Happy 25th Anniversary to Michael Jackson’s Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, originally released May 20, 1997.
Michael Jackson was often criticized for living in a fantastical world detached from reality. Critics would point to songs like “Smooth Criminal,” “Beat It,” and “Thriller” as evidence of Jackson’s lack of relatability and detachment from the “real world.” A Jackson bubble where he viewed the world behind high security gates, rather than living in it.
Granted, many a song of Jackson’s took the form of third-person dramatic narrative. But for every “Smooth Criminal,” there were also songs that would give insight into Jackson's unique upbringing, his take on the world, and his place in it. Songs like “Destiny,” “That's What You Get (For Being Polite),” “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” “Billie Jean,” and “Will You Be There” all drew from Jackson’s experiences and dealings with fame and living life in a fishbowl from an early age.
In 1995 with the release of HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1, Jackson released undoubtedly his most personal and reflective album of his career. Looking both inward to his own personal struggles and outward towards his depiction in the media and various issues of the world at large, Jackson stripped away the layers of his well-crafted showbiz personality to reveal the person underneath.
This process continued with the surprise release of Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix in 1997, a cobbled-together collection of remixes from the HIStory project coupled with five brand new songs recorded (or revamped) while Jackson was on tour in support of HIStory.
While the remixes offered another chance for Jackson to ignite dancefloors the world over, it was the new songs that offered intrigue for their boldness and willingness to take a stronger look at the man in the mirror.
For the sake of this retrospective, the focus will be on those five new tracks and what they revealed about Jackson and the statement he was making.
As a cast-off from the 1991 Dangerous recording sessions, lead single “Blood On The Dance Floor” came at a time when interest was high as to where Jackson would go next musically. Dusting off the Teddy Riley co-produced track, Jackson steps back into the familiar New Jack Swing territory (borrowing heavily from “Remember The Time”) and the familiar Jackson trope of dealing with an alluring and seductive femme-fatale. Once again, here, in Jackson’s world, promiscuity comes at a price, namely the receiving end of a 7-inch switchblade. Jackson’s ability to craft a great dance song has never been in doubt, and with the titular track he continues that fine pedigree.
Another cast off from those Dangerous sessions, this time with early collaborator Bryan Loren, “Superfly Sister” is a song of carnal desire tinged with (pre)caution and offers a solid funk jam. Not one of Jackson’s more impressive dance workouts, “Superfly Sister” still proves the case that even his cast-offs are compelling and would have any other artist scrambling to claim as their own.
The gothic coupling of “Ghosts” and “Is It Scary” offers insight into Jackson’s work process and those of his collaborators, with the former co-produced by Teddy Riley and the latter resulting from collabs with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. With both tracks sharing similar motifs and verse lyrics, they give a glimpse into Jackson’s awareness of how the world viewed him increasingly as an oddity, a circus-freak of sorts in his career as the greatest show on earth.
Like exploring the depths of a haunted mansion, “Ghosts” takes the listener on a hunt to find the cause of an unseen threat. With a jangling backbeat and Gothic chants, the song explores the trails left by those out to damage Jackson and make sense of their motivations.
By using the metaphor of home, a place of personal solitude, Jackson is able to paint a picture of the attacks in his own personal life in a series of threats and betrayals that seem to be coming from all angles. These unseen assailants with their hidden agendas are the ghosts of which he sings. In the chorus, he questions their motivations and the assumed right to “Scare my family” and “Shake my family tree,” concluding that they are driven by the curse of jealousy (perhaps from both within and outside his own camp).
Cloaking a personal story into the grooves of a hypnotic beat, “Ghosts” is a tale from within the gates, and one that should have been given a better chance to come out and play.
If “Ghosts” is about the threats from inside the house, then “Is It Scary” is the view from outside the gates. By now Jackson was fully aware of how the world looked at him through lenses crafted by a tabloid media. His role as sideshow freak is spelt out here in the pre-chorus as he sings, “I’m gonna be exactly want you want to see / It’s you who’s taunting me because you’re wanting me / to be the stranger in the night.” In the next pass, though, he turns the table, stating that if you want to look beyond the preconceived notion, you’ll see “truth and purity” inside a lonely heart. It’s as if he is saying, if this is how you are going to cast me, okay then I’ll play that role, but ultimately it says more about your salacious needs and bloodlust.
Musically, “Is It Scary” is a rhythm and baroque rock opera framed within a gothic-horror theme. Ground well-trodden by Jackson, the music and arrangement elevate it from being another “Thriller” wannabe. Whereas “Thriller” is all fantasy, “Is It Scary” offers a deeper glimpse into the psyche of a man often ridiculed and miscast by the media.
Of the new material, it’s the dark and foreboding “Morphine” that rises to the top. Perhaps Jackson’s most unexpected and shockingly personal of songs, “Morphine” assaults the listener with a mechanical groove of industrial funk that places them in the middle of the seductive power of drugs and the nightmares of addiction.
With a narrative that switches between cause and effect, the lyrics wind their way through the pressures of life that drives one to seek escape and the promise of relief. Each line is delivered with pent-up anger. It’s in your face. Attacking. And the pre-chorus gives a glimpse of the seductive nature of drugs—as well as those prescribing them—as Jackson sings, “Put your trust in me / Just in me,” before being countered with the slippery slope revelation, “You’re doing Morphine.”
The cacophony of chaos gives way in the middle eight, where the swirling mechanical soundtrack is replaced by an elaborate and dreamlike classical arrangement echoing the harshness of the world drifting away as the seductive drug takes effect. But this bliss, this escape, comes at a price as Jackson confesses, “Today he’s taking twice as much,” alluding to a growing dependency. But the escape comes crashing down and the addiction takes hold, rendering the user captive to the effects.
Whether “Morphine” is a cautionary tale of an artist coming to terms with an over-reliance on medication or a cry for help is left up to the listener to decide. What isn’t in doubt is the raucous energy and raw power of the track, and Jackson’s agility to master complex and varied musical landscapes.
As a whole, Blood on the Dance Floor is a Jackson oddity. An uncharacteristic surprise release in the midst of an existing album cycle, as well as an album unsure of its intention. For many a fan, the inclusion of a bounty of remixes—and there are some stunning reinterpretations here—muddied the waters and took the focus off what could have been a powerful EP of new tracks. As such, Blood on the Dance Floor is often overlooked when considering Jackson’s full body of work. Which is a shame, for within the new tracks there are moments of vitality and genius, and insights worthy of greater appreciation.
Enjoyed this article? Read more about Michael Jackson here:
Off The Wall (1979) | Thriller (1982) | Dangerous (1991)
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