Man in the Music

by Joseph Vogel

  The early ’90s saw the genre explode with bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots earning massive record deals. But the most influential band from the grunge movement was unquestionably Nirvana. Nirvana’s rise was as swift as it was stratospheric. In a few short years, the group went from a local group of unknown twenty-year-olds to the biggest band in America. Their second album, Nevermind, was released by Geffen Records in September 1991, just months before Dangerous. Within weeks, its lead single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” was known by just about every suburban kid in America. Its music video, meanwhile, was played hourly (if not more) on MTV.

  A few months later, in early January 1992, Nevermind knocked Dangerous out of the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart. Critics heralded it as a symbolic moment: the glamour and excess of ’80s pop was over; grunge and alternative rock now reigned supreme. Yet as influential as grunge was, pop hadn’t gone anywhere. Artists like Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Michael Jackson remained enormous forces in the industry. Even many strands of ’80s rock remained extremely popular, from U2 to REM, Metallica to Guns N’ Roses. GNR, in particular, outsold just about everyone in the early ’90s. Its multiplatinum albums—Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II—were released the same month as Nevermind and sold a combined fourteen million copies in the United States (thirty-six million worldwide). If anyone could compete with Nirvana for the biggest rock band in America in 1991, it was Guns N’ Roses.

  Supposedly the music of misfits and outsiders, Nirvana and other grunge groups were branded, marketed, and sold by major corporations—Geffen, MTV, Ticketmaster, Rolling Stone—just as aggressively as any pop star, if not more so. Nirvana’s lead singer, Kurt Cobain, was all too aware of this. He despised the trappings of celebrity and fame, as well as the expectations of alt-rock critics and fans. “[Our rise] was so fast and explosive,” he told Rolling Stone in 1994. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. If there was a Rock Star 101 course, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.”

  Cobain didn’t want to be the “voice of a generation.” But, like Michael Jackson post-Thriller, it didn’t matter what he wanted. Nirvana became a phenomenon and Cobain became the poster child of a movement. Ironically, while Cobain was depicted as the anti–Michael Jackson, the two shared a number of things in common. Both deeply resented the ravenous, intrusive nature of the media; both were sensitive souls who refused to conform to stereotypically masculine expectations (“I definitely feel closer to the feminine side of the human being than I do the male,” Cobain told Rolling Stone in 1992, “or the American idea of what a male is supposed to be. Just watch a beer commercial and you’ll see what I mean”); and both used their music as a form of confession and catharsis.

  Few music critics made these connections at the time. But Jackson continued to evolve as an artist as the ’80s transitioned into the ’90s. He had come a long way since the blissful dance music of Off the Wall. His music was becoming darker, more personal, more revealing. Listen to songs like “Who Is It” and “Give in to Me” and Jackson sounds a lot more like Kurt Cobain than he does Mariah Carey or Madonna.

  NEW JACK SWING

  The other major rising force in popular music was hip-hop. The late ’80s saw rap branch off into several directions at once: there was the militant, politically charged rap of Public Enemy; the gangsta rap of N.W.A.; the smooth rap of LL Cool J; the alternative rap of De La Soul; and the pop rap of acts like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, MC Hammer, and Vanilla Ice.

  In 1988, MTV debuted Yo! MTV Raps, a two-hour program hosted by Fab 5 Freddy that introduced America to the latest trends and voices in the growing movement. By the 1990s, hip-hop was everywhere: on TV, in movies like Do the Right Thing (1989) and Boyz n the Hood (1991), surging up the charts, and shaping the culture of cities and suburbs alike. In 1990, MC Hammer’s Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ’Em was the #1 album in America for twenty-one straight weeks. That same year, Vanilla Ice’s hit single, “Ice Ice Baby,” which borrowed its hook from David Bowie and Freddie Mercury’s “Under Pressure,” became the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard Hot 100.

