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Undated "Dangerous" Recording Stories

 

Teddy Riley, album co-producer, “Vibe” (June 25, 2010) (archived)

I still remember getting the first call from Michael to work on the Dangerous album. I was trying to get Q-Tip to let me use his studio in Sound Works on 21st St. I had the whole floor booked out. In one room, I was working on Jane Child’s “Don’t Want To Fall In Love,” the other room was Keith Sweat’s “Make You Sweat” and the other one was Guy’s “Why You Wanna DOG Me Out.” And I went into the other room and created “Remember The Time.” I brought Michael back to our world—the young, black, New Jack Swing world. That was the moment that people said “Michael is R&B again.” He wasn’t just the King of Pop. He was the King of R&B. And Prince was the king of funk-rock.

“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough - BBC Radio 2 40th Birthday Special” (August 29, 1998), from Chris Cadman’s “Michael Jackson the Maestro”

Michael kind of gave me creative control when it came to doing the music and coming up with the vocals. He let me bring my writers and did want I always wanted to learn from like Quincy and Prince and Stevie Wonder. Michael kind of took me to school and it was just the most incredible thing.

“Red Bull Music Academy Festival New York 2017” Interview (May 5, 2017)

Teddy Riley: Getting with Michael—I'm sorry for going back, but getting with him—he kind of just showed me how to turn music up, and really hurt—he'd always say, "I want to hurt 'em", and he always would go—and me and Bruce Swedien would sit in the room, he's like, "Okay Teddy, if you can turn up the snare, when you turn up the snare, I just want you to really turn it up. And the most important thing is the backgrounds, it's got to be loud. Because that's what I want people to remember." So I'm playing the music, and he is just going, "Hurt me! Hurt me!" [laughs] It's like, "I don't know what that means, but I'm gonna turn this shit up." He's like, "I just want to hear like it's going to sound in the club and wherever—if I'm playing in a concert, it's going to be your music, so it's gotta be knocking. It's gotta hurt them. We gotta hurt the people, shock the world." And I'm just so for that. After him, it was just like, stuff had to be "bam" or you got to hear the essence of the sound…

Red Bull Music Academy Festival: What did you learn from Michael Jackson?

Riley: ...What I learned from Michael was a lot of things that I know now that I can share with other singers that I work with. There are things that he taught me, as far as doing backgrounds, even better than how I was doing it, because I was doing it the mom-and-pop way. We live in the hood, so we're gonna do it the best way we know how. Well, he actually showed me the format, and how he does all of his vocals, even without having a computer, and we didn't have that. He did his vocals. Like, as I started working on "She Drives Me Wild", and "Can't Let Her Get Away", and all these tracks. I just started making some tracks, and he's like peeping in until I made this record…

And that's how I got more songs on the album, because I kept working. I just kept working, and just making—I did "Ghosts". I did "Ghosts", I did "Blood on the Dance Floor". All those—I worked on all those records, and he was like, "That's a keeper, that's a keeper, that's keeper too, what are we gonna do?"...

A lot of people don't know that Michael will have a real deep voice. And a lot of people don't know why he talks like—well, the voice is a muscle. The voice is like how you work out in the studio, and the only way you're going to get the muscles, is you got to keep working them out. Well, him talking high is working his voice every day, to stay that high. But, one day, Michael called me and says [in a deep voice], "Hello, may I speak to Theodore Riley? Theodore, how are you?", and then he would go and laugh, and go into that voice... And that was why Michael sings high, and why his voice is so clear when he sings high, and his falsetto is so silky and pure, and you feel it, don't you? It's because, he's working out every day. And Seth Riggs, who's one of the best vocal coaches in the world. This is the guy that made Michael talk high. "No matter what you do, when you talk to people, you talk high." And that's what he did... And if I wanted to be a high singer, all I would have to do is just keep talking high, and I can talk and sing high... That's what Michael did. That's the secret to Michael's madness of being such a great singer and the greatest entertainer of all time. We go through the motions, and we go through what we do and what we have to go through to keep that sound, to keep the voice, and keep what you guys want to hear on stage. If we didn't, you wouldn't like us. So...

The one thing that Michael told me is when you have something different, know that you had the first, and if it doesn't become the first big hit for you, somebody else is going to sample it, or somebody's going to be inspired...

Changed Jimmy's mind [about his song "No Diggity"] change the [Black Street's] mind, because they didn't believe in the song and it changed the world for me. Because for me to be on a song that went number one 13 weeks or something like that, and went platinum in no time, and all these great things that Michael said was going to happen for me. He said, "You're gonna get a big hit, and watch this. You're gonna really do it, and you're gonna be real. You're gone, you're gone. And I hope to get you guys on my tour". I said, "Oh hell yeah!”

