Genres: Funk

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.

Off The Wall

Off the Wall is Michael Jackson’s fifth studio album, released on 10 August 1979 by Epic Records. It marked his first collaboration with producer Quincy Jones, after the two met during the filming of The Wiz the previous year. Recorded between December 1978 and June 1979 at three Hollywood studios, it represented a clear break from Jackson’s Motown years and the Jacksons’ Epic output.

Jackson and Jones assembled an extraordinary cast of session musicians and songwriters. Rod Temperton, then of Heatwave, contributed three tracks including the title song and “Rock with You”. Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney each gave the album a song. Toto members Steve Lukather and David Paich played extensively, while Greg Phillinganes provided keyboards and arrangements that would define the Jackson-Jones sound for the next decade.

Four singles became U.S. top-10 hits: “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” (#1), “Rock with You” (#1), “Off the Wall” (#10) and “She’s Out of My Life” (#10). “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” won Jackson the 1980 Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, his first Grammy as an adult solo artist. Jackson, however, was deeply disappointed that the album was overlooked for Album of the Year, and reportedly used that disappointment as fuel for the all-encompassing ambition of Thriller.

Off the Wall has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. It transformed disco into something more sophisticated, blending pop, funk and post-disco soul, and proved that Jackson could carry a major adult solo career on his own. The album is widely cited as one of the greatest of all time and was reissued in 2016 alongside Spike Lee’s documentary film Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall.

Thriller

Thriller is Michael Jackson’s sixth studio album, released on 30 November 1982 by Epic Records. It is the best-selling album of all time, with estimated worldwide sales of over 70 million copies. Produced by Quincy Jones with Jackson co-producing, the album was recorded between April and November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles.

Jackson, eager to top the success of Off the Wall, sought a record where every song could be a single. Of the album’s nine tracks, seven were released as singles, an unprecedented run that included “The Girl Is Mine” (a duet with Paul McCartney), “Billie Jean”, “Beat It” (with Eddie Van Halen’s iconic guitar solo), “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'”, “Human Nature”, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” and the title track. Vincent Price provided the spoken-word “rap” at the end of “Thriller”, recorded in two takes after Rod Temperton wrote the lyrics on the way to the studio.

The album spent a record 37 weeks at number one on the US Billboard 200 and reached number one in most major markets. “Beat It” and “Billie Jean” became inescapable on radio and MTV, with the latter’s music video breaking the colour barrier on MTV after pressure from CBS Records chief Walter Yetnikoff. Jackson’s performance of “Billie Jean” on Motown 25 in May 1983, where he debuted the moonwalk, is widely regarded as one of the most iconic moments in television history.

Thriller swept the 1984 Grammy Awards, winning a record-breaking eight statues including Album of the Year. It also won eight American Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards (for the title track’s 14-minute John Landis-directed short film) and the Brit Award for Best International Album. The album has been certified 34× Platinum by the RIAA, the highest certification ever awarded for an album in the United States.

Beyond the commercial achievements, Thriller transformed the music industry. It elevated music videos from promotional tools to art form, repositioned MTV as a Black-friendly platform, and made Jackson the world’s biggest star. Successive reissues — Thriller 25 (2008) and Thriller 40 (2022) — added previously unreleased tracks, demos and remixes, keeping the album in the global charts decades after its release.