  Hip-hop was also influencing other genres—most significantly R&B. Janet Jackson’s groundbreaking album, Rhythm Nation 1814, exemplified this shift. Released in 1989, it represented a marked evolution from the Linn drum machine–based Minneapolis pop of her previous album, Control (1986). The Flyte Tyme sound—deeply indebted to Prince and the Minneapolis sound—of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (among the most influential R&B producers of the decade), was now infused with hip-hop beats (many songs use the iconic SP-1200 drum machine), scratching, and a collage of street sounds (sirens, barking dogs, breaking glass). Like Public Enemy, Janet was bringing the noise.

  Brother Michael was paying attention. Arguably, no other album influenced Dangerous more than Rhythm Nation 1814. He loved the record’s sound; he loved its socially conscious concept; and he loved the songs. “I always tell her my favorite song of hers is ‘Rhythm Nation’ and ‘The Knowledge,’ ” Michael said. “I love the bass lick. It really just drives me crazy; makes me wild.” Songs like “Jam,” “Why You Wanna Trip on Me,” “She Drives Me Wild,” and “Dangerous” are clearly influenced by the angular, urban, hip-hop–inflected feel of Rhythm Nation. Michael even borrowed from Janet’s visual imagery—dark and industrial—especially in the back-alley coda in the short film for “Black or White.”

  The marriage of hip-hop and R&B ultimately resulted in a style that came to be known as New Jack Swing. The term was coined by journalist Barry Michael Cooper in a 1987 feature for The Village Voice. It quickly caught on. “Three words in one capsule,” wrote music critic Robert Doerschuk in 1992, “fashioned to slip smoothly down the media’s throat—snap, crackle, pop for the ’90s. It’s the hook of the season, the je ne sais quoi that everyone wants in their rhythm tracks.” New Jack Swing gave R&B an injection of youth, attitude, and vitality. Its “swing” beats, featuring accenting offbeats and whip-cracking snares, were mostly created with SP-1200 and Roland 808 drum machines, while the chords often came out of the black church. “Classic rap assaults your guts with its maxed-out, sloppy bass,” wrote Doerschuk in 1992. “Under similar circumstances, new jack swing goes for your feet and your brain. It’s as tidy as it is tight.”

  While many people helped contribute to the sound, the father of New Jack Swing was Teddy Riley. Born in Harlem, Riley learned music in the church. “I actually played piano at Universal Temple and the organ player was my teacher,” he recalled. “He took me to the next level of making different grooves and tempos and swinging. I learned pretty much everything about syncopation. My pastor was the most incredible piano player that I ever heard. He just blew me away…that’s when I started learning church chords. And that’s when I figured out that’s where R&B came from. I’m studying jazz artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Reed. And I was a huge Kid Creole fan. All the different swing beats he did. At the same time, I was learning that soulful funk from George Clinton, Parliament, Sly Stone, and Roger Troutman. You combine all that with hip-hop and you get New Jack Swing.”

  Riley formed the group Guy—which also included Aaron Hall and Timmy Gatling—in 1987. Soon after, they released their debut eponymous album. That same year Riley also cowrote and produced Keith Sweat’s album Make It Last Forever. Both albums went multiplatinum. Before long, he was the hottest young producer in R&B. In a 1987 feature on the producer, Barry Michael Cooper marveled at the twenty-year-old’s musical and technological prowess: “[He] has so many things happening at once—bass lines, strings, multileveled percussion tracks, computerized samples from James Brown and Stax records…This is a polyrhythmic community turned vigilante…Riley’s music is Robocop funk, in full effect; go-go music gunned down by rap and electronics, and then rebuilt with more vicious beats, and in-charge, large attitude.” Fresh from his
break with New Edition, Bobby Brown enlisted Riley’s help with his hit single “My Prerogative.” Brown’s album Don’t Be Cruel also featured the songwriting and production talents of Babyface and L.A. Reid, two other figures who became instrumental in the evolution of New Jack Swing.

  Michael Jackson was following these currents. Many of these figures soon became collaborators and were shocked to learn how much the artist knew about their work. Jackson, however, was determined not to simply co-opt the latest sounds and styles, but to transform them—to take them someplace fresh and new. In the years since Bad, the music scene had changed dramatically. The artist’s challenge was to adapt to the times but still remain ahead of the curve.

