Could the Dangerous Album Have Been Better?

Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

This is what I would have done:

Withdraw
-In The Closet
-She Drives Me Wild
-Can't Let Her Get Away
-Why You Wanna Trip On Me
-Give In To Me (ehh maybe)

I like these songs, but to me, they are replaceable. Plus they are NJS songs (besides Give In To Me)

Remove as singles
-Heal The World
-Black Or White
-Gone Too Soon (tribute to Ryan White)
-Will You Be There (theme of Free Willy)

These relevant songs had, and still have, purpose to exist and should not have been included on a NJS album

Add
-Someone Put Your Hand Out
-If You Don't Love Me (if reworked better)
-For All Time (if reworked better before Thriller 25 version)

Amongst the best Dangerous outtakes to me (SPYO isn't an "outtake" per se, albeit it still was not on the album)

Keep
-Remember The Time
-Jam
-Who Is It
-Keep The Faith (MITM of the album)
-Dangerous

Good songs that can fit in the album

I agree that Michael should not have agreed to making a New Jack Swing album and instead stuck to one that is more of his style. Jam, RTT, and Dangerous are the only "Michael-like" NJS songs that pass for me. Outtakes like If You Don't Love Me and She Got It should have been properly worked on as they have album potential. There are indeed more Dangerous sessions out there, like Seven Digits and Don't Believe It, worked with Bryan Loren and other people that were scrapped for Riley's initiative of a NJS album. I want to say that a Michael and Janet collaboration should have been recorded for the album since Janet's Control album was the first NJS album produced, but we got that later on with Scream. It is possible that some of these sessions can replace the five tracks I would withdraw from the album, but I guess that will remain mysterious for a while.


Blasphemy. All of it.

:bomb:

:smokingrapper:

Michael's willingness to explore and experiment and use different styles, is a quality that I admire most in him; I prefer that, rather than have him just stick with styles of previous albums. The nineties was a time of great change, musically and I think MJ did very well to produce competitive albums and stay relevant throughout that decade...up against Pearl Jam, U2, Nirvana....to name just a few.

Dangerous is my favourite album, of any artist and my favourite album of Michael's. I would never presume to change his vision for it, in any way.

I can barely stand any Bryan Loren song....not one of them matches the richness and diversity and the message of most of the songs that eventually went onto Dangerous.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

The album is perfect. Maybe add Someone Put Your Hand Out, but I would not remove a single song.

I'm glad all those other outtake songs didn't make the album. Nice to have them (as outtakes), but they just are not that good.

All of this. :)
 
mj_frenzy;4300447 said:
The outtakes from the ‘Dangerous’ album are mostly not good songs.

They did not even include them on a bonus, second disc of the 2001 Special Edition of the ‘Dangerous’ album, as they planned to at that time.

‘Serious Effect’ sounds very repetitive and they could not improve it, hence its exclusion from the album.

‘If You Don't Love Me’ is a very childish song, and of course it is very inferior to ‘Give In To Me’.

‘Will You Be There’ is by far a better song than the yawn-inducing ‘Someone Put Your Hand Out’.

‘Monkey Business’ did not fit thematically the ‘Dangerous’ album.

‘Can't Let Her Get Away’ could have been replaced because lyrically and vocally is a very weak track (the same goes for ‘She Drives Me Wild’).

I agree with your comments here. I don't agree with you regarding the credits given to Michael (so I've taken them out of the quote). He deserved every single credit he was ever given, or took for himself.
 
Mikky Dee;4300538 said:
I agree with your comments here. I don't agree with you regarding the credits given to Michael (so I've taken them out of the quote). He deserved every single credit he was ever given, or took for himself.

As for the ‘Dangerous’ album, Teddy Riley also spoke about that and he implied that Michael Jackson did not deserve every co-production credit that he took on those seven new jack swing tracks on that album.

“…On every album Michael does, he has some sort of input, so I didn't mind him getting a co-production. Well, you can't exactly tell the King Of Pop he can't, can you?...” (Teddy Riley)

There are also many other cases in general where Michael Jackson did not deserve every single credit he was given, or took for himself.