“Hip-Hop Wired” (July 8, 2009) (archived)

HipHopWired: You mentioned in the CNN interview it was difficult for you to produce him at first because of the awe aspect of how great an artist he is, to not be able to check him as far as his vocals, he had to pull you out of that. How did that dynamic work itself out?

Teddy Riley: Oh it worked itself out when he shook me. Not shook me literally, but when he shook me with words like, ‘Listen, you’re going to have to really produce me like you’ve produced a new artist. I need you to talk to me, I need you to criticize me, I need you to comment, I need you to give me all of you. I want the Teddy Riley that got that record out of Guy and the records out of your previous artists. It took you really producing them. I want you to really produce me. So I got used to it and I got into my own world. So that’s definitely a memorable moment.

 

Brad Buxer, Black & White Magazine interview (translation by SegaLoco)

Black & White: Dangerous was the first album recorded without Michael by Quincy Jones. Why do you think he did this?

Brad Buxer: Let me be clear: Michael was not angry with Quincy. 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 a very independent, and he also wanted to show that his success was not because of one man, namely Quincy. However, Quincy still had a lot of opinions. This showed when we finished Dangerous and Michael called Quincy to help him at the end. Quincy still had a lot of opinions about the album. And when Quincy said we had a masterpiece, Michael was no longer hesitant to release the album …

Black & White: In the studio, Michael gave you a lot of freedom?

Brad Buxer: Absolutely. Michael was not one of rigid, it was always open to my suggestions and ideas. He gave me full confidence. Most often, I sang a melody, and I found the arrangements to accompany him. Regarding arrangements for strings or sheets of synth, I tended not to do, and intervened when he found that the direction in which I was not good. Even if a musical point of view, Michael was a genius, he knew he could not do anything and he had the intelligence to delegate some things. Sometimes, he knew exactly what he wanted to hear me sing all the parts of a song. Other times, he let me play until he hears something he likes. This is particularly what happened to songs like "Who Is It or Stranger In Moscow.

 

Bill Bottrell, co-writer, engineer and co-producer, “Sound on Sound” magazine (August 2004) (archived)

"Michael told me at the end of the Bad sessions that he would hire me as a producer on his next album," Bottrell confirms, while explaining how his initial involvement with Dangerous commenced at LA's Oceanway complex.

"The genesis of the songs we co-wrote consisted of Michael humming melodies and grooves, and him then leaving the studio while I developed these ideas with a bunch of drum machines and samplers, including an Akai S1000," Bottrell says. "Still, we were only at Oceanway for a few weeks, and none of the things we worked on there actually made it onto the record."

Thereafter, the sessions moved to Westlake, where Bruce Swedien utilised one room, Bottrell used another and, eventually, drummer/percussionist/synth player Bryan Loren worked in a third. Armed with a Neve console, Bottrell used a pair of 24-track Studer analogue tape machines to record initial tracks and then compiled things on Mitsubishi 32-track.

..."As a co-producer, Michael was always prepared to listen and put his trust in me, but he was also a sort of guide all the time. He knew why I was there and, among all the songs he was recording, what he needed from me. I was an influence that he didn't otherwise have. I was the rock guy and also the country guy, which nobody else was. He has precise musical instincts. He has an entire record in his head 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.

 

Brad Sundberg, studio engineer, Facebook post (March 28, 2017)

We recorded the "Dangerous" album primarily at Record One in Sherman Oaks, CA and at Larrabee Studios in Burbank - through much of 1990.

I make no secret that "Dangerous" is my favorite album of Michael's, both in terms of finished music and the production process. We were mixing old gear with new technology. We were pushing the limits far beyond what the equipment was ever intended to do. Let me give you an example.

The song "Jam" was being produced by Michael, Teddy Riley and Bruce Swedien. It grew out of some loops that Rene Moore (remember the group Rene and Angela? That's Rene) and Bruce had been working on. Bruce had/has an amazing collection of drum sounds that he compiled over the years. We would bring in every drum you can imagine - a room full of drums, and sample each one. Hard hit. Soft hit. Close microphone. Far microphone. Each sound was edited and stored on floppy discs. Yes, floppy discs.

Once the song was built (which was over time and with several early versions), it kept growing and growing. Bruce's sleigh bells were part of the loop. Teddy's industrial hits were added. Horns. Orchestral hits. Vocals. Lots of vocals. More of Teddy's sounds. More of Rene's sounds.

It got to the point where we were running, to the best of my memory, four 32-track digital machines at the same time to play everything back, or approximately 128 tracks. To a young engineer with an endless amount of "virtual" tracks, that may not seem like a lot, but in 1990-91, that was somewhere between impressive and crazy. To make it even more interesting, I believe the consoles at Larrabee Studios (where the song was mixed) had only 72 inputs. (Sorry if I'm getting to technical here, but bear with me).

