riley, credited as the creator of new jack swing, partook in the album to introduce Jackson to a younger urban audience. Jackson wrote or co-wrote 12 of the album's 14 songs, discoursing topics like racism, poverty, romance, self-improvement, and the welfare of children and the world.

The first single of Dangerous "Black or White" was transnationally broadcast with an eleven-minute video on November 14, 1991, and was watched in 27 countries reportedly by a record 500 million viewers. After the first week of its release, Dangerous debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed atop for four weeks. The album also dominated worldwide charts, debuting at No. 1 in the United Kingdom, while also reaching the top of the charts in eight other countries. Nine singles premiered between November 1991 and December 1993, including two exclusively released outside the US. The album produced four singles that reached top ten of the Billboard Hot 100: "Remember the Time", "In the Closet", "Will You Be There" and the number-one single "Black or White". Dangerous was the best-selling album worldwide of 1992.

The Dangerous World Tour was a success, grossing $136 million (equivalent to $249 million in 2019) and drawing nearly 4 million people in 69 concerts together. All profits from the tour were donated to various charities including Jackson's own Heal the World Foundation. The October 1, 1992 concert in Bucharest, Romania was filmed for broadcast on HBO on October 10, 1992. Jackson sold the film rights for the concert for $21 million, then the highest amount for a concert performer to appear on television

Dangerous is one of the best-selling albums of all time having sold 32 million copies worldwide and is certified 8x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It received four Grammy Award nominations and won Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Praised by critics and publications as one the greatest albums of all time, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) named Dangerous on its list of the Definitive 200 Albums of All Time.

Background
After completing the Bad tour in January 1989, which spanned 123 concerts attended by 4.4 million people, Jackson developed projects for two greatest hits albums, Decade 1979–1989 and Decade 1980–1990. The albums would comprise songs from his studio albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad, plus four new songs. However, after Jackson wrote half an album's worth of material deemed strong enough for release, he and managers at Epic Records decided to produce a full studio album.

In March 1991, days after his sister Janet Jackson signed a $32 million deal with Virgin Records, 32-year-old Jackson secured a $65 million deal with Sony Music. Sony had inherited Jackson following its takeover of Epic Records. The deal granted Jackson an advance of $5 million per album with a 25 percent ownership of royalties based on retail sales. It remains the most lucrative recording contract in music history. Jackson's stipulations for the contract were that he must release at least three studio albums, two greatest hits collections, and one remix album and box set. It also granted him his own label, Nation Records, and full rights to sign artists.

Recording
Dangerous was recorded between June 1989 and October 1991, with an advance of $18 million. It was recorded in seven different recording studios, including Ocean Way, Westlake Recording Studios, Record One, and Larrabee Sound Studios in Los Angeles. The recording took 28 months to finish, one of the longest album recording periods in Jackson's career. For over two years Jackson had exclusive 24-hour access to Record One Studios at an estimated cost of $4,000 per day and secured Larrabee Sound for around nine months at roughly the same price. The high cost of rent was partly due to the privacy Jackson wanted behind the album. He wanted to prevent other artists in adjacent studios from hearing the unfinished music. Jackson had video game consoles set up and posters of Peter Pan and other Disney characters on the studio walls.

Epic set a deadline for the album, wanting it released before November 28, 1991, Thanksgiving Day. For the last two months of recording, Jackson and Swedien rented hotel rooms located four minutes from the studio. Some sessions were put on hold due to Jackson's health problems. Complaining of chest pains, he spent weeks in a Los Angeles hospital.

Dangerous was produced by Jackson, Teddy Riley, Bill Bottrell, and Bruce Swedien. It was the first album since 1975's Forever, Michael without Jackson's longtime producer Quincy Jones, because Jackson wanted a more "hard-edged" and "streetwise" sound. Riley introduced "R&B back to Michael in its barest form" with a mixture of funk music. The main mixing desks used were by Reed and in addition an SSL XL-Desk which Riley preferred over digital units as he believed they gave a warmer sound.