Although this is off-topic, I would just mention several of these cases off the top of my head:

In ‘Whatever Happens’ (2001), where he added virtually nothing to the song in terms of writing, yet he took co-writing credit.

In ‘Heaven Can Wait’ (2001), where he added virtually nothing to the song in terms of writing, yet he again took co-writing credit.

In ‘You Are My Life’ (2001), where he only changed the title from ‘You Are My World’ to ‘You Are My Life’, yet he took co-writing credit for just that.

Or even in the lesser-known case of ‘Little Susie’, where he took certain identical lines from the ‘The Bridge of Sighs’ poem (written by the English poet Thomas Hood in 1844) and he put them in his ‘Little Susie’ song taking sole writing credit for himself.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

I dont see why ppl hate the dangerous album so much its got a vareity of generes of music on it
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

I think Dangerous is an excellent album, but I definitely think there's room for improvement. Here's what I'd do:

- Trim some of the songs down. Great as they may be, certain tracks don't really warrant their run times. Just shorten the last minute or so of "In the Closet," replace the album version of "Black or White" with the single edit (i.e., without the father/son intro), reduce the last two minutes of "Who Is It," and cut the Cleveland Orchestra prelude to "Will You Be There," and everything is a little more digestible. (Also, I'd replace parts of the "Give in to Me" vocal with those from the demo version. The ad-libs and the final line of the bridge -- "I can't live my life alone, yeah!" -- are just exquisite.)
- Cut "Why You Wanna Trip on Me," "She Drives Me Wild," and "Can't Let Her Get Away." All three are solid tracks, but they pale in comparison to the other 11, especially the other Teddy Riley productions.
- Replace "Keep the Faith" with "Someone Put Your Hand Out." The former is a nice song with a great vocal, but as with the aforementioned three Riley tracks, it doesn't really measure up to the album's other material. (I also wouldn't protest putting "For All Time" in this slot, but aesthetically I don't think that track really fits the mold as well as "Someone Put Your Hand Out" does.)

Yes Sir!! I often go back and listen to the demo, just to hear that adlib. It's so perfect

I always think with the album you can group it in pairs pretty well except the last two tracks, in terms of their lyrical content and message

1 and 2 The state of the world songs
3 and 4 Desire and lust tracks
5 and 6 Remorse and longing
7 and 8 Acceptance and unity
9 and 10 Betrayal within a relationship
11 and 12 Realisation and the search for purpose
13 and 14 This could have been about regret of an affair, had Mike put Blood On The Dance Floor as track 13 but I respect his reasons why Gone Too Soon went on the record

That's why I think the album plays so well, is it has a through line and plays like a cohesive story that you can follow and there is at least 1 track on the album that you can relate to your own life at some point. That's just my thoughts
 
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Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

I always think with the album you can group it in pairs pretty well except the last two tracks, in terms of their lyrical content and message

1 and 2 The state of the world songs
3 and 4 Desire and lust tracks
5 and 6 Remorse and longing
7 and 8 Acceptance and unity
9 and 10 Betrayal within a relationship
11 and 12 Realisation and the search for purpose
13 and 14 This could have been about regret of an affair, had Mike put Blood On The Dance Floor as track 13 but I respect his reasons why Gone Too Soon went on the record

That's why I think the album plays so well, is it has a through line and plays like a cohesive story that you can follow and there is at least 1 track on the album that you can relate to your own life at some point. That's just my thoughts

I like what you've done here and I agree. I wrote thoughts similar to this many years ago, on another forum.

I adore For All Time and Someone Put Your Hand Out. I wouldn't have minded having them on the album in place of Can't Let her Get Away, or She Drives Me Wild, but they have a different feel, completely, of course.
 
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mj_frenzy;4300573 said:
As for the ‘Dangerous’ album, Teddy Riley also spoke about that and he implied that Michael Jackson did not deserve every co-production credit that he took on those seven new jack swing tracks on that album.

“…On every album Michael does, he has some sort of input, so I didn't mind him getting a co-production. Well, you can't exactly tell the King Of Pop he can't, can you?...” (Teddy Riley)

There are also many other cases in general where Michael Jackson did not deserve every single credit he was given, or took for himself.