So we had to put two machines in one room, and two in the 2nd room, and have them all running at exactly the same speed (something we used to call "word clock"), and have the two console automation systems operating in sync with each other. To give you a visual, Bruce would literally walk back and forth from studio to studio, mixing the same song in two rooms at the same time! It essentially broke all the rules, and it didn't matter. Bruce wanted the song to sound and feel huge, and I think he succeeded.

Michael was hitting on all cylinders on Dangerous, trying new sounds and ideas. He was bringing in Slash, The Andre Crouch Choir, Teddy's New Jack Swing, Rap, Gospel, Rock, Pop - all smashed into one incredible album.

We worked on "Dangerous" for roughly 16 months, with more post-production and tour prep afterwards. I was getting used to monster projects, having just finished Quincy Jones' "Back On The Block"with Bruce just before we started "Dangerous". I loved the challenges of making everything "work" and sound amazing, mixed with the laughter and day-to-day camaraderie that working with a small group of people on a huge project brings.

During projects like this there are huge periods of "down time", meaning Michael might have blown some speakers that needed to be rebuilt, or tapes would need to be formatted, or a buzz in the console would need to be fixed. During these times we would play games, watch a bit of TV. Or cook.

Record One had an amazing full kitchen - not common in recording studios - and I love to cook. Restaurant food gets boring meal after meal, so we would send out for ingredients and make our own food from time to time. Hot wings was a particular favorite. We experimented with frying, grilling, baking, etc., and bought every type of hot sauce you can imagine. Michael loved scorching-hot sauces, and he would eat my wings no matter how hot I made them!

The photo of the two of us in the control room at Record One (Image 001) is one of my favorites. The control room was always hot, due to all of the gear generating so much heat. Michael loved the heat, I wanted to die. I think Michael Bush came by one day with a rack of clothes for Michael to try on, and the red shirt was part of it. Michael always looked good in the studio, but when I saw him in that shirt I laughed and asked if we could grab a photo - something I rarely asked for. He said "Of course", and proceeded to stand on his toes to be as tall as me! He laughed and told Bart (who took the photo) not to show his feet, but thankfully it is clear that he was cheating!

Facebook Post (April 11, 2017)

In flipping through some photos, watching the behind-the-scenes footage of Closet, etc., I stumbled on the photo of Michael with his flashlight in the studio. (Image 002) This photo always makes me smile.

The comparison of an MJ short-film production, as I just described, to a typical day in the recording studio is pretty funny. On most days in the studio there might just be a handful of people. If we weren't recording any musicians or strings that day, it might have just been six or eight people in the whole building during the Dangerous project. That number would mysteriously double at dinner time.

Wayne and Marcus (Michael's security guys) might come and go through the day, and we might have a guest now and then, but most of the time it was just a handful of us, and the mood was typically very focused, yet light and low-pressure. We knew we had a lot of work to do, but it wasn't frantic in any way.

In the summer in Southern California it was not uncommon for huge parts of the city to experience what became known as rolling "brown-outs". This meant your power might dip for a few seconds as so many air conditioners were kicking on, and it was some way for the power company to manage the flow of power. Sometimes the power went out completely, which of course is a "black-out."

A black-out in a studio is particularly fun because there are no windows. Studios very rarely have windows to help with soundproofing and to help exhausted team members not get too depressed over missing beautiful day after beautiful day while working on an endless album project.

This particular black-out lasted quite a while, and we dug out some flashlights for people to use, including Michael. He bundled up in his parka (it was not cold inside!), and thumbed through some of his art books in the dark, basically amused by the whole thing.

The funny thing is that it would be very rare for a black-out to occur on a production set because all the power is provided by huge generators. But if a delay does hit a big shoot, radios are lit up with production assistants wanting updates, accountants on the verge of tears watching their costs, mount, union guys taking naps, etc.

In the studio, we simply removed the tapes from the machines via flashlight (you don't want a Michael Jackson master tape snapped when the power returns), and found places to relax for a bit. It was just simple down time - not a bad thing.

Michael never complained - he knew there was nothing anyone could do, so we just sat it out. The album would get done when it got done.

Facebook post (November 28, 2017)

Dangerous was recorded at Record One, Larrabee North and Westlake. A few of the orchestra sessions were done in Hollywood at Oceanway, and a few sessions at Toad Hall and Smoketree. My time was mostly split between Record One (mostly in the first half of the album) and Larrabee (for the much of the second half). There were many sessions that I was not part of as it was such a large project…

Bruce ["Desk Doctor" Millett] was (and is) a technical wizard. Professional studios with their mammoth consoles, patch bays and racks of gear take an enormous amount of technical "TLC" to maintain, or the records sound like a Justin Bieber demo. This is old school soldering, oscilloscopes, replacing capacitors, etc. Although you can't "hear" the work of guys like Bruce, the results speak for themselves.