Jackson wanted to create an album similar to the music of The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, "so that in a thousand years from now, people would still be listening to it." Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, who performs on two of the album's songs, said, "It's at once the most sterile and creative process I've been involved in. Everything is pieced together from samples: you use the same drum beat and chords, then later add things to make it different.... Michael hires out the studio for like ten years and shows up once a month." Upon receiving a tape of "Give in to Me" without the guitar part except some "slow picking," Slash called Jackson on the phone and sang what he wanted to play.

Bottrell, who had worked on Bad as a musician and engineer, co-wrote "Dangerous", "Give in to Me", and "Black or White". The songs began with Jackson beatboxing and humming melodies, which Bottrel developed with samples and drum machines such as an Akai S1000. Bottrel also produced "Give in to Me", "Black or White", and "Who Is It". When sessions relocated to Westlake, Bottrell, Swedien, and musician Bryan Loren worked at a studio room by themselves. Bottrell operated a Neve console and two 24-track Studer analogue tape machines to draft ideas and demos. He then used a 32-track Mitsubishi machine to assemble the album. Swedien recalled recording sessions lasting up to 18 hours. On one occasion, he ordered Jackson not to leave the studio until he sang the vocals for "Keep the Faith" all the way through: "This was scary but he did it. He didn't leave the studio until dawn."

Jackson recorded roughly 60 to 70 songs for Dangerous. Omitted tracks include "Lisa, It's Your Birthday", "Monkey Business", "She Got It", "Work That Body", "Man in Black", "Serious Effect" (featuring rapper LL Cool J), and "If You Don't Love Me". Some of these tracks were released later, including the ballad "For All Time" which was released on Thriller 25. "Slave to the Rhythm" was remastered and released for the 2014 compilation album Xscape. Environmental anthem "What About Us" finalized as "Earth Song" for HIStory. "Superfly Sister" and "Blood on the Dance Floor" were both released on the remix compilation Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix. "Joy" was released on Blackstreet's 1994 debut album. None of the material developed at Ocean Way Studios were included on the final recording.

Composition and lyrics
Dangerous incorporates new jack swing music, a genre which producer Riley is credited for creating. It was also the first album in which Jackson began rapping. The inclusion of the rap group Wreckx-n-Effect, Jackson's embrace of hip-hop rhythms and new jack swing were designed to give Jackson a new younger urban audience. In other recordings, with Bottrell, Jackson's sounds were more diverse as it had been in other albums with "Black or White" recorded under the pop rock genre while the Slash-featured "Give In to Me" was recorded as a hard rock ballad. The rap in "Black or White" was written and performed by Bottrell, who is credited as a pseudonym "L.T.B".

"Jam" developed from a collection of sound loops that Swedien and René Moore had worked on, including drums and the sound of sleigh bells. Assistant engineer Brad Sundberg recalled: "It kept growing and growing [...] Teddy's industrial hits were added. Horns. Orchestral hits. Vocals. Lots of vocals. More of Teddy's sounds. More of Rene's sounds", to the point where around 128 tracks of sounds were played simultaneously.

The ballads, "Keep the Faith", composed by Jackson and his "Man in the Mirror" collaborators Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard, and the self-composed "Will You Be There" both featured strong elements of gospel music while the other ballads "Heal the World" and "Gone Too Soon" were softer pop ballads. The smooth R&B number, "Remember the Time", featured elements of not only new jack swing but also funk, while "Who Is It" and "Jam" had stronger funk elements.

Lyrics for the songs' subject matter were more varied than in Jackson's previous records. Though he often talked of the subject of racial harmony in some of his songs with his brothers, The Jacksons, Dangerous was the first of these albums in which he talked openly of racism, which was the main topic with the hit song, "Black or White". Other social commentary topics that Jackson had never touched as a solo artist including poverty and inner city life were discussed in the song "Why You Wanna Trip on Me", in which he compared social ills to his own alleged publicized eccentricities that were covered in the press at the time asking critics and tabloid media why were they focusing on him when other more social problems were going on. He addressed similar issues in the album's opening track, "Jam", which included rapping from Heavy D.