Although this is off-topic, I would just mention several of these cases off the top of my head:

In ‘Whatever Happens’ (2001), where he added virtually nothing to the song in terms of writing, yet he took co-writing credit.

In ‘Heaven Can Wait’ (2001), where he added virtually nothing to the song in terms of writing, yet he again took co-writing credit.

In ‘You Are My Life’ (2001), where he only changed the title from ‘You Are My World’ to ‘You Are My Life’, yet he took co-writing credit for just that.

Or even in the lesser-known case of ‘Little Susie’, where he took certain identical lines from the ‘The Bridge of Sighs’ poem (written by the English poet Thomas Hood in 1844) and he put them in his ‘Little Susie’ song taking sole writing credit for himself.


I guess you were sitting next to Michael when he was writing songs, so you'd know this, from a personal perspective??

He deserves credit for picking a damn song and putting it on his album and blessing it with his voice. That's what he deserves credit for.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

I dont see why ppl hate the dangerous album so much its got a vareity of generes of music on it

Just because someone doesn't think Dangerous is perfect, it doesn't mean that they hate the album so much. I don't believe in the concept of perfection. I believe everything can be improved upon, and that goes for all of Michael's albums.

No need to be so sensitive.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

I dont see why ppl hate the dangerous album so much its got a vareity of generes of music on it
Never did I directly label the Dangerous album in a negative way, nor did I ever express my "hatred" of it. I only provoked discussion about whether the album could have been produced better as I believe anything could undergo improvement. That does not automatically point to it being a bad album. The album is still great, but it is not perfect. I just wanted to share my opinion on its imperfection.
 
nextbigthing56;4300436 said:
I think of all the outtakes the only song that was good enough to go on the album is Someone Put Your Hand Out. I don’t know what I would replace it with though.
Clhga or keep the faith. Will you be there & heal the world are already there as well. Same theme almost
 
Speaking if joy.... since r.j lied to us about the real track he played. U wonder if a mj solo version really exist & how the hell could he not know the difference between the authenticity of it when he played it
 
mj_frenzy;4300573 said:
There are also many other cases in general where Michael Jackson did not deserve every single credit he was given, or took for himself.

Although this is off-topic, I would just mention several of these cases off the top of my head:

In ‘Whatever Happens’ (2001), where he added virtually nothing to the song in terms of writing, yet he took co-writing credit.

In ‘Heaven Can Wait’ (2001), where he added virtually nothing to the song in terms of writing, yet he again took co-writing credit.

In ‘You Are My Life’ (2001), where he only changed the title from ‘You Are My World’ to ‘You Are My Life’, yet he took co-writing credit for just that.


Invincible and Michaels limited lyric WRITING efforts on that album are a different pair of shoes.

By the time of Invincible Michael had been there, had done it all before and now had two little children to care about.

During Dangerous he was at the height of his international fame and at the peak of his creativity and worked his ass off to proof himself after leaving Quincy.

And just for the record:
The term "production" is often misused, and even Teddy Riley doesn't quite seem to get it in that interview.

Quincy Jones PRODUCED three albums for Michael, yet he never wrote or played a single note or tweeked one knob for any of the songs.

That's not what "production" means. It's about deciding who does what, what direction to take, deciding what's good, what has to be done better and saying "that's it" at some point.

Please proof that Michael - the perfectionist - Jackson did NOT do all of that next to Riley for those songs, so that he would not deserve the co-production credit!


mj_frenzy;4300573 said:
As for the ‘Dangerous’ album, Teddy Riley also spoke about that and he implied that Michael Jackson did not deserve every co-production credit that he took on those seven new jack swing tracks on that album.

…On every album Michael does, he has some sort of input, so I didn't mind him getting a co-production. Well, you can't exactly tell the King Of Pop he can't, can you?...” (Teddy Riley)

Said the same person that knowingly helped the Estate forge fake Michael Jackson songs for the "Michael" album and went on national TV to defend their authenticity. All for his own gain and covering his own ass.

