Michael Jackson's Dangerous Album | 31 Years Later

It is now more than ten years since Michael Jackson passed away. His music remains popular, but the man is as controversial as ever. When it comes to expressing opinions on this icon, people generally take sides by either viewing him as a lasting musical genius or a monster whose life became such a mess in the final years of his existence that he will forever be categorised as a statistical oddity who happened to be exceptionally talented. There seems to be a perpetual obsession to find the "truth" about Michael Jackson whatever that means in 2022 and beyond.

While debates keep raging on the deceased singer, one thing is certain: the generation that knew Michael Jackson during his lifetime has started to disappear. That's right. In sixty years or so, there will not be many left among those who waited for his next album to be released, watched the premieres of his music videos or saw him perform live. This is reality and since nothing can stop it, those who are in the category that I mentioned have more freedom than ever to decide what to make of Michael Jackson. At the risk of offending some fans, I do not believe that he will be as relevant in 2071 as he was in 1991. The world will have moved on. Pop music will be something else and if Michael Jackson's work still resonates in the future, I am willing to bet that it will be the result of an even tighter selection of the tracks that are heavily played worldwide. You know which ones I'm talking about: Billie Jean, Beat it, Man in the mirror...among many others.

Since I am part of this generation of Michael Jackson's fans that is on its way to becoming extinct, this is my opinion on him: the man lived till 2009 but the artist reached the peak of his powers in 1991 after the release of his album titled Dangerous. Anything that came after that looked like attempts to reclaim his title as the most celebrated musical artist of the iconic eighties. Let’s be clear: he was still taking risks to innovate and craft good pop music, but it became damn impossible to focus solely on his art without hearing the circus that was the background of his personal life. All things considered, it is outright pathetic since there was so much quality in the productions that followed his fall from grace in 1993. That fall from grace was also applicable to his fans back then: there used to be a time when you had to explain why you listened to Michael Jackson’s music. He was so polarising that it was no longer possible to simply stick to the music, dancing, and overall magic. Does it still matter? I don’t think so, but I’ll leave it to you to decide.

Back to Dangerous. If you started to seriously listen to music in the nineties, chances are that this was your reference Michael Jackson album. It was not just the sound, which was a major upgrade compared to his previous album Bad, but its connection with several icons of its era. I can name five without thinking: Michael Jordan, Slash, Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy, and Naomi Campbell. There are others but there are the first that instantly came to my mind. They collaborated with Jackson in the Dangerous music videos with Slash also participating in the recording of the album’s tracks. The previous albums were mostly collaborations with other well-known singers (Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder…) but Dangerous went far beyond that. This is the kind of thing that you realise when you start remembering the stars that defined your youth. It looked like Michael Jackson wanted Dangerous to be linked with the best that the whole field of entertainment could offer.

Regarding the album’s tracks, I can see an important difference compared to those of Jackson’s previous productions: they have stories within them that have a significant cinematic quality. The songs on Thriller and Bad can be listened to for straightforward musical pleasure, but several songs on Dangerous feel like they are movies in themselves. It’s not easy to explain but songs like Who is it, Give in to me and Keep the faith have harder hitting themes that anything that came before them in Jackson’s repertoire as a solo artist. It is perhaps not surprising that the song Will you be there was the main track for the 1993 movie Free Willy. I cannot remember another Michael Jackson album producing a main track for a movie except for Dangerous. Had his star power not been tarnished by the 1991 scandal, it is possible that Hollywood would have kept choosing his songs for their movie soundtracks, but as the French say: “On ne va pas refaire le match” (There is no point replaying the game in your head). I must here remind the readers that this conclusion stems from my own understanding of Dangerous. Fans around the world will certainly have their own interpretations.

Ultimately, how do we measure Dangerous? Thriller and Bad sold more copies, and it failed to match Jackson’s own expectations. But in terms of timeless quality and innovative features, this album is something to behold. There is a category of Michael Jackson fans that have selected Dangerous as the only Jackson album that they consistently listen to. The other albums are not as relevant to them. There is something about Dangerous that makes it incredibly influential and I am somehow convinced that this will become more apparent as the years and decades flow by.

Good luck,

Ashley Boolell | www.ashleyboolell.com

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