"In the Closet" had originally been set as a duet between Jackson and Madonna though this recording never happened and focused on two lovers carrying on a discreet affair without being open about the affair. The album also included songs of other personal nature especially in songs such as "She Drives Me Wild", "Remember the Time", "Can't Let Her Get Away", "Who Is It" and "Give In to Me". The social commentary "Heal the World" was in the middle of the number of personal songs. "Gone Too Soon", written by Larry Grossman and Buz Kohan, was written and recorded for Ryan White following White's death from AIDS in 1990. The title track's lyrics were compared to that of "Dirty Diana" with the song focusing on a seductress.

Release
Being Jackson's first album in four years, plus his lucrative recording deal with Sony, David Browne of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "There is more riding on the success of Dangerous than on any other album in pop history". Five days before the album's release, three men armed with guns robbed 30,000 copies of the album from a Los Angeles warehouse.

Dangerous was released on November 26, 1991. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 326,500 copies, staying there for four weeks. It spent a total of 119 weeks on the chart. By January 1992, the album was certified quadruple Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over 4 million in the United States. In August 2018, it had increased to 8x Platinum certified units sold.

Globally, Dangerous dominated worldwide charts debuting at number-one in the United Kingdom while also reaching number-one in seven other territories including Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. It was also a huge success in Asian countries.

Dangerous was the best-selling album worldwide of 1992 having sold 15 million copies. It has sold 32 million copies worldwide.

Promotion
Similar to how Jackson's label had approached the Bad album, expectations again were raised high for the Dangerous album. In September 1991, Jackson netted a deal to have his videos air on the Fox TV network alongside regular music-video channels, MTV, BET and VH-1.

The eleven-minute "Black or White" video debuted on November 14, 1991, and was seen in 27 countries and reportedly watched by a record 500 million viewers, said to be the most to ever watch a music video. The airing and later controversy of the video helped the sales of Dangerous, as did the broadcasting of two other Jackson videos for "Remember the Time" and "In the Closet". Jackson's first HBO concert special, Michael Jackson: Live in Bucharest, also helped in the sales of Dangerous after it aired in October 1992, reviving sales of the album.

After several weeks of tapering off again, Jackson made personal appearances in early 1993 including the American Music Awards and Grammy Awards, the latter in which he accepted the Grammy Legend Award from his sister Janet, a widely discussed interview with Oprah Winfrey, his half-time performance at the Super Bowl XXVII which started the NFL's trend of signing top acts to appear during the Super Bowl to attract more viewers and interest, helping to return the album to the top ten.

The Dangerous World Tour was a success, grossing $100 million (equivalent to $177 million in 2019) and drawing nearly 4 million people in 72 concerts together. All profits from the tour were donated to various charities including Jackson's own Heal the World Foundation. The October 1, 1992 concert in Bucharest, Romania was filmed for broadcast on HBO on October 10, 1992. Jackson sold the film rights for the concert for $20 million, then the highest amount for a concert performer to appear on television

Singles
The album's leading track, "Black or White", was an instant hit upon its release that November, reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart just three weeks after it was released, staying there for seven weeks. It was the fastest chart topper since The Beatles' "Get Back" in 1969 and was also the best-selling single worldwide of 1992.

Jackson had four top-ten singles in the United States from the album including "Remember the Time", which peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 chart and reached No. 1 on the R&B chart, making it his first R&B number-one since "Another Part of Me" nearly four years earlier. "In the Closet", which peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100, also reached No. 1 on the R&B chart. The last top-ten single for the album was "Will You Be There", which reached No. 7 and was buttressed by being on the soundtrack of Free Willy. Its appearance in the film also helped sales for Dangerous. "Who Is It" peaked at No. 14 on the Hot 100, while "Jam" and "Heal the World" arrived at No. 26 and No. 27 respectively, becoming Jackson's lowest showings since early 1979.

The overseas-only single, "Give In to Me", reached the top five in the UK, Netherlands, Australia and hitting the top of the charts in New Zealand; while "Gone Too Soon", another overseas single, was more moderately received, charting within the top forty in the UK.