Riley in the same interview about the song Dangerous:

"Michael came in with the hook, I did the music and then we finalised the song. We used a drum machine, the Akai MPC-60, and a lot of the sounds from that and samples I had on my sample CDs. There's no science to it, I just feel my way through the production. I always feel my way - I never do anything the same."

Me me me... Totally "forgetting" that he basically only remixed the Bill Botrell demo.


Teddy Riley operates like a sleazy car salesman. Integrity is optional. So never take his words 1:1.





Geek-p.s.:
It doesn't even make sense what he said about Dangerous and the "drum machine". The Akai MPC's are SAMPLERS. They don't come with any sounds. I know that because I own said MPC 60 and others. Another example that Teddy Riley is full of blah blah blah....
 
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Trim In The Closet down to about 5 minutes
Trim Can't Let Her Get Away down to about 3 and a half minutes
Keep the instrumental part of the Black Or White intro but remove the talking parts.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

Almost everyone who claims otherwise only did so after his death. That alone tells me all I need to know.

See, I would be open to this argument if two of the claimants weren't Greg Phillinganes and Brad Buxer.

Also, none of the claimants have sued the Estate for royalties, attempted to cause any sort of high-profile scandal, or demanded that the credits are legally amended; they've all just mentioned it during interviews and effectively said, "Whatever." Compare that to the men and women who claimed Michael plagiarized "The Girl is Mine" and "Dangerous," both of whom dragged him into court.

It's no secret that Michael hasn't always been the most honorable person when it comes to credits. Of course, we shouldn't believe any credit dispute at face value, but not all of them are hollow claims.

For example, listen to the writer's demo of "Heaven Can Wait." It is melodically, structurally, and lyrically indistinguishable from the album version... and yet Michael received co-writer's credit. Meanwhile, Phillinganes created the entire bridge for "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" from scratch and was only given arrangement credits. How is one okay, but the other isn't?
 
Don't mess with Dangerous. On second thought, I hate Heal the World the song. Mike would have hated me ?
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

See, I would be open to this argument if two of the claimants weren't Greg Phillinganes and Brad Buxer.

Also, none of the claimants have sued the Estate for royalties, attempted to cause any sort of high-profile scandal, or demanded that the credits are legally amended; they've all just mentioned it during interviews and effectively said, "Whatever." Compare that to the men and women who claimed Michael plagiarized "The Girl is Mine" and "Dangerous," both of whom dragged him into court.

It's no secret that Michael hasn't always been the most honorable person when it comes to credits. Of course, we shouldn't believe any credit dispute at face value, but not all of them are hollow claims.

For example, listen to the writer's demo of "Heaven Can Wait." It is melodically, structurally, and lyrically indistinguishable from the album version... and yet Michael received co-writer's credit. Meanwhile, Phillinganes created the entire bridge for "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" from scratch and was only given arrangement credits. How is one okay, but the other isn't?

Brad Buxer keeps changing his story about the creating/writing process of SIM, first it was, "he randomly played a few chords on piano, Michael liked what he heard and picked it up and developed it" and then it evolved to him (Brad) writing most of the song almost himself. Which one is true? Also, all of these claims started to arise after Michael's death, if he was that bothered by not getting enough credit, why didn't he speak about it before Michael passed away? Why didn't he choose to talk about it with Michael?

We don't know the reason why Michael changed his mind about not giving writing credits to Greg, he (Michael) seemed dismissive about the subject while talking about it on Mexico deposition though, again Michael is not here to tell his side of the story, a common theme among the claims like these.

I agree with you about the credits of Invincible.
 
Mikky Dee;4300591 said:
I guess you were sitting next to Michael when he was writing songs, so you'd know this, from a personal perspective??

He deserves credit for picking a damn song and putting it on his album and blessing it with his voice. That's what he deserves credit for.

Let me remind you also the ‘Stranger In Moscow’ case, where Brad Buxer co-wrote the song, yet Michael Jackson took sole writing credit on it.

Another example (in terms of production, now) is the ‘Black Or White’ case, where Michael Jackson only hummed the rhythm melody of the song to his tape recorder and in front of Bill Bottrell.

