MJ’s ‘Dangerous’ deserves some credit

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Musicologist Susan Fast’s new book has made an appearance in the New York Times.

The paper recently reviewed Fast’s Dangerous, which analyzes Michael Jackson’s album of the same name.

Dangerous is, for many, the beginning of the end for Jackson, even though it sold many millions of copies and generated several hits,” writes Jon Caramanica. “But Ms. Fast thinks Dangerous is important, too, and sets out to rehabilitate it both as an album and as a site of Jackson’s engagement with cultural politics.”

Fast, a professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, takes on Jackson’s changing looks (which she calls a “work in progress”), lyricism, musical production, video presentation and masculinity in the book, which is part of a Bloomsbury series dedicated to musical albums.

Fast has previously written about the body in musical performance, mythology in rock music, Tina Turner’s gendered and racialized identity and mass mediated benefit concerts.

Her current research is on all-female heavy metal tribute bands.

Read Moonwalk a Mile in His Shoes in The New York Times.

Photo by Zoran Veselinovic