The singles of Dangerous were more successful overseas than in the United States. In the UK alone, seven singles reached the top ten. This set a record for any studio album in the UK until Calvin Harris surpassed it in 2013.

Critical reception
In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Alan Light wrote that Jackson was "a man, no longer a man-child, confronting his well-publicized demons and achieving transcendence through performance", on an album that rose to "the impossible challenge set by 'Thriller'" during moments when Riley's production dance rhythms "prove a perfect match for Jackson's clipped, breathy uptempo voice".

Robert Christgau of The Village Voice deemed it Jackson's "most consistent album since Off the Wall, a step up from Bad even if its hookcraft is invariably secondary and its vocal mannerisms occasionally annoying." While he felt Jackson was too insistent with the "faith-hope-and-charity" message songs, Christgau applauded the production's "abrasively unpredictable" rhythms and the "sex-and-romance" songs, calling them the most plausible of Jackson's career.

Jon Pareles was less receptive in The New York Times, calling it Jackson's "least confident" solo album yet. He believed Jackson sounded anxious and out of place with Riley's electronic beats while panning the "dogmatically ordinary" lyrics of the love songs, writing that "they seem based on demographic research rather than experience or imagination." Los Angeles Times critic Chris Willman found the record "relatively tame" and "wildly unfocused", being particularly critical of the songs not produced by Riley such as the "embarrassingly oversentimental" "Heal the World"; of the overtly "black" first half of songs, Willman found the music innovative although lacking in substantial themes.

Dangerous received four Grammy Award nominations including three for Jackson including Best Pop Vocal Performance for 'Black or White', as well as Best R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song for 'Jam', while Teddy Riley and Bruce Swedien won Best Engineered Album, Non Classical. In 1992, Jackson was awarded the Billboard Music Award for No. 1 World Album for Dangerous and No. 1 World Single for "Black or White" by Phil Collins. Dangerous won Favorite Pop/Rock Album at the 1993 American Music Awards and Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year - Male at the 1993 Soul Train Music Awards At the 1994 MTV Movie Awards, "Will You Be There", which was the main theme in the 1993 film Free Willy, won Best Song From a Movie.

Legacy
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine believed Dangerous was "a much sharper, riskier album" than Bad. Critic Joseph Vogel wrote that it fulfilled Jackson's creative ambitions and was his most socially conscious record, "his most personally revealing", and "a dazzling musical odyssey", likening it to Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life as "the work of an artist engaging with the world around him-and inside him-as never before".

For the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Janet Macoska described Dangerous as "a sleek, contemporary-sounding update of Jackson's music and featured the ambitious, heartfelt anthems "Heal The World" and "Will You Be There."

Writing for  PopMatters, Vogel argued that Dangerous was more groundbreaking than any other pop record of the time :"If indeed it is considered a pop album, Dangerous redefined the parameters of pop. How else to explain an album that mixes R&B, funk, gospel, hip-hop, rock, industrial, and classical; an album that introduces one song "Will You Be There" with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and another "Dangerous" with what sounds like the heart of a steel-city factory; an album that can alternately be paranoid, cryptic, sensual, vulnerable, idealistic, bleak, transcendent, and fearful?"

Reflecting on the album for The Guardian, Ben Beaumont-Thomas regarded Dangerous as "Michael Jackson's true career high" and "the very peak of his powers, with his widest ever emotional range set to production that makes new jack swing seem much more than just lame dance moves and fluorescent man-made fibres."

The album has been noted for introducing Jackson's new "sound", with Michael Roffman of Consequence of Sound writing "It took four producers, two studios, one new genre, and 16 months to bring Jackson’s sound into the ’90s, and you can hear that monumental excess in each one of the album’s 14 varied tracks", and describing the album as "Michael Jackson's '90s masterpiece".

In 2007, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) ranked Dangerous number 115 on its list of the Definitive 200 Albums of All Time. Chuck Eddy named it one the essential new jack swing albums in a list published by Spin. Tari Ngangura writing for Vice appraised Jackson and the album, saying "At 33, and at the peak of his career, this would ultimately become one of the greatest, introspective albums of all time."

