MICHAEL JACKSON Dangerous
(1991)
Jam 5:38 (UK single, #13)
Why You Wanna Trip On Me 5:24
In The Closet 6:31 (UK Single, #8)
She Drives Me Wild 3:41
Remember The Time 4:00 (UK single, #3)
Can’t Let Her Get Away 5:01
Heal The World 6:23 (UK single, #2)
Black Or White 4:15 (UK single, #1)
Who Is It 6:35 (UK single, #10)
Give In To Me 5:28 (UK single, #2)
Will You Be There 7:39 (UK single, #9)
Keep The Faith 5:56
Gone Too Soon 3:22 (UK single, #33)
Dangerous 7:00
Ah, what-might-have-beens, eh? Michael Jackson delivered the follow-up to Bad in the run-up to Christmas 1991, going head-to-head with U2’s Achtung Baby, but the wait didn’t seem quite as long as it actually was, since Bad kept giving up singles into the Spring of 1989. Dangerous yielded the same amount in the end, a grand total of 9 in the UK, but…damn…those choices.
Tracks 1-6 were the Teddy Riley swingbeat tracks, of which any could have been hits and a few were. Not the two I loved the most, sadly. Skipping quickly past the execrable Heal The World, Side 2 got off to a neat start with Black or White but then almost came a cropper itself by the time the 13th song rolled around. Not to worry, the title cut left things on a suitably uneasy note.
Dangerous is the best example of Jackson’s incredible, schizoid personality; both musical and personal. It goes from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again. As yet, nobody knew the full horror of what was unfolding (indeed, unravelling) in his life and the darker aspects of the record were simply a source of fascination. It’s not the smooth world-beater that was Thriller, nor the commercial giant that was Bad, but for me it was a whole lot richer, and deeper, and so utterly varied in styles and tone that it never got dull.
I just wish Sony had let me pick the singles.
Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes 
One of the most underrated albums of the 90s. Despite outselling Bad, it is still regarded as a bit of an underachievment due to false media reports. Michael reinvented himself completely with this one and Dangerous was the blueprint for the rest of his output during the decade, even if HIStory and Blood on the Dancefloor were, understandably, fuelled by more anger. Love the New Jack Swing tracks, but the trilogy Who Is It – Give in to Me – Will You Be There is one of the greatest punches I’ve heard. Out of curiosity, what would your ideal single release schedule look like?
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#1 Black Or White ( so they got that much right!) – Oct/Nov 1991
#2 Can’t Let Her Get Away – Feb 1992
#3 Give In To Me – May 1992
#4 She Drives Me Wild – July/August 1992
#5 Will You Be There? – Nov 1992
#6 Dangerous – Feb 1993
#7 Remember The Time – April/May 1993
#8 Keep The Faith – August 1993
Or, Keep The Faith instead of Will You Be There? for the Christmas 1992 release, if 7 singles was the limit.
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Great and interesting choices. I wonder how ‘Can’t Let Her Get Away’, ‘She’s Driving Me Wild’ and even the stand-out track ‘Dangerous’ would have done on the charts back in the days, especially so early in the campaign. Dangerous, the album, is one of those records where the artist was trying to push artistic boundaries and the record company deciding to play it safe, hence why the overall impression is compromised.
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This is not my favorite album by Michael Jackson. I think that “Thriller”, “Bad” and “Off The Wall” are better albums. I wonder if “Dangerous” would be a better album if Quincy Jones would have produced it.
Dangerous does have two fantastic singles “Black Or White” and “Give In To Me”. I have a two track CD-Single of “Give In To Me” in my collection.
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[…] Dangerous was the long-awaited follow-up to Bad, and in those 4 years the world (and mind) of Michael Jackson seemed to have become even darker and weirder than the silly tabloid stories and his own eccentric public appearances had often suggested. Yet in 1991 it was still fairly straightforward for the King Of Pop in his natural domain, with the expensive videos, crisp production and slick choreography all in place and keeping the multi-platinum juggernaut on the rails. […]
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