Genres: Dance-Pop

Invincible

Invincible is Michael Jackson’s tenth and final studio album of original material released during his lifetime. Issued on 30 October 2001 by Epic Records, it followed a six-year gap since HIStory and was reportedly produced over four years at a cost of approximately $30 million — making it, at the time, the most expensive album ever recorded.

Jackson built the album with Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins as his principal collaborator, alongside Teddy Riley, R. Kelly and his long-time engineer Bruce Swedien. The result is Jackson’s most contemporary-sounding album: heavy on Jerkins’s layered urban production, with rock guest spots from Slash on “Privacy” and Carlos Santana, and ballads (“Speechless”, “Butterflies”) that recall his Off the Wall vocal range.

The album debuted at #1 in 13 countries and produced three U.S. singles: “You Rock My World” (#10), “Cry” (international only) and “Butterflies” (US R&B). However, Jackson’s high-profile public falling-out with Sony chairman Tommy Mottola in 2002, including Jackson publicly accusing Mottola of being “the devil” and “racist”, led to severely curtailed label promotion. Jackson never toured Invincible.

Despite the limited push, Invincible sold an estimated 13 million copies worldwide. Critics were divided at the time but the album has been retrospectively praised for tracks like “Heaven Can Wait”, “Whatever Happens” and “Speechless”. Jackson never released another studio album of new material; the posthumous Michael (2010) and Xscape (2014) were assembled from unreleased recordings.

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is Michael Jackson’s ninth studio album, a double-disc release issued on 20 June 1995 by Epic Records. Disc one is a 15-track greatest hits collection compiling singles from Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad and Dangerous. Disc two contains 15 tracks of new material, all co-written by Jackson, and stands as one of the most personal records of his career.

The album was Jackson’s response to the 1993 child-abuse allegations and the subsequent media coverage. Tracks like “Scream” (a duet with Janet Jackson) and “They Don’t Care About Us” rage against the press; “Stranger in Moscow” and “Childhood” turn inward; “Earth Song” and “Heal the World’s” successor “Smile” deliver his characteristic anthem ballads. He brought in Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (Flyte Tyme), R. Kelly, Teddy Riley and long-time collaborator Bill Bottrell to share production duties.

HIStory debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reached number one in most major markets. “You Are Not Alone” became the first song in history to debut at #1 on the Hot 100. “Earth Song” became Jackson’s biggest UK hit, spending six weeks at number one. The supporting HIStory World Tour, his largest, ran 1996–97 across 35 countries.

Counting each two-disc set as one unit, HIStory has sold over 22 million copies — making it the best-selling multi-disc album of all time. Counting individual discs (the IFPI standard for double albums), it has shifted approximately 44 million units. Despite mixed contemporary reviews, HIStory has been retrospectively reassessed as one of Jackson’s most ambitious and emotionally raw works.

Dangerous

Dangerous is Michael Jackson’s eighth studio album, released on 26 November 1991 by Epic Records. It was Jackson’s first solo album not produced by Quincy Jones, ending an extraordinary three-album run that delivered Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. In Jones’s place, Jackson took the executive producer credit himself and brought in Teddy Riley, the architect of new jack swing, to co-produce seven of the fourteen tracks alongside long-time engineer Bruce Swedien and a new in-house team built around Bill Bottrell, Brad Buxer and Matt Forger.

Recording took roughly 18 months across five major Los Angeles and New York studios. Jackson, freed from the Jones discipline, reached for an even broader sonic palette: hard new jack rhythms (“Jam”, “Remember the Time”, “In the Closet”), pop ballads (“Heal the World”, “Will You Be There”), gospel (“Keep the Faith”, featuring The Andraé Crouch Choir), classical-tinged soul (“Gone Too Soon”) and outright rock (“Black or White” with Bill Bottrell on guitar; Slash on “Give In to Me”). Heavy D delivered a guest rap on the album opener “Jam”.

Dangerous debuted at #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reached #1 in 14 countries. “Black or White” became Jackson’s biggest single since “Billie Jean”, spending seven weeks at #1 in the U.S. The accompanying short film, premiered simultaneously in 27 countries to an estimated 500 million viewers, became famous for its racially-fluid morphing sequence and Jackson’s controversial 4-minute solo-dance coda. Four further singles followed, all reaching the U.S. top 30, and the album earned a Grammy for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical.

The supporting Dangerous World Tour ran from 1992 to 1993 and was cut short when Jackson entered rehab amid the first child-abuse allegations. The album has sold over 32 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. It is widely regarded as the high-water mark of new jack swing as a mainstream commercial force, and as proof that Jackson’s commercial instincts and writing chops could carry an album without Quincy Jones at the desk.

Bad

Bad is Michael Jackson’s seventh studio album and his third and final collaboration with producer Quincy Jones. Released on 31 August 1987, it was one of the most highly anticipated albums in music history, following the unprecedented success of Thriller. Jackson wrote nine of the album’s eleven tracks himself and co-produced the entire record, demonstrating a level of creative control he had not previously exercised.

The album represented a deliberate move towards a harder, more aggressive sound, incorporating digital synthesizers, drum machines, and rock elements alongside the pop and R&B foundation. The recording process was extensive: Jackson worked with two parallel teams. The “A team” at Westlake Studios with Quincy Jones and engineer Bruce Swedien handled the polished arrangements; a “B team” at his Hayvenhurst home studio led by Bill Bottrell, Matt Forger, John Barnes and Christopher Currell experimented with synth textures and sound design. Jackson reportedly wrote around sixty songs and recorded thirty-three, originally pushing for a three-disc release before Jones persuaded him to pare it down to eleven tracks.

Bad produced a record-breaking five consecutive #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Bad”, “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Man in the Mirror” and “Dirty Diana”, a feat unmatched until Katy Perry tied it in 2011. The accompanying Bad World Tour was Jackson’s first solo concert tour. Across 123 shows in 15 countries it grossed approximately $125 million and drew 4.4 million people, both records at the time. The 1988 Wembley Stadium run drew 504,000 over seven nights and earned a Guinness World Record that stood for years.

Critically, Bad solidified Jackson’s reputation as not just a singer but a songwriter and producer. Sony Music had spent over $20 million promoting the album and reportedly invested $30 million in its production: at the time, the most expensive album ever recorded. It became the best-selling record worldwide in both 1987 and 1988, has shifted over 35 million copies, and was the first CD to outsell its vinyl edition in many markets, signalling the format shift of the late 1980s. Bad was also the first album in history to produce five U.S. number-one singles and the first to be certified Diamond in multiple countries.

It earned Grammy Awards for Best Engineered Recording (Non-Classical) in 1988 and, retrospectively, Best Music Video, Short Form for the surreal Jim Blashfield-directed “Leave Me Alone” video in 1990. The album was nominated for Album of the Year and Record of the Year at the 1988 ceremony. Twenty-five years after release the album was reissued as Bad 25, a deluxe set including unreleased Bad-era recordings, a remastered original, the complete 1988 Wembley concert audio, and Spike Lee’s documentary film of the same name.