Our production coordinators, Laura [Grover] and Nina [Greenfield] helped book studios, musicians, worked on scheduling and day-to-day tasks that we needed help with. Jolie Levine was our production coordinator on the Bad album, so having two peiple helped distribute the work load now that we had three production teams at work. I remember that Nina got married at or near the end of the project, and Laura got very sick one afternoon and I had to rush her to the hospital. Thankfully she was fine and returned to work within a few days.

Lotti [Kierkegaard] was one of our runners at Record One, who (I believe) was originally from Sweden. I say this with tremendous respect - but she created the most beautiful fruit baskets you have ever seen! Every day she would purchase fresh fruit and arrange it meticulously so when Michael and the crew arrived it looked amazing. She was a friendly, familiar face - part of our little studio family.

I have written about Rob [Disner] before (we are friends to this day), as he was another one of our runners. For the sake of clarity - a studio runner helps keep the studios clean, brings in groceries, lunches, runs errands, etc. Rob brought his dry humor to the team and was sent on several assignments, often from Michael himself. At the risk of stealing Rob's thunder, I believe his favorite story was when Michael sent him out for some fresh "tidy whities", as well as the time Michael asked Rob to bring him some McDonald's food from next door. "What to you want?" Rob asked. "Everything," Michael responded. So... Rob brought back several sacks of Mickie D's for Michael's junk-food extravaganza.

Speaking of food - [Slam-Dunk Sisters] Katherine and Laura were Michael's personal chefs, whom he generously commissioned to cook for the entire crew every Friday (Family Fridays). Katherine was more outspoken - the leader of the two. Laura was a bit more reserved, but they could cook! Bruce Swedien loved Family Fridays I think more than anyone, and Katherine and Laura prepared amazing feasts of turkey, roast beef, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies, salads, and of course... banana puddin'. This was my favorite, and Michael's as well. They brought food and laughter to the studio every week.

I love that Aaron [Berg] received a credit! Aaron was one of the kindest guys I had encountered in my studio-life. He was the rep from 3M tapes - the tape that Bruce Swedien preferred to use on his projects. Back then, the choice was either 3M or Ampex - and they were fierce competitors. It was a big deal for a major artist like Michael to use either 3M or Ampex - it was bragging rights for the manufacture. We used so much tape (hundreds and hundreds of reels, at more than $200/each) that Aaron would personally check on us many times through the project - he was a great friend. If there were any imperfections or problems with a certain batch of tape, Aaron would take care of it immediately. Given the sheer scope of the project, having a guy like Aaron on the team was vital - but his mid-west friendliness made us actually look forward to his visits. (I seem to remember he usually stopped by on Family Fridays for some reason...)

Thom [Russo] and I got to be very close during the Dangerous album, and I have watched his career explode in the best possible way from those early days. Thom has earned more than 12 Grammys for his engineering since our days at Larrabee, primarily with Latin artists. His talent and humor were a huge bonus to the Dangerous album, but one evening he and I were doing some edits to the flugel horn solo on the song "Someone Put Your Hand Out", and we started doing crazy pitch manipulation to the horn. It's hard to explain why it was so funny, but the long hours and constant exhaustion caught up with us as we intensionally destroyed the solo for our own pleasure - and we laughed so hard that I think he rolled on the floor and I wiped tears off my cheeks. Remind me and I'll play it for you sometime at a seminar, but it's sort of one of those "you had to be there" things.

My buddy Matt. I am honored to still be good friends with Matt, even if we live a couple thousand miles apart. Matt goes WAY back with Michael, to Thriller. His engineering chops mixed with his warm personality made Matt a fixture on the team. During Dangerous Matt got very involved in digital editing and sonic landscaping. The intro to "Black Or White" (bang bang bang!! "It's too late for this!") is all done by Matt (the dad voice is Bill Bottrell). Vocals, intros, transitions, crazy edits - Matt. Matt was using a giant sampling system that I think was made by Lexicon, but in just a couple years it would be replaced by Pro Tools - the recording format for most studios and engineers around the world. Michael loved Matt, and it was always fun to watch the two of them interact, as they were so comfortable together. They had this bit called "The Matt Forger Show", where Michael would say in a wacky voice, "Ladies and Gentleman, the Matt Forger Show, starring Matt Forger!", then Matt would jump in and say "And featuring today's special guest, Michael Jackson!" I can hear it like it was yesterday.

 

Rob Disner, Facebook comment on Brad Sundberg’s November 28, 2017 Facebook post

The story was he said he didn't know what they served at McDonalds! I remember telling him that "every five-year-old could recite the menu by heart!" Anyway, I had to go over and make a platter with one of everything that they served. He tried a hamburger, McNuggets etc. Then he tried the Filet of Fish. He told me that was his favorite, so every once in a while I made a run to McDonalds (it was next to the studio) for his favorite item on the menu.

 

Sam L. Parity, runner (errands), personal blog

At my new job, I was hired on as a "runner," which meant I got to run errands all over LA in my trusty '84 VW Rabbit. A couple months later, they moved me out to a studio in the San Fernando Valley for a "special" project.

