Dangerous album was the first album Michael Jackson released in the 1990s, on November 26, 1991. It became Jackson’s second album to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, where it spent the next 4 weeks selling 7 million copies in the U.S. his third best-selling album there. With sales of approximately 30 million copies worldwide, it is Jackson’s best-selling recording of the nineties and ties with Bad as his second-best selling album, behind Thriller.
The album was released on November 26, 1991 and early sales were record breaking, becoming Jackson’s fastest-selling ever in the U,S, with 4 million shipped in under 2 months, beating Bad’s 4 million in 4 months. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 200 album charts, with 326,500 copies sold within one week of release. The album spent four weeks straight at #1, and spent its first 17 weeks inside the Billboard 200 top 10. The album managed to spend another week inside the top 10 in its 65th week in the charts, reaching #10, after Michael Jackson received the Grammy Legend Award at the 1993 Grammy Awards. The album saw a huge boost in sales during early 1993 when he also performed at the Super Bowl and conducted his famous interview with Oprah Winfrey. In all, Dangerous spent 117 weeks inside the Billboard 200, 30 weeks more than Bad. The RIAA certified Dangerous 7x Platinum, for shipping 7 million copies.
In the UK the album was even more successful. It also debuted at #1, knocking off the top-spot-big-contender, U2’s Achtung Baby. However, in its second week it was replaced by Queen’s Greatest Hits II, in the aftermath of Freddie Mercury’s death. There it spent 23 weeks inside the top 10 (the last being its 69th week, enjoying an amazing staying power) and a total of 96 weeks inside the top 75. The sales of the album stand at 2.1 million, making Dangerous one of the UK’s best-selling albums of the nineties.
In terms of worldwide sales, in the UK and U.S., Bad’s sales were 48% of the total worldwide sales. For Dangerous this figure is just 33%, making the album a more successful product internationally. However, the singles released from Dangerous were mostly bigger hits in Europe and Australia this time around, and more were released, than the singles from Bad. There were spectacular sales compared to Bad and Thriller in many European countries and Australia. Also Dangerous sold very well in the new emerging and growing record markets of Asia and South America.
The first single released from the album, “Black or White” was an instant success, Jackson’s biggest hit single since “Billie Jean”. Successive singles also enjoyed success. The album produced a total of 9 singles around the world (the title track was planned as a single for the end of 1993 but was cancelled), the same number as Bad. All of them were released in the UK, seven of them reaching the top 10, an achievement never before made by Jackson. The major hits released from the album were “Black or White“, “Remember the Time”, “In the Closet“, “Heal the World”, “Who Is It”, and “Will You Be There”. In the U.S., the singles from the album performed much worse than the singles from Thriller or even Bad, with Dangerous producing four top 10 hits out of 7 singles released there (Bad had six top 10 singles, of which the first five were all #1 hits – Dangerous’s only #1 single was “Black or White”).
Jackson supported the album with the Dangerous World Tour. Jackson would not release another full-length album of only all new songs for 10 years, with Invincible in 2001. HIStory, released in 1995, did contain a full disc of new material, but was only available in a double-disc set, the first CD containing previous hits.
Music videos
As was becoming the standard for Jackson, the album’s music videos were among the most costly and innovative of their time. Several of the music videos taken from the Dangerous album had complex storylines and dance sequences, and featured cameo appearances by celebrities. The video for “Jam”, directed by David Kellogg, showed Jackson and Michael Jordan playing basketball and dancing together, while “Remember the Time” was set in an Ancient Egyptian palace, and starred Eddie Murphy and Iman as the pharaoh and his queen. The video also featured a cameo by NBA player Magic Johnson. “In the Closet” featured Jackson and supermodel Naomi Campbell as lovers. The director of the video was photographer Herb Ritts, who also photographed Jackson in a series of promotional shots for the release of the Dangerous album. The video clip for “Who Is It” is notable as it was directed by David Fincher who later went on direct a number of films including Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac.
“Black or White” was originally over ten minutes long, premiering simultaneously on November 14, 1991 on MTV, VH1, BET, and FOX. The video featured one of the earliest examples of computer-generated morphing. The last four minutes of the video also induced much controversy, as it depicted Jackson smashing store windows and destroying a car with a crowbar. However, this destructive behaviour was intended to imply a message of anti-racism and racist graffiti was added in later versions to make the violence more understandable. The music video was also controversial because of Jackson’s sexually suggestive dance, which included the crotch grab as well as zipping up his pants. MTV and the other music video networks decided to excise the last four minutes of the “Black or White” video for all subsequent airings, and Jackson issued a statement apologizing to anyone who had been offended, and explaining that he tried to interpret the animal instinct of panthers into a dance. The video featured Macaulay Culkin and an appearance during the morphing scene by young Tyra Banks and was directed by John Landis, also the director of the “Thriller” short film.
