HIStory

765. ‘Blood on the Dance Floor’, by Michael Jackson

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

And so Michael Jackson ends a twenty-year run of chart-toppers, with another of 1997’s curios…

Blood on the Dance Floor, by Michael Jackson (his 7th and final solo #1)

1 week, from 27th April – 4th May 1997

Throughout his career, it hasn’t been the MJ classics that have made #1. The Jacksons’ only made it there with ‘Show You the Way to Go’. Solo-wise, ‘One Day in Your Life’, ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’, and ‘You Are Not Alone’ all made it, while ‘Bad’, ‘Beat It’, and ‘Smooth Criminal’ fell by the wayside. Only ‘Billie Jean’, and maybe ‘Black or White’, came close to popular ubiquity.

So what of his final #1? Well, at least it’s not a syrupy ballad, or one of his God-complex blockbusters. Actually, it’s much more reminiscent of his heyday. It isn’t up there quality-wise, but there are flashes. The bridge and chorus, the growl in his voice, and the dangerous woman in the lyrics, all feel very ‘Bad’-era. We can add Suzie (Suzie’s got your number, Suzie ain’t your friend…) to Billie Jean and Dirty Diana in Jackson’s list of ladies best avoided. Interestingly, some sources claimed that ‘Suzie’ was a metaphor for AIDS – giving a horrific double meaning to the line Look who took you under with seven inches in… – but Jackson denied it.

Elsewhere, the New Jack Swing production sounds quite dated, and away from the chorus he barely sings. The verses are a series of vocal tics strung together; sounding more like dolphins communicating, and just as indecipherable. When you learn that it was written originally back in 1991, during sessions for the ‘Dangerous’ album, the sound makes sense. The song was dusted off and tarted up ahead of Jackson’s remix album ‘HIStory in the Mix’.

In some ways, this is an underwhelming way for MJ to bow out. But then, several of his six other solo #1s have been underwhelming. And actually, compared to some of his nineties hits, this is a decent, if dated, dance tune with a fairly killer, funky beat. It was his 36th UK Top 10 hit, since his solo debut in 1972, and he still had a few more to come.

In fact, since his death he has featured on big hits with Akon, Justin Timberlake, and Drake, and so you wouldn’t count against him adding to his total in the years to come. Quite why records featuring Michael Jackson are still allowed to flourish while those featuring the man who preceded ‘Blood on the Dance Floor’ at number one – R. Kelly – have been buried in quicklime is a discussion for another day… Is it as simple as one having a court conviction? Or does musical snobbery come into play…? And I’ll end with an equally pressing question: am I the only person who just now realised that ‘dance floor’ is not one word…?

726. ‘You Are Not Alone’, by Michael Jackson

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

And so we arrive at yet another staging-post on the long, but thinly spread, chart-topping career of Michael Jackson. One number one with his brothers, and seven solo, stretched out over two decades. Interestingly, and perhaps aptly, he only ever made #1 in odd numbered years…

You Are Not Alone, by Michael Jackson (his 5th of seven #1s)

2 weeks, from 3rd – 17th September 1995

’77, ’81, ’83, ’87, ’91 and now 1995. And this is just what we’ve been missing on our 1995 bingo card. After all the dance, the Britpop and the power balladry, what we really needed was some slow and syrupy, mid-nineties R&B. This sound was (thankfully) much more prevalent on the Billboard charts, possibly the sound of US pop at the time, and few acts would have had the star power to drag this sludge to the top spot in the UK.

Trust MJ, though. It was the second single from the ‘HIStory’ album, following ‘Scream’, the duet with sister Janet, more famous for its record-breakingly expensive video. And there is a sweet simplicity to this song. The chorus plays almost like a lullaby: You are not alone, I am here with you, Though you’re far away, I am here to stay… Like a lullaby in that it’s pretty, and in that it may send you to sleep.

Jackson puts in a pretty strong vocal performance as well, limiting the ticks and the gulps that have marked most of his music since ‘Bad’ (there’s not a single ‘eeeh hee’ either). He gives the lungs a workout towards the end, post key-change, reminding us that underneath it all he was always a fine singer.

And yet… Watch the video, and it’s easy to become distracted from the actual song. He is now fully white, and very plastic-looking. We’re almost treated to a full-frontal from the King of Pop, as he smooches with then wife Lisa Marie Presley, wrapped only in a towel. It’s all pretty icky. Of course, knowing what we know now means that any Jacko love song comes with its own in-built ick-factor. (‘You Are Not Alone’ was also written by R Kelly, just in case we needed any extra ickiness.)

So, in summary, this is a sweet enough, well-performed ballad, your enjoyment of which depends on how much you can block out thoughts of what we know now, and of a near-naked MJ canoodling with Elvis’s daughter. 1995 will actually turn out to be Jackson’s most successful year, in terms of chart-toppers. He still has a massive Christmas #1 to come, in which he puts his clothes back on and returns to his usual preposterous, overblown nonsense.