Review Summary: The final classic Michael Jackson album, flaws and all.
At the dawn of the 90s, and in the wake of Bad, Michael wanted to recapture the attention of the urban black audience that he’d lost as he chased (and achieved) pop super-stardom in the 80s. Genres like rap and new jack swing were gaining popularity and breaking into the charts. Jackson wanted to tap into those sounds for his next album. The turn to new jack swing in particular, which covers over half of the album’s tracks, was clearly a calculated maneuver coming after his sister Janet’s chart shattering Rhythm Nation 1814 album (which in my mind is the absolute peak of new jack swing). Michael had to be jealous as he saw his younger sister breaking chart records he had set with Thriller and Bad. So he brought on new jack swing pioneer Teddy Riley as a producer and co-writer. Still, Michael couldn’t completely move past trying to be the Pop Everyman whose album’s contained a little of something for everyone. Which is why after the first half of the album the tone jarringly shifts from new jack swing to the sappy balladry of “Heal the World”. To hedge his bets, the remainder of the back-half of the album is a mix of styles that touch on all the genres he assumed his legions of fans wanted to hear, much as he’d done on Thriller and Bad, before ending with new jack swing again on the titular track.
The biggest flaw of the album is frankly the runtime. It’s just way too damn long, something that could sadly be said in regards to many albums in the 90s. Artists felt the need to fill all 70 minutes a CD could hold. No longer did they have to cut songs which in years past would have been relegated to b-sides due to the runtime limitations of vinyl or cassette. Dangerous is easily three songs too long, but compounding that, many songs just drag on 2 or more minutes longer than they need to. Songs inexplicably stretch to 6 minutes or more, well after everything of substance Michael had to say had been exhausted within the first 3-4 minutes. The opening track, for example, “Jam”, has no business being as long as it is and the length of many of the songs blunts their impact as you’re left wondering when the track is going to end, rather than left wanting more. The back-half of many songs devolve into repeating the same loops, choruses or Michael’s vocal affectations ad nauseam.
Additionally, the production itself often sounds flat and hollow. The album surely is a product of its time with the dreaded early 90s Q Sound mixing. To make matters worse, a number of songs eschew real instrumentation in favor of cheap sounding keyboards, “Keep the Faith” being the worst offender. I’m left wondering how majestic some of these songs could have been without the chintzy sounds they’re saddled with.
The complaints levied above may seem overwhelming and harsh, but through it all, the album still manages to have a pretty consistent level of quality, certainly higher than the wildly varying caliber of offerings on Bad. Dangerous is an album I enjoy, despite all of its obvious flaws. It’s a testament to Jackson’s abilities that he is able to elevate many of these songs that would, in less capable hands, have felt generic at best. He seems much more engaged with the material here than he did on Bad, where it felt like half the songs were nakedly designed to replicate a particular song off Thriller, but with much less genuine enthusiasm. That’s not the case here. In particular, the singles “Remember the Time” and “Black or White” are undeniably catchy and overflow with Jackson’s charisma, the latter of which may be one of the few songs with an opening “skit” (the most cringeworthy and lamentable trend of the 90s) that I don’t immediately roll my eyes at after all these years.
Dangerous is the last album I would consider part of Jackson’s golden era and it contains a number of songs that stand among the absolute best of his career. An album worth listening to on both its artistic merits and historical significance, warts and all. This was the last time Jackson felt like he was truly still capable of anything.