This project would eventually become Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" album. When I first started, Michael was working with three different groups of producers all trying to take the place of Quincy Jones, who had not been chosen to work on this project. I think Michael wanted to go out on his own for this one, but the problem was that he had no idea what he wanted! One day, Slash from Guns N' Roses would be recording a searing guitar solo, while the next day, a chorus of thirty children would be singing a nursery rhyme or something.

Michael didn't say much to me at first, until one day he ran in screaming that there was a "vagabond" sitting in the alley behind the studio. I took a look, expecting Charlie Chaplin to pop out or something, but there was just some homeless guy sipping malt liquor out of a bag on the back steps.

Eventually, Michael warmed up to me, and even started talking to me once in a while if he was in the mood. Once, he asked if I was going to have to go fight in the (Gulf) war. I told him I was probably too old to be drafted, and he responded by saying that he was relieved, because "if you went to the war, you could die."

He also started sending me out on errands, like going out with his credit card one afternoon to fill his huge Blazer up with gasoline. If I remember correctly, he had an auxiliary gas tank mounted, so he could get up to his ranch without having to get out and fill up along the way.

I guess I should mention at this point that Michael is an awful driver. He hit everyone's car in the studio lot at least once, including mine. One time, he rear-ended a guy on the 101 freeway, and just left the scene because the guy got out of his car and started screaming at him. Eventually, he gave up and got someone to drive him in to work every day.

Other memorable experiences include calling Tower Records (RIP) an hour before they closed, and having them shut down early so that Michael and I could go shopping. Even thought it was just up the road, I was glad to get out of MJ's car and into the safety of the store! I think he dropped about $1500 on CDs that night.

Anyway, one day Michael shyly asked me if I could do him a special favor. I'm pretty sure this was after he stopped driving, so I guess he really didn't have any other way to get stuff during the day. Of course I agreed, which was when he told me flat-out that he had just run out of underwear.

For pretty much the whole two years that I worked with him, Michael came in every day wearing black dress pants and a red button-down shirt. He had a whole rack of just these two items in his office, which I assume he either had cleaned and returned to him, or just threw away at the end of the day. But on this particular day, I guess he was running low on drawers.

At first, he just said that he wanted underwear. When I asked him what kind, he just repeated "Underwear!" When I told him I wasn't his mother and didn't know what to get, he kind of laughed, and then said "Hanes thirty please." When I was almost out the door however, he came running up and yelled "make them thirty-twos, I don't want them to be too tight!" So there it is folks. The King of Pop wears tightie-whities!

 

 Other than that, I never saw any funny business going on for the two years I worked with him. I really enjoyed this experience, and even got my name on the CD! Michael was always polite and reserved in the studio, but he had his silly moments as well.

He was also really concerned about doing anything that would inadvertently upset anybody around him. Even though he was spending five thousand bucks a day on studio time, Michael left me this note one day on my desk. I kept it as a souvenir, and pull it out now and then if people ever question my story. It pretty much tells you everything you need to know about him as a person and an artist.

 

 

*More discussion on this post can be found here. For the purposes of clarification, Michael was just telling me that he took a pen off my desk. Also, the French translation of "tightie-whities" to "panties," although humorous, is not accurate. The type of undergarment I am describing is just a plain white pair of men's cotton briefs. Many men continue to wear these into adulthood, though most switch to boxer shorts at some point.

Personal Blog Post (Part Two)

—Once, Michael asked me to run down the street to McDonalds to grab some lunch for him. This was a pretty rare request, as he usually had a personal chef come in every day to prepare his meals. Anyway, when I asked him what he wanted, he admitted that he had no idea what they served, and that he had just heard from people that the food was good there!

I ended up getting him one sample of nearly every item from the menu. He took a small bite of each, and then told me what he liked and what he didn't. If I remember correctly, he really liked their fish sandwich.

He was amazing in the studio. He has the equivalent of a photographic memory for music. He could sing something 40 different ways, and then two weeks later, remember that takes # 6 and 27 were the best ones.

We recorded so much music for Dangerous, that it was nearly impossible for MJ to pick out what was going to end up on the album. At once point, it was going to be a double album, as he had well over two hours of music chosen for the release.

When Sony decided they wanted it all to fit on a single CD, Michael kept coming back with lists of his his "final" selections, but they almost always added up to over 74 minutes—the maximum running time for the disc. I remember them going back and forth on this for weeks.

Madonna visited MJ in the studio exactly one time. They spent a little while in his "private" room in the back, and then she left. When I asked Micheal later about her visit, he said that she "scared" him.

I think we all speculated that she tried to make a "move" on him, but Michael never said. In any event, we never saw her again after that...

—Brooke Shields used to call him on the phone a lot. This was the pre-cell phone era, so I would usually answer his calls and then have to go find him in the studio. She was always really nice to me.

