Bad or dangerous

Ha! Great post! 

But,

I think MJ could have made Dangerous into another more pop charts orientated album if it’s what he really wanted but that was never the ultimate goal of the album. During the Dangerous sessions didn’t he already have demos for Blood On The Dance Floor and Earth Song (What About Us?) in the can? He could have focused on them and developed them further.

So let’s say he removed the 3 New Jack Swing tracks that everyone seems to shit on; Why You Wanna Trip, Drives Me Wild and Let Her Get Away, replace them with the aforementioned, maybe also include fan club Pepsi promo Someone Put Your Hand Out, streamline the album by removing 2 or 3 tracks and suddenly we have an album more akin to Bad.

If he’d roughly followed the Bad template he could have released something like this; 

Dangerous                        
Remember The Time              
Jam                                      
Who Is It                              
In The Closet                          
Black Or White                     
Will You Be There                
Someone Put Your Hand Out    
Give In To Me                       
Blood On The Dance Floor
Earth Song     
Heal The World      

Perhaps that track sequence doesn’t quite work? But it’s chock full of hits and grooves. Black Or White, Remember The Time, In The Closet, Jam all hit number 1 in various American charts and Blood On The Dance Floor and Earth Song were both number 1 in the UK, Earth Song being the Christmas number 1.      

In terms of dancing, sure, Bad has way more energy and frenetic popping, locking and spins, but I don’t think the more understated dancing during the Dangerous Tour necessarily held it back. The show became more about the spectacle, ie; the entrance; Brace Yourself teaser, the toaster jump intro in which he’s thrust into the air and MJ in Greek style pose bayed in a backdrop of rain-falling pyrotechnics. He’s already created several iconic images before he’s taken his aviator shades off; and again the removing of his shades becomes another iconic image. The Jam performance with pyro technics is remarkable and one of his greatest achievements. The Choreography with his dancers, the pyro explosions on the chorus and the pose at the end with MJ’s silhouette as blue lights accentuate his image.  

His Billie Jean performance during the tour is arguably his best and a centrepiece.

The changing images on either side of the stage are another part of the spectacle. We see MJ’s eyes, images from the album sleeve, the iconic tiptoes image that’s become his trademark. 

The ascending angel during Will You Be There. Didn’t always work mind you. 

The beautiful ballet piece performed by the same dancer who’s the angel, where the earths globe is used to tie in with Heal The World, which was really his main reason for doing another tour; his Heal The World foundation. The tour being a vehicle for his humanitarian work around the world. 

And of course the jet pack exit after Man In The Mirror, which admittedly hasn’t aged very well because we all know it wasn’t him lol. I would also imagine most people didn’t believing it was him anyway when they were at the actual shows lol. 

The Dangerous short films perhaps don’t beat the Bad short films but for me, at best they’re as good. The obvious comparison for me would be Remember The Time vs Smooth Criminal. Smooth Criminal is obviously and arguably his best ever, but Remember The Time has that amazing dance break choreography (we all know it’s not all entirely MJ, but nobody else has to know that) and the short film perfectly matches and compliments the song. 

Black or White is perhaps too Hollywood for some but is it any less corny than Bad? They’re both extremely Michael Jackson. Like Bad it presents MJ in a new and very striking image. He looks iconic and strong in it and his costume is on point. The visuals beautifully compliment the acoustic warmth of the song, the “I’m afraid of no sheets” bridge is very left field the first time you hear it, the morphing faces were innovative at the time and the panther dance is extraordinary in its explicitness and became almost an entirely separate statement from the main portion of the music video section. 

Jam’s short film gave off hiphop vibes, David Fincher’s directed Who Is It positioned MJ in an almost film noir setting that was something completely different and In The Closet presented MJ in arguably the most masculine way we’ve ever seen him! That moment in which MJ throws his body between Naomi Campbell’s legs and metaphorically penetrates her wasn’t something we were used to seeing from MJ and felt extremely explicit boundary braking. The kiss with Iman in Remember The Time was one thing, but MJ thrust deep between Naomi’s legs was next level. 

The gold leotard again was boundary pushing. Madonna wore that iconic cone bra on her tour, Prince had been pushing boundaries and playing with his image for years and MJ wanted to do something similar in terms of presentation. The gold leotard played into the concert as a spectacle and it plays with the ideas of whats masculine verses feminine. I would argue that Michael Jackson is the only living male artist who could possibly get away with that look. It pushed his androgyny to the absolute limit, but it works. Well, it works in 92 on a more slimline virile looking Michael Jackson, it works less so in 93 on a slightly bloated, pain medicated, perhaps less confident Michael Jackson. In 92 it was couturier, European high fashion and again even Greek. 

Whatever failed in the Dangerous era in comparison to the Bad era is where he took more risks with image and sound, and in retrospect that’s what made the Dangerous era so unique. Realistically Bad couldn’t be repeated just like Thriller couldn’t be repeated, and he would have been a lesser artist if he’d even attempted it. 

Also, Dancing The Dream was a wonderful collection of poems and photos that complimented the era beautifully. Again, people have their criticisms about that book, but with MJ they were always looking for ways to tear him down. 

And what about the album artwork? Quite simply far and away the best album sleeve he ever had with zero contest!