Man in the Music

by Joseph Vogel

  From the outset, the material was more socially engaged than anything he’d done before. “Michael was inspired by touring and seeing the world,” said Matt Forger. “He came back with certain impressions. His social commentary kicked up a notch or two. Most of the early songs we worked on—‘Black or White,’ ‘They Don’t Care About Us,’ ‘Heal the World,’ and ‘Earth Song’—were more socially conscious.”

  Jackson’s primary collaborator early on was Bill Bottrell. The pair had established a dynamic creative chemistry during the Bad sessions, working on songs like “Smooth Criminal,” “Speed Demon,” “Price of Fame,” “Streetwalker,” and the Beatles cover “Come Together.” While Bottrell had been forced out toward the end of the project by Quincy Jones, Jackson was eager to bring him back for the next album.

  This time, he promised Bottrell, they would be able to create and produce songs exactly the way they wanted. “Michael was always prepared to listen and put his trust in me,” said Bottrell, “but he was also sort of a guide all the time. He knew why I was there and, among all the songs he was recording, what he needed from me.” Bottrell came to be known as Jackson’s “rock guy,” but his work was broader than that. For Dangerous, it included exciting new material like “Black or White,” “If You Don’t Love Me,” “Monkey Business,” “Who Is It,” “Give in to Me,” “Dangerous,” and “Earth Song.”

  “The ‘producer’ role is something I always took very seriously,” said Bottrell. “I saw it as totally differentiated from all the engineering and mixing I had done. I felt it was my job to provide content that helped the artist achieve what he wanted. That’s how MJ treated me, telling me what he envisioned and leaving me alone to effect it. Sometimes that meant using the DIY ethic I had learned from Jeff Lynne. I was aware of the limitations of that, but it did serve to tighten up the focus on the vocals and the story. If there were musicians I needed, they would be called from my book, or suggested by MJ, from his book.”

  One of the first songs they worked on in 1989 was “Black or White.” Jackson sang Bottrell the main riff and melody, and Bottrell locked it in. As with many other songs, the demo—which was originally under two minutes long—was completed quickly, while the details would be worked on for months to come. Bottrell took pride, however, in convincing Jackson to retain more of the rawness in his early takes, particularly in his vocals, instead of always chasing perfection. “As opposed to some of the other people who worked with Michael at the time,” said Bottrell, “when I was allowed to produce I would consistently try to go for simpler vocals, comping them from two or three takes, with looser backgrounds and a more instinctive feel.” This comes through in Jackson-Bottrell collaborations, many of which were unlike anything the artist had done before, sonically and thematically.

  “Most of the time while I worked on Dangerous I had my sort of A-list of songs that I thought were his list of A-list of songs,” said Bottrell, “which were tracks like ‘Monkey Business,’ ‘Earth Song,’ ‘Give in to Me,’ ‘Black or White,’ ‘Who Is It,’ and ‘Dangerous.’ Other ones were sort of dabbled with, but those were my priority tracks.” From 1989 to 1991, Bottrell spent countless hours—some with Jackson, many alone—building these songs.

  Bottrell also fortuitously introduced Jackson to a key new member of the creative team: Brad Buxer. A classically trained pianist and keyboardist, Buxer had previously worked with Stevie Wonder. Jackson and Bottrell discovered that connection later. He was originally brought in as a tech. “I didn’t own an Emulator,” recalled Bottrell, “and I needed a sampler to do many things. I looked up rentals and came up with Brad Buxer, who came along with his machine and hung around. This was early, at Ocean Way. Every time I rented it he came along, and I found him to be a good positive energy, chatting and making positive comments. Eventually he met MJ and they hit it off.”

  That July, Buxer joined a studio session for “Heal the World” at Westlake Studio and the chemistry with Jackson was immediate. “It was pretty unbelievable really,” noted Buxer. “I will never forget my first encounter with him. A current immediately passed between us. Musically speaking, we were on the same wavelength; we spoke the same language.” Jackson valued Buxer’s ability to translate his ideas. The pair would work closely together for the next twenty years.