The Backstreet Boys came by one day, too. And, in the whole time I worked there, Janet only stopped by once as well.

—There were originally three production teams working in our studio. After working up about a half a dozen songs with one of them, Michael decided he didn't like any of the stuff they had come up with, and fired them. I think some of these songs eventually came out in later releases...

—When Teddy Riley was brought on board, he didn't want to work in our studio. So for three months, our studio sat empty, and my whole job consisted of driving tapes back and forth between our place and Teddy's.

—MJ was very concerned about the Gulf War. Once, he asked me if I was going to have to go fight with the Army. When I told him I was planning on staying right where I was, he said "that's good—because if you go to the war, you could die."

—Michale had some $900 remote-controlled motorcycles delivered to the studio one day. He asked me to come out to the parking lot to try them out, and when we were messing around with them, he drove his motorcycle out of the lot and into the alley, when a car came by and ran it over!

He thought that was really funny. I couldn't believe that he could laugh so much at losing a thousand-dollar toy.

—He still has my ink pin! (2007)

 

CJ DeVillar, bassist and mix engineer, The MJCast Episode 54 (April 12, 2017)

[On artists taking a long time on their records] Michael takes too long, you know? But Michael can, you know? And I don't mean to digress, but when I was working with Quincy Jones, I asked him—I actually had a lot of guts back then, I should've been fired from a few sessions—but I asked Quincy to this face, "How come you don't work with Michael anymore?" And he says, "Because I like to finish" [MJCast laughs] And I thought that was brilliant, you know? And Quincy was a bit incredulous, he was like, "Oh my gosh, Michael takes forever to make records", like I heard that come out of him, but Quincy takes a second to make a record. Quincy is writing it, composing it, handing out the music, people recording it, and he's mixing it, and he's on to the next thing. And that's Quincy's thing, because he's so prolific that he's just darting forward. Michael wants to let his spirit just dwell on it, until he can't anymore. That's really how he makes records. He will take forever. So, on that note, Michael was definitely—left to his own accord, Michael was a super-duper editor, tweaky recording guy, no doubt about it.

 

Rolling Stone (January 9, 1992)

Jackson spent an estimated $10 million to record Dangerous. (Epic's Glew denies this figure as well.) He used seven recording studios in the process. For over two years he had exclusive twenty-four-hour-a-day access to Record One studios, in Sherman Oaks, California. That studio alone, which contains two complete recording studios, is estimated to have cost $4000 a day. Then there were the three rooms at Larrabee Sound Studios, in Los Angeles, which Jackson also secured for about nine months. That added another $3000 to $4000 a day to the budget.

"Usually, there wasn't a whole lot going on in any of the studios unless Michael was there," says a source who worked on the album. "When they were at Larrabee, they still had Record One booked. It's a little eccentric. Nobody makes records like that. It would be fun to be able to spend that kind of money, I'll tell you.

"It's just 'cause he has so much other stuff going on," the source says. "Trying to help kids. Like if all of a sudden up in Sacramento someone shoots a bunch of kids, he has to go up there and spend time with them. There was a lot of that stuff going on every day. Every day he'd want to go do something else. There were a lot of distractions. Liz is getting married, and he goes and deals with that, but still the studios were booked."

Says one artist manager: "I simply don't understand how it's possible to spend $10 million making an album. People have spent $2 million. But $10 million? That's just beyond comprehension." Jackson worked on the album off and on for nearly four years. "Michael started the day we finished Bad," says Swedien. "The next day he was doing demos."

Originally, the plan was for Jackson simply to record four new songs for a multi-CD greatest-hits package called Decade that was to have come out before Christmas 1989. Jackson began work on some new songs and came up with about half an album's worth of strong material.

Jackson, in consultation with his associates and Sony Music executives, decided that the new songs he had written were strong enough that he should just make an entire album. The greatest-hits package was thus shelved.

Booked studios accounted for a mere fraction of the high costs. Jackson went on to record about sixty songs for Dangerous. In addition to working with Riley and Swedien, he cut tracks with several other producers: Bill Bottrell, Bryan Loren and L.A. Reid and BabyFace. Bottrell describes working with Jackson in near ecstatic terms: "Every time he sings or tells me about a new idea for a song, it's ... let me just say that there were plenty of extraordinary moments!"

…

Working with Jackson in the studio can be tricky. A firm believer in the power of positive thinking (in Jackson's office at Neverland are a batch of books by self-help guru Dr. Wayne Dyer, including The Sky's the Limit and You'll See It When You Believe It,) Jackson almost never comes out and says he doesn't like something. "He doesn't like to be negative," says Bottrell. "He has his own indications, and you just learn what they are. Walking out of the room is one way."

Jackson's approach to co-producing songs is unusual. "He starts with an entire sound and song, musically," says Bottrell. "Usually he doesn't start with lyrics, but he hears the sound and the whole arrangement of the song in his head. I suppose there are exceptions, but this is generally the way it is. He fills in the lyrics later. He hums things. He can convey it with his voice like nobody. Not just singing the song's lyrics, but he can convey a feeling in a drum part or a synthesizer part. He's really good at conveying those things."