Michael Jackson did not even specify which instruments they should use on that song.

Then he gave the cassette to Bill Bottrell, and days later Bill Bottrell chose the instruments, he played them, and he formed and finished the song.

Michael Jackson only approved the final result, yet he took co-production credit on that song.

Another example where Michael Jackson took undue credit is the ‘Morphine’ song, where the album booklet credits him with playing the percussion, drums and guitar.

But in actual reality, Michael Jackson could not play any instruments at all during his life.

Electro;4300683 said:
Invincible and Michaels limited lyric WRITING efforts on that album are a different pair of shoes.

By the time of Invincible Michael had been there, had done it all before and now had two little children to care about.

During Dangerous he was at the height of his international fame and at the peak of his creativity and worked his ass off to proof himself after leaving Quincy.

And just for the record:
The term "production" is often misused, and even Teddy Riley doesn't quite seem to get it in that interview.

Quincy Jones PRODUCED three albums for Michael, yet he never wrote or played a single note or tweeked one knob for any of the songs.

That's not what "production" means. It's about deciding who does what, what direction to take, deciding what's good, what has to be done better and saying "that's it" at some point.

Please proof that Michael - the perfectionist - Jackson did NOT do all of that next to Riley for those songs, so that he would not deserve the co-production credit!

Said the same person that knowingly helped the Estate forge fake Michael Jackson songs for the "Michael" album and went on national TV to defend their authenticity. All for his own gain and covering his own ass.

Riley in the same interview about the song Dangerous:

"Michael came in with the hook, I did the music and then we finalised the song. We used a drum machine, the Akai MPC-60, and a lot of the sounds from that and samples I had on my sample CDs. There's no science to it, I just feel my way through the production. I always feel my way - I never do anything the same."

Me me me... Totally "forgetting" that he basically only remixed the Bill Botrell demo.

Teddy Riley operates like a sleazy car salesman. Integrity is optional. So never take his words 1:1.

Geek-p.s.:
It doesn't even makes sense what he said about Dangerous and the "drum machine". The Akai MPC's are SAMPLERS. They don't come with any sounds. I know that because I own said MPC 60 and others. Another example that Teddy Riley is full of blah blah blah....

Production in music is more than that.

A producer can do one or more of the following things:

Among others, he can run the soundboard, can arrange and adjust the microphones, can play one or more certain instruments, can tune these instruments, can adjust the effects, can do the mixing, and in some cases can do the mastering.

Michael Jackson never learned to do the above things, so he always needed a producer next to him during the sessions (such as, Teddy Riley for the new jack swing songs of the ‘Dangerous’ album).

And the new jack swing genre was a genre that Teddy Riley was conversant with, not Michael Jackson.

Or take the example of the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who were the primary instrumentalists for the recording (including, playing instruments like percussion, piano and drums) of Janet Jackson’s ‘Control' album which was released in 1986.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

https://www.recordingconnection.com...-entrepreneurs/what-does-a-music-producer-do/

Maybe Michael was insecure. I don't know how true this is of course, but Quincy Jones said he "stole a lot of stuff from other artists without paying them". Which is interesting given what's been said in here.

As for the Dangerous album, I think WYWTOM, CLHGA and SDMW could easily all go, and then add For All Time somewhere. That song is sublime.
 
AlwaysThere;4300786 said:
See, I would be open to this argument if two of the claimants weren't Greg Phillinganes and Brad Buxer.

Also, none of the claimants have sued the Estate for royalties, attempted to cause any sort of high-profile scandal, or demanded that the credits are legally amended; they've all just mentioned it during interviews and effectively said, "Whatever." Compare that to the men and women who claimed Michael plagiarized "The Girl is Mine" and "Dangerous," both of whom dragged him into court.

It's no secret that Michael hasn't always been the most honorable person when it comes to credits. Of course, we shouldn't believe any credit dispute at face value, but not all of them are hollow claims.