  FINDING NEVERLAND

  Michael Jackson finally completed the Bad World Tour in January 1989. For the prior sixteen months, he had been performing around the world, from Tokyo to Sydney, London to Los Angeles. The tour generated more than $125 million, becoming the highest-grossing and most-attended concert in history to that point. While Jackson was proud of its success, he was also exhausted, vowing never to tour again. He had so many projects waiting for him back home and was anxious to begin a new chapter in his life and career.

  That began with Neverland. Jackson had tasked his attorney, John Branca, with purchasing him a new home while he was on tour. He finally felt ready to branch out on his own, away from the family estate in Encino, and settled on a quiet, secluded place to start his new life: the Santa Ynez Valley.

  Located about one hundred miles north of Los Angeles (nestled between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria), the Santa Ynez Valley contained picturesque vistas, rolling hills, and vineyards. Jackson first fell in love with the location back in 1983 while filming the music video for “Say, Say, Say” with Paul McCartney. The property Jackson wanted, then called Sycamore Valley Ranch, was just outside Los Olivos, a quaint village of one thousand residents, known for its art galleries, wine, and antiques. It was a sprawling, 2,700-acre estate featuring an English-style country house with beautiful wood detailing. The asking price was $60 million; after negotiations, Branca helped Jackson get it for $17.5 million.

  Jackson renamed the property Neverland Valley Ranch. It seemed to be the perfect escape for the artist, although years later it would come to be viewed by some through a much darker lens. Indeed, after his 2005 criminal trial, Jackson never returned to the property again. But in 1989, the picture was different. When Jackson returned from touring, he invited his mother to come see his new home. After Michael drove her around the estate in a golf cart, she remembers them stopping at an especially scenic spot to “soak in the view”: “It was hard for me to believe,” she wrote in 1990, “that just a couple of days earlier Michael was performing in front of 133,000 screaming fans half a world away. Now it was just the two of us on a silent morning in the country. I glanced at Michael. He looked peaceful and content as he gazed into the distance, alone in his thoughts. I felt content, too, knowing that as he neared a turning point in his career, Michael had a wonderful home where he could unwind, drink in the fresh air, and map out his future.”

  Over the next couple of years, that’s exactly what he did—not only with his career, but with the property itself, which Jackson approached with the same creative energy he invested in his albums and short films. Jackson had already transformed his Hayvenhurst home in Encino into a kind of Disney-esque fantasyland. But Neverland Ranch was Jackson’s fully realized utopia. There was a C. P. Huntington–style train (similar to the one at Disneyland) that wound around much of the grounds. There were teepees and forts and barricades for water balloon fights; an amusement park, complete with bumpers cars, a flying ride, and a large Ferris wheel; a recreation building and an arcade; a five-acre lake with a bridge crossing over it and a waterfall; a zoo that held giraffes and deer, zebras and llamas, lions and chimpanzees.

  A beautiful movie theater, meanwhile, was furnished with plush crimson seats, a performing stage, and a movie screen. Just outside—past the concession stands filled with candy, drinks, and popcorn—a sign announced which movie was playing that night. Statues of blissful children appeared everywhere, and, throughout the grounds, classical music by composers such as Debussy and Tchaikovsky played through strategically situated speakers.

  It was his own insulated world: a world apart from screaming fans, reporters, and photographers; apart from lawyers, managers, and music executives; apart even from his family. The new estate allowed the pop star time and space to meditate, read, and reflect. In 1988, he became close friends with the author, physician, and spiritualist Deepak Chopra, who encouraged Jackson to develop and express his intuitions, thoughts, and ideas about the world. Before long, the artist developed a book of poems and reflections with Chopra’s assistance. “I sat with him for hours,” Chopra recalled, “while he dreamily wove Aesop-like tales about animals, mixed with words about music and his love of all things musical. This project became Dancing the Dream [published by Doubleday in 1992].”

  It was an important time of self-discovery for Jackson. In 1987, he officially resigned his membership as a Jehovah’s Witness, the religion in which he had been taught and raised. For years, he had tried to follow its teachings. He took it very seriously. In the early ’80s, he even donned disguises and went door to door evangelizing for the church. Yet over the course of the decade, his belief and commitment to the faith waned. Jackson remembered the Jehovah’s Witness elders calling his iconic Motown 25 performance of “Billie Jean” “dirty burlesque dancing” and the “Thriller” short film “demonic.” As a concession to church authorities, Jackson had gone so far as to include a disclaimer at the beginning of “Thriller” disavowing any belief in the occult.