While Jackson was happy with a good number of the songs he'd completed, he felt the dance grooves didn't cut it. "Michael's desire was to present something very street that the young people will be able to identify with," says Swedien. "That was a conscious decision on his part."

Enter Teddy Riley. Said to have been the brains behind Bobby Brown's phenomenal "My Prerogative" (although production was credited to Riley's former partner Gene Griffin), Riley was apparently suggested to Jackson by Eddie Murphy as the right producer for delivering the killer grooves.

"He wanted to work on grooves," says Riley. "So I came in with ten grooves. He liked them all."

"Teddy was very professional," says Swedien. "No problems. He'd come in with a groove, we'd say it wasn't exactly right, and there would be no complaining. He'd just go back and then come back in and blow us away with something like 'Dangerous.' "

Jackson would listen to the music they were working on at window-breaking levels. Riley says they blew a speaker at one studio. "Michael likes to listen even louder than me," says Riley. "His volume is past twelve. I'm maybe nine or ten. His volume is twelve-plus. Oh, man, he loves loud music. And he jams! Only way you know your music is right is if he's dancing all over the studio. He starts going, 'Yeah, whoa!' "

Once Jackson and Riley got into it, they just kept coming up with songs. "When the deadline came, he wanted to do more and more songs," says Riley. "And his manager came in there and said, 'Teddy, you and Michael, you're not up to your sneaky stuff. Do not write another song.' And then when Michael saw the commercial for Dangerous, the David Lynch thing, we started working hard to get it finished."

For the last two months of work on the album, Jackson and Swedien took rooms at a hotel four minutes from the studio. "We'd drive to the studio and work until we couldn't work anymore," says Swedien. "Then we'd drive back to the hotel, go to sleep and then go back in the morning and hit it again."

…

The pressure to get the album done in time for a pre-Thanksgiving release was enormous. "He was under extreme pressure to deliver his album," says John Landis. "He had the entire Rising Sun on his ass; they had to drag it out of him."

The album was finally finished early in the morning on October 31st. "Michael said, 'We bumped the pumpkin,' " says Swedien. "The last three days of the project, Michael and I got about four hours' sleep."

…

Critics and retailers alike agree that Jackson has created an album with wide appeal — which is exactly what he intended. "Michael feels a tremendous responsibility to his audience," says Bruce Swedien. "I think this piece of work is a good illustration of the fact that he feels this responsibility to provide the best possible music for the fans. That responsibility is at the foreground all the time with Michael."

 

Bart Stevens, assistant engineer, Dallas Observer (June 20, 2018)

In 1990, Stevens got the opportunity to work as an assistant engineer with Michael Jackson, who was planning to release a greatest-hits compilation with a few new songs. Those few new songs morphed into his Dangerous album.

While songwriting, Jackson would often vocalize not just words, but specific drumbeats and melodies for guitars and/or keyboards. Stevens got to see that to an extent, but he usually worked with multi-instrumentalist Bryan Loren and writer, producer andinstrumentalist Bill Bottrell on material Jackson later wrote lyrics for. Jackson was a perfectionist, and Stevens recalls working on about 20 songs that were never finished for Dangerous.

 

Michael Jackson, handwritten note during “Dangerous” sessions, “Julien’s Auctions” listing (archived)

Best of Joy

killer dance Teddy Riley approve

Teddy extra killer better than knowledge

Remember the Time

Who Is It

Dangerous finish lyrics do vocals

Call it off

Verdict BGs

Joy Joy

Black or White finish bridge

Monkey Business = Teddy do overdub

Ghost = Teddy do overdub get lyrics from writer

MA & MJ Duet

Truth on Youth LL better rap tougher

Gone Too Soon

Serious Effect

Keep The Faith

Heal The World

Planet Earth

Teddy do overdubs —> Messin' Around

Give In to Me, 7 Digits —>

[continues on the back side]

ask Renea

They Don't Care 'bout Us

Deep In Night

 

Bryan Loren, songwriter, “Black & White” magazine (April 1998), from Chris Cadman’s “Michael Jackson the Maestro”

“First time I worked with Michael was in 1989. He was barely starting to record the Dangerous album. We did 20-25 songs together. Although none of them appeared on the album, it is safe to say that my influence can be felt on Dangerous. The songs on that album are reminiscent of what Michael and I did together.”

One of the first songs Loren heard when first working with Michael was “They Don’t Really Care About Us.”

Myspace blog (July 11, 2009) (archived)

We recorded some twenty-plus tracks together. Sadly, many of these we never finished. But when we did do vocals, 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.