  Finally acting as executive producer, Jackson felt there were no limits to what he could do. He had learned a lot from Quincy Jones about putting an album together. Now, even more than with Bad, he was assembling the team and determining the vision. “He has an entire record in his head,” explained Bottrell, “and he tries to make people deliver it to him. Sometimes those people surprise him and augment what he hears, but really his job is to extract from musicians and producers and engineers what he hears when he wakes up in the morning.”

  DECADE

  While Jackson was coming up with new material, the plan for the next album took time to come into focus. Originally, the concept was a greatest-hits collection with a handful of new songs, similar to Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. The proposed title was Decade. The two-disc collection would contain all of Jackson’s major hits to that point, plus around five to seven new songs. Among the songs under serious consideration were the Beatles cover “Come Together,” “Black or White,” “Man in Black,” “Who Is It,” “Gone Too Soon,” “Heal the World,” and rerecorded versions of the Jackson 5 hits “I’ll Be There” and “Never Can Say Goodbye.”

  Jackson signed off on the idea in early 1989 and test pressings were made by Sony, which now owned CBS/Epic Records. Jackson was to receive an $18 million advance for the album. It was originally scheduled for release in late 1989, but that date was pushed back several times. The final drop-dead release date was set for November 1990 (the same month as Madonna’s album). Ultimately, however, the record never materialized.

  There were a number of reasons for this. For one, Jackson’s attention was being pulled in several directions at once. He was preparing for a long-awaited movie role as Peter Pan, in a film that was supposed to be directed by Steven Spielberg. He was spending time with Ryan White, who died tragically that April. Jackson’s longtime friend and hero Sammy Davis Jr. also died that spring. Just months earlier, Jackson had written and performed a song for him, called “You Were There,” at a televised special honoring Davis’s sixtieth anniversary in show business.

  Meanwhile, most of the key executives, managers, and attorneys who had guided Jackson through the ’80s were dismissed. CBS head Walter Yetnikoff, arguably the most influential music executive of the previous decade, was forced out by the new figures at Sony—which acquired CBS in 1988—after years of struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. Manager Frank DiLeo was fired in 1989, after Jackson became concerned that DiLeo was mishandling his finances and was generally dissatisfied with his work during the Bad years (including the Moonwalker film). And longtime attorney John Branca was let go in 1990 as Jackson became enamored of rival Hollywood mogul David Geffen, whom Jackson believed would finally help him realize his moviemaking dreams.

  These were consequential moves with long-term repercussions. More immediate, however, the accumulation of stress was adding up. That summer it finally reached a breaking point. In June 1990, with the deadline for Decade looming and dozens of other people, projects, and contracts competing for his time and attention, the artist collapsed while dancing in his home studio. He was rushed to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, where he was treated for chest pains and dehydration. The most probable cause was a panic attack due to stress, anxiety, and exhaustion.

  After four days in the hospital, Jackson was released. Asked by the press when he would resume recording for Decade, spokesman Bob Jones responded that the artist would need at least another seven days off and was advised to take things easy for a while after that. Soon after, Jackson decided to pull out of Decade entirely. Sony was frustrated, but the artist still had enough cl
out to keep their concerns at bay. He explained that the new material deserved its own album and would sell more copies as a stand-alone LP. He even had an idea for the title: Dangerous.

  SEARCHING FOR A NEW SOUND

  Over the next year or so, recording took place primarily at Record One (a branch of Ocean Way Studios in Sherman Oaks), where Jackson had arranged for exclusive reign of the facility at a cost of $4,000 per day.

  Through most of 1990, work proceeded on three distinct fronts: Bill Bottrell operated in one studio; Bruce Swedien, the lone remnant of the A-Team, operated out of another; and Bryan Loren, a young, talented R&B artist-producer from Philadelphia, operated out of a third.

  The dynamics between these three “teams” were mostly cordial, occasionally testy, but always competitive. According to Brad Buxer, Jackson intentionally kept “his recording crews separated and in the dark sometimes about what the other crew may be doing. He never liked any of his closest people getting too close or chummy with each other. He preferred his closest people to be loyal to him first.”