  But their concerns intensified with the edgier content on the Bad album. “When I did certain things in the past that I didn’t realize were against the religion and I was reprimanded for it, it almost destroyed me,” Jackson confessed. “Certain things that I did as an artist in my music I didn’t realize I was crossing a line with them and when they chastised me, it really hurt me. It almost destroyed it. My mother saw it.” After grappling with it for years, in 1987, he decided to leave the church. As an artist, he found it too inhibiting; and as an individual, he increasingly found its doctrines too parochial, rigid, and limiting. Exposed to new worldviews—particularly Eastern, transcendentalist, and new age ideas—Jackson began to develop a more open understanding of himself, the world, and the Divine. “I have chosen to break and be free,” he wrote in Dancing the Dream. “Cut those ties, so I can see / Those bonds that imprisoned me in memories of pain / Those judgments, interpretations that cluttered my brain.”

  In place of these “judgments,” he now saw God less as an angry, vengeful authority figure, and more as a loving, creative force. “It’s strange that God doesn’t mind expressing Himself/Herself in all the religions of the world, while people still cling to the notion that their way is the only right way,” he wrote in Dancing the Dream. “For me the form God takes is not the most important thing. What’s most important is the essence. My songs and dances are outlines for Him to come in and fill. I hold out the form, She puts in the sweetness….For me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God’s creation embraces me. We are one.”

  THE NEW CREATIVE TEAM

  It was an exciting, rejuvenating time for Jackson. He was bursting with creative ideas. On a whiteboard by the control desk at Westlake Studio, he put up a quote by John Lennon: “When the real music comes to me,” it read, “the music of the spheres, the music that surpasseth understanding—that has nothing to do with me, ’cause I’m just the channel. The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium. Those moments are what I live for.”

  This was exactly the way Jackson felt songs came to him, even when he was on tour. While in Vienna, for instance, Jackson conceived of
the concept and melody for what became “Earth Song.” The artist was so excited about it he called up Bill Bottrell—one of the key figures from the B-Team on Bad—and laid down a demo at Westlake Studio in September 1988, during a brief, two-week window between the European leg and final US leg of his tour. “With Michael,” explained Matt Forger, “he never stopped creating. He wasn’t an artist who said, ‘Oh, I’ve got an album coming up, I better start writing songs.’ The songs were constantly flowing from him, and if it wasn’t a song it was a poem, it was an idea for a story or short film….It was a constant creative process.”

  Since Bad had been the final album required in his contract with Quincy Jones, he decided not to rehire the producer for his next album. Jackson didn’t see the decision as “firing” Jones as much as taking the next step in his evolution as an artist. Jones didn’t see it the same way. He was angry. He vented to mutual colleagues that Jackson hadn’t even bothered to call him about the decision. Moreover, he had heard through the grapevine that Jackson believed he was old and out of touch. There was some truth to the rumor. Jackson had grown frustrated with Jones’s reluctance to adapt to the new musical landscape, including the latest studio technologies. He had hoped Jones would be more impressed with the cutting-edge sounds and production on his Hayvenhurst tracks for Bad.

  “Michael was not angry with Quincy,” explained musician/recording engineer Brad Buxer. “He has always had an admiration for him and an immense respect. But with Dangerous, Michael wanted to control the creative process from A to Z. Simply put, he wanted to be his own boss. Michael was always very independent, and he also wanted to show that his success was not because of one man, namely Quincy.”

  For Jackson, the full autonomy was liberating. He began working on new tracks with a handful of members from the old B-Team, including Matt Forger and Bill Bottrell. Rather than beginning out of his home studio as on Bad, Jackson reserved space at Ocean Way Recording on Sunset Boulevard and Westlake. The majority of recording in 1989 took place at Westlake in Studios C and D, before eventually moving to Record One in Sherman Oaks toward the end of the year.