 

Mike Oldfield, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Chris Cadman’s “Michael Jackson the Maestro”

Mike Oldfield almost missed out on the opportunity of working with Michael thanks to the forgetfulness of his cleaning lady. Oldfield was spending long hours in his home made studio at the time and didn’t often emerge till early morning. Michael had made a phone call to his home after being impressed with his music for the ‘Killing Fields’. However, his cleaner didn’t realise the importance of the call and didn’t pass it on immediately. It was only when he finally ended his 10 hour stint in the studio that he got the message.

“She casually mentioned that a Mr Jackson had called and said there was a phone number by the telephone. I didn’t realise who it was until I rang up and I heard him on the other end of the line.”

They agreed during their conversation to meet up in January 1989.

 

Bea Swedien, wife of studio engineer Bruce Swedien, “My Life as a Studio Wife: A Lifetime of Love and Music with Bruce Swedien” (August 11, 2025)

When Bruce and Michael started making the Dangerous album, we all moved into the Hilton Hotel at Universal City to be close to Record One, the studio where they were working. This was Michael’s first solo album without Quincy (Bruce co-produced, with Michael, Teddy Riley, and Bill Bottrell). It was time for Michael to spread his wings.

Bruce would go into the studio early every day to set up the session, taking the chauffeured limo to try to fool Michael’s fans into thinking that Michael was in the car. That ploy didn’t last long. The fans (and paparazzi) eventually discovered that Michael was in the back seat of my Bronco and would shove their cameras literally in his face. He was always gracious about it.

Each day, I would go to Michael’s suite and take him down the service elevator, through the kitchen, and out to the car. We chatted on these little trips about family, the weather, animals. He was very curious about my life in India and Nagaland and asked a lot of questions about life and the people there. There was always something interesting to talk about. We felt like old friends.

One morning we got on the elevator and there was a young girl in her hotel uniform. Michael could see that she was shocked to see him. He soon put her at ease by asking her where she worked in the hotel and told her that she was very pretty. The poor girl never said a word but almost passed out! Not long after that, the hotel guests realized that Michael was staying there.

One memorable night Bruce, Michael, and I left the studio at about 3 AM. A car pulled up alongside us at a stoplight and the couple in the car started calling Michael’s name. Michael, against our advice, opened the window and talked to them. It seems that when Michael was in the hospital in Santa Monica after he had been burned filming the Pepsi commercial, these two had camped outside the hospital for days. Michael had and still has many loyal fans.

That Halloween evening, I found myself driving Michael back to the hotel in Universal City. The streets were full of little kids trick-or-treating. Michael looked at them wistfully and said he had never been able to go with other kids on Halloween as he and his brothers were usually working in a club somewhere.

Another night—actually it was three in the morning—Bruce, Michael, and I rode back together to our hotel. When we got there, Michael discovered that he had misplaced his room key, so the three of us went to our room where we phoned the front desk to get a replacement key. Michael had registered under the name “Mr. Sherman” so I informed the front desk that we needed to get “Mr. Sherman” to his room. We were told that a night manager would bring up a key. We waited and waited. After about forty-five minutes, I phoned the front desk again. “Someone will be right up,” I was told. Again, nothing. While we waited, Bruce, Michael and I chatted about anything and everything. The next time I called the hotel people, I requested that they send up a cot. Finally a man arrived with a key and let poor sleepy Michael into his suite.

When an album has been completed, the record company executives are typically invited to a playback session at one of the studios where it had been recorded so they can get a sneak preview of the final result. The playback session for Dangerous had been arranged by Michael’s managers, Jim Morey and Sandy Gallin; it was to be held at Larrabee Studios in Burbank. Up until this time, Michael had refused to attend any of these playback sessions.

We finally convinced Michael to attend this one. When we arrived at the studio there was a lovely buffet lunch provided for all of us by his managers. Michael was hanging out with Macauley Culkin and having a great time goofing off.

We, along with the Sony executives, got seated in Studio A. Bruce and his assistant started playing all the songs from the album: “Remember the Time,” “Jam,” “Heal the World,” and of course the title track “Dangerous.” After we had heard all this incredible music, all of the Sony people stood up and walked out of the studio. Not one of them had any comments. Sandy Gallin was furious. I saw him standing in the hall yelling at these fools. “Are you brain dead?” Not one comment from these idiots.

Michael was in tears. “Now you know why I’ve never gone to a playback session,” he said. We got him into our car and tried to console him. He deserved much more than to be treated like that.

The executives were wrong, of course. Dangerous went platinum in a month, hit #1 on the Billboard Top Albums chart, was one of the biggest selling albums of the 1990s, and has sold over 32 million copies. Bruce was nominated for two Grammys: as co-composer of “Jam” for Best Rhythm and Blues Song and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, which he won. Michael received the Grammy Legend Award and Dangerous had multiple nominations and wins at the American Music Awards and Soul Train Music Awards. It also won Best Worldwide Album at the 1992 Billboard Music Awards.