  The relationship between Bruce Swedien—who remained a loyal friend to Quincy Jones—and Bill Bottrell could be particularly tense. Besides representing different “teams” during the Bad project, they also had very different personalities and approaches in the studio. Recording engineer Brad Sundberg compares their styles to those of an artist and a scientist. Swedien was the scientist; Bottrell was the artist. It was maximalism versus minimalism, perfection versus improvisation, wine versus Corona. “I appreciate both approaches,” said Sundberg. “I love the lush, over-the-top production of Bruce’s production on ‘Will You Be There,’ but I also love the simplicity of Bill’s song ‘Give in to Me.’ ”

  So did Jackson. He was glad to still have Swedien onboard—not only because he was the consummate professional and an outstanding recording engineer, but also because he was a comforting, stabilizing force. He’d been there since Off the Wall and was someone Jackson knew he could count on. For Dangerous, Swedien even got to try his hand at arrangement and production. Along with R&B singer René Moore, who was signed to Motown Records, he began working on a rhythm track called “Time Marches On.” “We had been experimenting with the ‘looping’ of old but extremely high-energy drum and rhythm tracks,” recalled Swedien. “However, our idea was to take the fantastic feel of these vintage drum performances, and layer them with new, very contemporary sounds on parallel tracks to bring the sonic value of the track up to date.” Eventually, Swedien felt it was good enough to show to Michael. Jackson liked it and the song eventually became the album opener, “Jam.”

  For most of the other rhythm tracks, Jackson was working with Bryan Loren. Jackson first reached out to the producer in 1988. He liked Loren’s production on the 1987 debut album of R&B singer Shanice. When Jackson returned from the Bad World Tour, the pair began cutting tracks at Westlake, including songs like “Work That Body,” “She Got It,” “Serious Effect,” “Do Not Believe It,” “Seven Digits,” and “Man in Black.” “When we began working,” said Loren, “it was my hope to return to a form of feeling that you got from the Off the Wall or even the Thriller LP. Where there was a very organic feeling about the content.”

  Eager to incorporate hip-hop onto the record, Jackson also reached out to LL Cool J to rap on a few of these tracks, including “Serious Effect” and “Truth about Youth.” LL had been publicly critical of Jackson, sometimes even leading chants at his concerts boasting that he was better than the pop star. In a 1987 interview with Fab 5 Freddy, he mocked Jackson’s changing appearance and claimed the artist was out of touch. “Michael Jackson, even though he might be a real person,” he said, “symbolizes some fake shit. You know what I’m saying?…I’m showing all the people that ‘Yo, you can be real and make it. You don’t have to get that nose job. Make our music, sing our songs and people will still love you.’ Know what I’m saying? Don’t sell out.”

  Like Run-DMC, however, LL quickly changed his tune after meeting Jackson in person. They laughed a lot and LL got a firsthand look into how Jackson operated behind the scenes. He subsequently became a lifelong fan and defender of the artist. “Working with Michael was the most amazing part of my life,” he later acknowledged.

  Over the course of the year, Jackson and Loren likewise developed a close friendship and produced around twenty songs together. One of these tracks, “Mind Is the Magic,” was given to illusionists Siegfried & Roy to use as the anthem for their “Beyond Belief Show” in Las Vegas. Another song, “Superfly Sister,” was shelved for Dangerous, but later developed and released on Blood on the Dance Floor.

  Sonically, the Jackson-Loren material had a light, airy, funky feel. While they did work on a handful of ballads, including the lush R&B cut “To Satisfy You,” most of them were synth-based rhythm tracks. About ten of these had complete vocals; the rest were unfinished grooves. “When we did do vocals,” Loren noted, “beyond his lead work it was always a pleasure to listen to this man lay background harmonies. His voice was truly unique. Really pure tone, and great intonation.”

