Dangerous

Dangerous is the eighth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 26, 1991 by Epic Records. His first album under his new contract with Sony Music, it was also Jackson's first album since 1979's Off the Wall not to be produced by longtime collaborator Quincy Jones, who had agreed to split after the final recording sessions for Jackson's 1987 album, Bad. Dangerous has sold over 30 million albums worldwide (sold 16 million certified copies), 7 million albums were shipped in the United States alone, and has been cited as one of the best-selling albums of all time. The album produced four top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 including one number-one. Similar to the musician's previous material, the album's music features elements of R&B, pop and rock while also incorporating a newer genre, new jack swing, after the inclusion of producer Teddy Riley to the project.

Dangerous took over a year in production, starting in June 1990 and ending in October of 1991. Lyrical themes expressed in the album included racism, poverty, paranoia, romance, the welfare of children and the world and self-improvement, topics Jackson had covered before. Dangerous, like Bad and Thriller, cemented Jackson's place in music history as one of the leaders of contemporary pop music. Nine singles were released from Dangerous between November 1991 and December 1993, with seven singles issued in the United States, and two others released only outside the US. The two singles released outside the United States were successful, charting within the top ten and top forty respectively. Dangerous peaked at number one in nine countries, while charting at the top ten in four other territories. The only songs not released were "Why You Wanna Trip on Me", "She Drives Me Wild", "Can't Let Her Get Away", "Keep the Faith" and "Dangerous;" a video and a single release for the latter song was said to have been planned but was postponed indefinitely due to the musician's tour and later personal problems.

Dangerous was the first album to be produced fully by Jackson, with additional production from his friend, Bill Bottrell, and Teddy Riley, whose contribution presented Jackson with a younger urban audience. Jackson earned writing credits on all but two tracks on the album. Dangerous received several Grammy nominations, winning only for Best Engineered Album (Non Classical) by Bruce Swedien and Riley. In addition to commercial success, the album received critical acclaim from contemporary critics. It has been listed as the most successful album of all time in the new jack swing style.

(wiki)

====================================

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Despite the success of Bad, it was hard not to view it as a bit of a letdown, since it presented a cleaner, colder, calculated version of Thriller -- something that delivered what it should on the surface, but wound up offering less in the long run. So, it was time for a change-up, something even a superstar as huge as Michael Jackson realized, so he left Quincy Jones behind, hired Guy mastermind Teddy Riley as the main producer, and worked with a variety of other producers, arrangers, and writers, most notably Bruce Swedien and Bill Bottrell. The end result of this is a much sharper, harder, riskier album than Bad, one that has its eyes on the street, even if its heart gets middle-class soft on "Heal the World." The shift in direction and change of collaborators has liberated Jackson, and he's written a set of songs that is considerably stronger than Bad, often approaching the consistency of Off the Wall and Thriller. If it is hardly as effervescent or joyous as either of those records, chalk it up to his suffocating stardom, which results in a set of songs without much real emotional center, either in their substance or performance. But, there's a lot to be said for professional craftsmanship at its peak, and Dangerous has plenty of that, not just on such fine singles as "In the Closet," "Remember the Time," or the blistering "Jam," but on album tracks like "Why You Wanna Trip on Me." No, it's not perfect -- it has a terrible cover, a couple of slow spots, and suffers from CD-era ailments of the early '90s, such as its overly long running time and its deadening Q Sound production, which sounds like somebody forgot to take the Surround Sound button off. Even so, Dangerous captures Jackson at a near-peak, delivering an album that would have ruled the pop charts surely and smoothly if it had arrived just a year earlier. But it didn't -- it arrived along with grunge, which changed the rules of the game nearly as much as Thriller itself. Consequently, it's the rare multi-platinum, number one album that qualifies as a nearly forgotten, underappreciated record.