"Black or White" is the lead single from Michael Jackson's
Dangerousalbum. It was released on October 11, 1991 as
the album's lead single. "Black or White" is a mix of rock, and
dance-pop. It was written, composed, and arranged by Jackson
with the rap lyrics by Bill Bottrell, the song promotes racial
harmony. The song's introduction and main riff are performed by
Bill Bottrell.
The song peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100,
the UK Singles Chart and in 20 other countries. It shot #1 on
every singles chart in 1991.
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. 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.
"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. "Black or
White" was officially released one week later. 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.
"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. 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'".
"Black or White" stormed into Billboard's Hot 100 at number
thirty five. 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. 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.
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. 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. The single was certified
platinum in the US, selling over one million copies. Actually,
the hard rock "Black or White" is considered one of the 100
greatest rock songs of the 1990s and the meaning behind the
lyrics is rock solid in this song.
The music video for "Black or White" was first broadcast on
MTV, BET, VH1, and Fox (giving them their highest Nielsen
ratings ever) on November 14, 1991. Along with Jackson, it
featured Macaulay Culkin, Tess Harper, and George Wendt. It
helped usher in morphing as a new technology in music videos,
pioneered by Godley & Creme's "Cry" video in 1985 (the
sequence begins with extra, Let Mon Lee, and features
supermodel Tyra Banks). 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.
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. 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. 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.
A young Tyra Banks, just beginning her career as a
supermodel, is seen dancing to the song in the ending of the
video, as well as actress Cree Summer.
Jackson's niece, Brandi Jackson, daughter of Jackie Jackson
also makes a cameo appearance in the video. Wade Robson also
made an appearance in this music video.
The video shows scenes in which Maasai tribesmen begin
dancing like Jackson; so do, in sequence, Thais, American
Indians, a woman from India and a set of Russians. 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. 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"), which is reminiscent of the
earlier music video for the Godley & Creme song "Cry". This
technique, known as morphing, had been previously used only in
films such as
Willowand
Terminator 2. The morphing visual effects were created
by Pacific Data Images.
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. 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, and then zips his pants up. In the original
version, Jackson is seen smashing windows, 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. To make the
vandalism more palatable to viewers, racist graffiti was
digitally added to the windows that Jackson smashes (reading
"KKK Rules", "Nigger Go Home", "Hitler Lives" and "No More
Wetbacks").
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 cassette
HIStory - The Video Greatest Hits, 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 Timetribute wherein most of Jackson's music
videos were played. The DVD with the same name contains only
the "graffiti version". 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. It was
still shown in its entirety for some years in Europe. Indeed,
it was seen on VH1 in the UK as recently as October 11, 2008,
though most recent airings have omitted the last portion of the
video, which also included a 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. However, the part where he re-zipped
his pants was kept in.
On March 28th, 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.
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 Clivilles and David Cole, 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. 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. 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'.