Track listing
Notes
 * undefined signifies a co-producer

Personnel
Personnel as listed in the album's liner notes.


 * John Bahler – vocal and choir arrangements (track 7)
 * The John Bahler Singers – choir (track 7)
 * Glen Ballard – arrangement (track 12)
 * John Barnes – keyboards (track 8)
 * Michael Boddicker – synthesizer (tracks 1, 7, 11-13), sequencer (8), keyboards (9), programming (9)
 * Bill Bottrell – producer (tracks 8-10), recording engineer (8-10), audio mixer (8-10), percussion (8), guitar (8, 10), rap (8), Father speaking part (8 intro), drums (9-10), synthesizer (9), bass guitar (10), mellotron (10)
 * Craig Brock – guitar recording engineer assistant (track 10)
 * Brad Buxer – keyboards (tracks 1, 7-9, 11), synthesizer (1, 14), percussion (8), programming (9)
 * Larry Corbett – cello (track 9)
 * Andraé Crouch – choir arrangement (tracks 11-12)
 * Sandra Crouch – choir arrangement (tracks 11-12)
 * The Andraé Crouch Singers – choir (tracks 11-12)
 * Heavy D – rap (track 1)
 * George Del Barrio – string arrangement (track 9)
 * Matt Forger – recording engineer (track 7), audio mixer (7), engineering and sound design (8 intro)
 * Kevin Gilbert – speed sequencer (track 8)
 * Endre Granat – concertmaster (track 9)
 * Linda Harmon – soprano voice (track 9)
 * Jerry Hey – arrangement (track 12)
 * Jean-Marie Horvat – recording engineer (track 14)
 * Michael Jackson – producer (all tracks), lead vocals (all tracks), background vocals (1-12, 14), arrangement (1, 9), vocal arrangement (1, 3-7, 11, 14), rhythm arrangement (7, 11), director (8 intro), soprano voice (9)
 * Paul Jackson Jr. – guitar (track 2)
 * Terry Jackson – bass guitar (track 8)
 * Louis Johnson – bass guitar (track 9)
 * Abraham Laboriel – bass guitar (track 13)
 * Christa Larson – ending solo vocal (track 7)
 * Rhett Lawrence – synthesizer (tracks 1, 11-12, 14), synthesizer programming (11), arrangement (12), drums (12), percussion (12)
 * Bryan Loren – drums (track 8-9), synthesizer (8)
 * Johnny Mandel – orchestral arrangement and conductor (track 11)
 * Jasun Martz – keyboards (track 8)
 * Andres McKenzie – Son speaking part (track 8 intro)
 * Jim Mitchell – guitar recording engineer (track 10)
 * René Moore – arrangement (track 1), keyboards (1)
 * David Paich – keyboards (tracks 7, 9, 13), synthesizer (7, 13), keyboard arrangement (9), programming (9), rhythm arrangement (13)
 * Marty Paich – orchestral arrangement and conductor (tracks 7, 13)
 * Greg Phillinganes – keyboards (track 11)
 * Tim Pierce – heavy metal guitar (track 8)
 * Jeff Porcaro – drums (track 7)
 * Steve Porcaro – synthesizer (tracks 7, 13), keyboards (9), programming (9)
 * Teddy Riley – producer (tracks 1-6, 14), recording engineer (1-6, 14), audio mixer (1-6, 14), arrangement (1), keyboards (1-6), synthesizer (1-6, 14), drums (1), guitar (1-2), rhythm arrangement (2-6, 14), synthesizer arrangement (3-6, 14)
 * Thom Russo – recording engineer (track 14)
 * Slash – special guitar performance (track 8 intro, track 10)
 * Bruce Swedien – producer (tracks 1), co-producer (tracks 7, 11-13), recording engineer (1-7, 11-14) audio mixer (1-7, 11-14), arrangement (1), keyboards (1), drums (1, 11-12), percussion (11-12)
 * Jai Winding – keyboards (track 9), programming (9), piano (12), bass guitar (12)
 * Mystery Girl (Princess Stéphanie of Monaco) – vocals (track 3)