However controversial remains Michael Jackson's "involution" throughout last years, no person with a minimum music culture can deny the artistic value of the American singer.
"Dangerous" was released in 1991 having an enormous success, becoming his second best selling album (after Thriller).
The album was initally released in a large box with a picture of Michael Jackson's eyes, which folded open to reveal the normal cover (painted by pop surrealist Mark Ryden), in pop-up card, with the CD and booklet in the bottom. Dangerous was greatly anticipated, as shown by an incident at the Los Angeles International Airport, where a group of armed robbers stole 30,000 copies before its official release.
The album cover itself is really crowded, with several enigmatic elements. It emphasizes, more than the complexity of his music - the complexity of his character and moreover his image he had created. And that was just the beginning.
Many say the album cover contains masonic and satanist symbols.
What is known for sure is that the cover includes elements that he seldom have been using in his entire career, on and off stage: gold colored stuff, animals, children, a discreet image of him as a child in the bottom right corner, statues etc etc. A combination of bad taste, irony, opulence, artistic choreography, power, influence, jungle and urban in the same time, snobbery combined with humility.
This is what defines Michael Jackson's creations. Nothing is simple for him. When he became common, he stopped performing.
Today he turns 50.
"Jam" was the intro for all concerts in "Dangerous" tour. This is from the concert in Bucharest in 1992, one of the best performances in his career and in the history of music.
This entry was posted
on Friday, 29 August 2008
at Friday, August 29, 2008
and is filed under
Famous album covers
. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
comments feed
.
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes