1 Hidden Gem From Every Michael Jackson Album
4. Dangerous - Dangerous
Jackson’s next album continued the tradition of releasing song after song as a single. With nine of the album’s 14 songs becoming chart hits, the casual fan could be forgiven for thinking they’d heard everything they needed to from “The King of Pop’s” latest offering. But that casual fan would be missing out on Dangerous, the album’s title track and nearly tenth single.
All these years and hit singles later, it’s easy to forget this album was quite a bold departure for Jackson at the time. Determined to stay fresh and relevant, he parted ways with long-time collaborator Quincy Jones.
The new producers he brought onboard included Bill Bottrell and Teddy Riley, who had captured the zeitgeist as the architect of new jack swing. The result was a harder, grittier sound than anything Jackson had done before. Dangerous started life as one of Bottrell’s production efforts but Riley’s fingerprints are all over the finished track which also has an industrial flavour.
Lyrically, the song shares a theme with Billie Jean. Once again, Jackson finds himself running scared of a predatory lover. The spoken word verses, near whispered, are the closest Jackson ever came to rapping contrast with with his smooth, soaring vocal on the bridge.
Despite never enjoying a singles release, Dangerous would go on to become a life favourite for the rest of Jackson’s life.