For example, listen to the writer's demo of "Heaven Can Wait." It is melodically, structurally, and lyrically indistinguishable from the album version... and yet Michael received co-writer's credit. Meanwhile, Phillinganes created the entire bridge for "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" from scratch and was only given arrangement credits. How is one okay, but the other isn't?

I really appreciate that these guys are doing those interviews. They do have some interesting stories to tell. The thing is, if someone feels they’ve been treated unfairly, why not bring it up while the person is still alive and sort it out with them? The music business is messy, and with so many people involved in each project, and projects spanning a couple of years, it’s easy to lose track of some details. You bring it up then. Or if you don’t, then don’t bring it up at all. I’m just generally not a fan of one-sided stories where the other side doesn’t have a chance to offer their perspective. That’s all. I’m not saying they made it up.
 
Anna;4300807 said:
Maybe Michael was insecure. I don't know how true this is of course, but Quincy Jones said he "stole a lot of stuff from other artists without paying them". Which is interesting given what's been said in here.

Quincy better prove those claims or keep his mouth shut. He’s a bitter old man.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

Production in music is more than that.

A producer can do one or more of the following things:
...


You know, in the studio some producers even make their own coffee. I guess if someone told you that Michael couldn't handle a coffee machine, to you and your upside-down thinking that would mean more proof that he didn't deserve the "co-producer" credit. :D

What I described in my last post is the core job of a producer in music. And Michael most likely DID all that. So the credit is deserved.
If he next to that also writes music, plays instruments, does the job of a sound engineer etc (like some producers especially nowadays do), then that would result in further separate credits.
 
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Btw, for some serious indepth Dangerous album appreciation and new perspectives,
check out the "Dangerous 25 roundtable" episode of the MJCast. (It's on YouTube).
 
Anna;4300807 said:
https://www.recordingconnection.com...-entrepreneurs/what-does-a-music-producer-do/

Maybe Michael was insecure. I don't know how true this is of course, but Quincy Jones said he "stole a lot of stuff from other artists without paying them". Which is interesting given what's been said in here.

As for the Dangerous album, I think WYWTOM, CLHGA and SDMW could easily all go, and then add For All Time somewhere. That song is sublime.

Quincy has said a lot of stuff. Not sure I’d pay it any attention.
 
ScreenOrigami;4300463 said:
2021! I’m ready! :D

If it's ever happens.

Jackson Rules;4300513 said:
BOTDF was also intended for Dangerous. Sad it didn't make the final tracklist

it was suppose to be for history as well and didn't make it to the first album but the remix one.

Themidwestcowboy;4300460 said:
The only song I would replace would be gone too soon with Someone put your hand out. Other than that the Dangerous album is a masterpiece.

i agree. but gone too soon was for his friend who died from aids.
 
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In my opinion the album is prefect and it's not even my favorite album but my mom love it. it is so 90's and "black". if a dangerous ever gets an anniversary release i would put all the unrelease songs on it. including outakes etc.

also QJ don't realize michael wrote of his songs so he needs stop saying michael stole from artists. he probably was inspires but didn't steal from them. OJ just mad that Michael want it to move on and grow. it happens to all artists i'm not sure why QJ thought Michael was gonna be with him forever. OJ want it that money.

it's so sad i use think Q was cool now i realize he kind of like the rest MJ backstabbers.
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

If it's ever happens.



it was suppose to be for history as well and didn't make it to the first album but the remix one.



i agree. but gone too soon was for his friend who died from aids.

He could still release the song as a charity song as a standalone single. I adore Gone Too Soon !
 
Re: Could have the Dangerous album been better?

https://www.recordingconnection.com...-entrepreneurs/what-does-a-music-producer-do/

Maybe Michael was insecure. I don't know how true this is of course, but Quincy Jones said he "stole a lot of stuff from other artists without paying them". Which is interesting given what's been said in here.

As for the Dangerous album, I think WYWTOM, CLHGA and SDMW could easily all go, and then add For All Time somewhere. That song is sublime.

Wasn't a part of this discussion about how MJ supposedly didn't give some producer their due credits and not about him stealing anything? Cause Quincy accuses him, with no proof, of stealing from other artists.
 
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