Michael Jackson - Dangerous

After Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad, Michael Jackson did the one thing nobody predicted: he stopped working with Quincy Jones. Dangerous, released in November 1991, brought in Teddy Riley, the architect of new jack swing, alongside Bill Bottrell and longtime engineer Bruce Swedien. It debuted at number one and held the top spot for four weeks. At seventy-seven minutes it is by some distance Jackson's most ambitious album, and the one where he sounds most like he is chasing the future rather than defending a title.

"Jam," "Remember The Time" and "In The Closet" are Riley at full tilt, all clipped swing rhythms and industrial-strength percussion. "Black Or White" was the crossover monster, hitting number one and helping the album deliver four top ten singles. The darker material is where it gets genuinely strange: "Who Is It" and "Give In To Me," the latter with Slash on guitar, are two of the most paranoid things Jackson ever recorded. "Will You Be There" and "Heal The World" swing for the cheap seats and, for the most part, get there.

It is the record where Jackson's persona started to fracture in public and in the music at the same time, which makes it more compelling now than it was in 1991. Bernie Grundman mastered. It still sounds enormous.

This 180-gram double LP reissue is pressed at Record Industry. On Epic / MJJ Productions.