"Black or White" is the lead single from Michael Jackson's Dangerous album. It was released on November 8, 1991 as the album's lead single. "Black or White" is a mix of rock, and dance-pop.[2] A song promoting racial harmony, it was written, composed, and arranged by Jackson with the rap lyrics by Bill Bottrell. The song's introduction and main riff are performed by Slash and Bill Bottrell.
The song peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, the UK Singles Chart and in 20 other countries. It reached #1 on many singles charts in 1991, as well as becoming the best selling single of 1991.
History
[edit] Release
To prepare the audience for the special occasion of the televised premiere of the "Black or White" video, Epic records released the song (without the accompanying images) to radio stations just two days in advance.[3] In a period of twenty-four hours, "Black or White", described by the record company as "a rock 'n' roll dance song about racial harmony", had been added to the playlists of 96 percent of 237 of the United States of America's top forty radio stations the first day of release.[3][4]
"Black or White" was the first single off of Dangerous, produced by Michael Jackson and Bill Bottrell, it began to be promoted on radio stations the first week of November 1991 in New York and Los Angeles.[5][4] "Black or White" was officially released one week later.[4] It was written and composed by Jackson with rap lyrics by Bill Bottrell, the song's introduction and main riff were played by Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash and Bill Bottrell.[5]
"Black or White" is also described as a mix of hard rock, dance and rap, hard rock elements such as Slash and Bill Bottrell's guitars and Jackson's vocal style.[6][7][8][9][10] These songs are also compared by Rolling Stone's Allan Light in his Dangerous review, he says about it, "Neither this slow-burn solo nor the Stones-derived riff on 'Black or White' offers the catharsis of Eddie Van Halen's blazing break on 'Beat It'".[11]
[edit] Reception
"Black or White" stormed into Billboard's Hot 100 at number thirty five.[12] A week later it shot up to number three and on its third week, December 7, 1991, it ascended to number one, making it the fastest chart topper since the Beatles' "Get Back" also won the Hot 100 in just three weeks in 1969.[12][13] It achieved the year at number one, and remained at the top of the singles chart into 1992, for a total of seven weeks, making Michael Jackson the first artist to get number one popular hits in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.[13]
The single also made an extraordinary and amazing debut in the UK, where it became the first single by an American to go into the singles chart at number one since 1960, when "It's Now Or Never" by Elvis Presley did in the same manner.[12] Around the world, "Black or White" hit number one in the US, UK, Mexico, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweeden, Switzerland and the Euro Chart Hot 100, number two in Germany and number three in Holland.[13][12] The single was certified platinum in the US, selling over one million copies.[13] Actually, the hard rock "Black or White" is considered one of the greatest rock songs of the 1990s and the meaning behind the lyrics is rock solid in this song.[14][15]
[edit] Music video
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[edit] Synopsis
The music video for "Black or White" was first broadcast on MTV, BET, VH1, and Fox (giving them their highest Nielsen ratings ever)[16] on November 14, 1991.[17] Along with Jackson, it featured Macaulay Culkin, Tess Harper, and George Wendt. It helped usher in morphing as a new technology in music videos. The sequence begins with extra, Let Mon Lee, and features supermodel Tyra Banks.[18] The video was directed by John Landis, who previously directed Thriller. It premiered simultaneously in 27 countries, with an audience of 500 million viewers, the most to ever watch a music video.[19]
The first few minutes of the video featured an extended version of the song's intro (reminiscent of an 80's synthesized guitar riff), in which a young kid (Macaulay Culkin) is playing loud music in his bedroom at night, and is yelled at by his enraged father (George Wendt), who demands he stop playing the music and go to bed. Culkin decides to forgo his father's request to go to sleep by setting up large speaker cabinets behind his father's reclining chair, donning leather gloves and sunglasses, and playing an extremely loud power chord on an electric guitar.[16] The sound then shatters the house's windows and sends his father (seated in his chair) halfway around the world, where the actual song begins.[16] The kid's mother (Tess Harper, initially thought to be Peggy Lipton) declares that his father will be "very upset" upon his return. The song from the CD does not use Culkin's nor Wendt's voice; they are replaced by voice actors performing a similar intro. Wendt winds up in Africa, and Jackson begins to sing "Black or White", surrounded by various cultures scene-by-scene.[17]
Jackson's niece, Brandi Jackson, daughter of Jackie Jackson also makes a cameo appearance in the video.[20] Wade Robson also made an appearance in this music video as well as Another Bad Creation's, Mark and Dave.