  Like Bottrell, Loren aimed for a looser, more instinctive atmosphere in the studio. This comes through on tracks like “She Got It” and “Work That Body,” the latter of which features Jackson repeating a line from the Jackson 5 classic “ABC” (“Sit down, girl! I think I love you! No! Get up, girl! Show me what you can do!”) “He did not want to do this,” said Loren, laughing, “but realized the tongue-in-cheek fun contained in it.”

  While the material was strong by most artists’ standards, Jackson wasn’t totally satisfied with it. He didn’t feel it was as compelling as some of the tracks on his sister Janet’s Rhythm Nation album. At one point Michael reached out to her producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and invited them to work with him. But they declined out of loyalty to Janet. He also reached out to rising New Jack Swing producers Antonio “L.A.” Reid and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds. Cofounders of LaFace Records, the duo would go on to help launch the careers of some of the biggest artists of the ’90s, including TLC, Toni Braxton, Outkast, and Usher. The producers were working with Michael’s brother Jermaine in 1990, but Michael clandestinely went behind his brother’s back and arranged to have them flown by helicopter to his Neverland Ranch.

  Once there, they signed nondisclosure agreements and Jackson gave them a tour of the grounds, culminating in a screening of a 1983 James Brown concert in which the Godfather of Soul had invited both Jackson and Prince up onto the stage. Then they got down to business. Jackson said he was looking for a stronger, hipper sound. When Reid and Babyface pressed for more specifics, most of the tracks Jackson mentioned were produced by Jam and Lewis, which made them nervous. But he was also clearly aware of their own work and asked them to commit to a few weeks in the studio.

  While they were nervous about Jermaine finding out, they agreed. Over the ensuing days, Reid and Babyface came up with a handful of grooves and introduced them to Jackson. The artist’s favorite had a very New Jack–sounding bass line; he took the tape and began fleshing out the arrangement and writing lyrics. He called it “Slave to the Rhythm.”

  Once they began work on the track at Can-Am Studio, recalled Reid, “it was not [record the vocal] once and fix the bad note. No, he sang the song from top to bottom twenty-four times without a bathroom break, without a water break, without a ‘Give me a moment.’ He would sing the song and say, ‘OK, give me another track, I can do it better,’ and he’d do it again.” While Jackson liked the song, it wasn’t quite clicking with Reid and Babyface. Something about the chemistry was off. Moreover, when Jermaine found out they were working with Michael, he was so furious he threatened to leave the LaFace record label. “He’ll get over it,” Michael said. (Jermaine later hit back with the pointed polemic “Word to the Badd.”) But before long, Jackson got over working with Reid and Babyface. He needed something edgier and grittier for the dance tracks. “Michael lo
ved finding new sounds that the human ear had never heard,” recalled Brad Buxer. “Often, he [would say], ‘Brad, get me a sound that hurts really bad.’ That meant he wanted something that shakes him inside.” That’s what he was searching for on Dangerous—something more aggressive and urban. He finally found what he was looking for in Teddy Riley.

  THE KING OF NEW JACK SWING

  By the time Jackson called Riley in June 1990, the artist had at least fifty songs recorded. But he wanted more. Invited to work with the King of Pop, Riley didn’t hesitate. Working with Jackson was every producer’s dream—the opportunity of a lifetime. He wasn’t oblivious, however, to the big shoes he was filling. “There was more pressure,” he said. “I didn’t want to be the one to fail Michael.” Yet he also knew Jackson didn’t want or expect him to be Quincy Jones.

  Jackson’s message to Riley was simple: come to Neverland and bring your best grooves. Over the next couple of weeks, Riley went to work with his engineer, Dave Way, at Soundworks Studio on Twenty-third Avenue in Queens, New York, completing about a dozen demos.

  Riley arrived at Neverland on a Saturday. He was nervous. The twenty-three-year-old producer was met by staff at the famous front gate, and led up the winding road to Jackson’s secluded house. He waited anxiously in the library, staring at Jackson’s awards and memorabilia. As Riley was facing away from the door, Michael Jackson entered the room and stood behind him. When Riley realized he was there, he nearly jumped out of his skin.