Dangerous Could Have Been Thriller's Equal
Dangerous by Michael Jackson
After the mind-boggling success of Thriller, Michael Jackson had nowhere to go but down, and it seems like everyone in the world not named Michael Jackson was aware of this fact. When Thriller's 1987 follow-up Bad "only" sold 7 million copies (in comparison to the 26 million copies that its predecessor sold in the U.S.), Jackson took it as a failure, fired Quincy Jones from his post as producer, and decided to update his sound with some new blood.
The result, 1991's Dangerous, was successful to a degree. It matched its predecessor's sales, and updated Jackson's sound for the Nineties, but the issues that had poked the tops of their heads out around the Bad period started to emerge full-bore with Dangerous. Michael's Messiah and persecution complexes were evident all through the album, repeated nose jobs robbed him of some of his vocal range, and at over 70 minutes, Jackson completely fell victim to the excesses of the CD age.
With a tight edit, Dangerous would have been every bit the equal of Thriller from a qualitative standpoint. Bringing in young producer Teddy Riley to replace Jones was a masterstroke. Riley brings a fresh hip-hop perspective to songs like Remember The Time while keeping Jackson's gift for melody. Edgier tracks like Jam and Can't Let Her Get Away contain the most forward-thinking music MJ has made in his career.
However, the album takes a sharp turn south in its second half. Black Or White's lyrical message and Stones-ish guitar riff are beyond cliché, while Who Is It, while a good song, is a shameless rewrite of Billie Jean, a tactic that pops up several times over the course of the album. The rock-etched Give In To Me strongly recalls Dirty Diana (swapping out Billy Idol's Steve Stevens as the lead guitarist for Slash), and the spiritual Keep The Faith recycles Man In The Mirror, straight down to the Andrae Crouch Choir. Meanwhile, Heal The World, noble intentions aside, is one of the worst things Michael has ever written and recorded. It's so bad it brings the entire album's quality down a notch. It's a harbinger of things to come, as his "uplifting" songs since have generally tended to be awful. It's also worth noting that these are the tracks on which Jackson jettisons Riley and takes the production reins himself, for the most part.
While anything Jackson recorded post-1990 has tended to get short shrift from the musical reviewing public, Dangerous finds MJ adapting relatively well to current musical styles and establishing himself as a card-carrying member of the hip-hop/soul generation without completely embarrassing himself.