The video shows scenes in which Maasai tribesmen begin dancing like Jackson; so do, in sequence, Thais, Native Americans, a woman from India and a set of Russians.[16] Jackson walks through visual collages of fire (defiantly declaring "I ain't scared of no sheets; I ain't scared of nobody"), referring to KKK torch ceremonies before a mock rap scene shared with Culkin and other children.[17] The group collectively states, "I'm not gonna spend my life being a color." At the end of the song, different people dance as they morph into one another (shown as "talking heads"). This technique, known as morphing, had been previously used only in films such as Willow and Terminator 2. The morphing visual effects were created by Pacific Data Images.
[edit] Censorship
Controversy was generated concerning the last four minutes of the original music video. Jackson walks out of the studio as a black panther and then morphs into himself.[17] Then he walks outside to perform some of his most physically complicated dance techniques, in a similar way to "Billie Jean". This part contained sexually suggestive scenes when Jackson starts to grab his crotch[16], and then zips his pants up. In the original version, Jackson is seen smashing windows[16], destroying a car and causing an inn (called the "Royal Arms") to explode. Jackson later apologized saying that the violent and suggestive behavior was an interpretation of the animal instinct of a black panther, and MTV and other music video networks removed the last four minutes from subsequent broadcasts.[17] To make the vandalism justifiable to viewers, racist graffiti was later digitally added to the windows that Jackson smashes (reading "Hitler Lives", a swastika, "Nigger Go Home", "No More Wetbacks", and "KKK Rules").
To date, the uncut version has generally been seen in the United States on MTV2 only between the hours of 01:00 and 04:00, as part of their special uncensored airing of the "Most Controversial Music Videos" of all time. The extended version is also available on Jackson's DVDs. The original version (without graffiti) is available on the VHS and Laserdisc releases of Video Greatest Hits – HIStory (the DVD release contains only the "graffiti version"), and online at MTVMusic.com. On Sunday, November 29, 2009, the FUSE cable channel aired the original version of "Black or White" (without graffiti) on its two-hour Remember His Time tribute wherein most of Jackson's music videos were played.
It was still shown in its entirety for some years in Europe. Indeed, UK channel MTV Classic aired the full video at 14:00 in the afternoon on April 11, 2010, including the brief cameo by Bart and Homer Simpson before the "prejudice is ignorance" image. The version available in the iTunes Music Store contains neither the panther scene nor the Simpsons cameo, and is cut after the morphing sequence.
Starting in 1992, Nocturne Video Productions began playing the "Panther Segment" of the video as an interlude during Michael's Dangerous World tour. The clip is 20 seconds shorter than the original with all the violence and the sexually suggestive scenes removed.[17] However, the part where he re-zipped his pants was kept in.
On March 28, 2009, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's music video program rage aired the uncensored, non-graffiti original version in its entirety in a 720p digital broadcast.
The short, censored version continues to air periodically to this day.
The video was parodied by the sketch comedy TV show In Living Color, and by the band Genesis in their video for "I Can't Dance" in which Phil Collins imitates Michael's 'panther' fit in front of a stark white background.
[edit] Clivillés & Cole Remixes
Black or White was remixed in 1992. In addition to the usual cassette and CD single, a appropriate selection of mixes of "Black or White" was released with five versions of the song re-mixed by Robert Clivillés and David Cole (producer), better known as "Black or White (The Clivillés & Cole (C&C) Remixes)" or simply as "Black or White (Remixes)", they were also known as the C&C of C&C Music Factory.[21] The single was released in 1992 in several European countries, charting in the UK, where it reached #14, and in Ireland, peaking at #11. The single also surprisingly peaked at #18 in Australia.[22] Despite the favourable European response to this remix, it was never included on a Michael Jackson album or compilation, except on the third disc of the French version of Jackson's greatest hits album 'King Of Pop'.
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