Joe Vogel: Blood on the Dance Floor 15 Years After Its Release

“Blood on the Dance Floor” (خون روی زمین رقص) was released on March 21, 1997 by Epic Records as the first single from an album of the same name. Michael had been working on this song since 1991. The track blends New Jack Swing, R&B, rock, dance-pop, and high-energy styles.

Written and produced by Michael Jackson and Teddy Riley, the song sold very well in different countries around the world and was among the top 10 tracks across Europe. In the UK, Spain, and New Zealand, it reached number one.

Last month, Joe Vogel—the author of the acclaimed book “Man in Music”—wrote an interesting piece to mark the 15th anniversary of the song’s release. You can read it below:

On June 6, 1990, musician and producer Teddy Riley was supposed to go to a birthday party for a friend and bandmate. Instead, he spent the night working on the Groove section of a song for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, in Sound Works studio on Queen’s Street 23.

Riley recalls: “I told the group I had a lot of work to do. Michael was my priority. I was going to California soon to see him, and he expected me to bring him my best work.”

Riley got lucky...

That evening, he found out that at the party he’d skipped, someone had been shot on the dance floor. He shuddered. At 23, death and violence had once again entered his life. That same year, he lost his half-brother and his best friend to murder.

The “Groove” Riley was working on that night had a fast, threatening, ominous rhythm. But there was no lyric, no title, and no melody.

The following Saturday, he headed to Neverland to meet Michael. Riley was nervous. Jackson had crossed out many names of collaborators and replaced them with a few others. Legendary producer Quincy Jones, L.A. Reid, Babyface, and Brian Loren... none of them remained.

Jackson had big expectations for Teddy Riley, who had delivered his new musical style—New Jack Swing, a brilliant fusion of jazz, gospel, R&B, and hip hop. Riley’s biggest achievement was bridging the gap between R&B and hip hop. He built a bridge between these two styles—something Michael had been thinking about since the Bad era.

Jackson listened carefully to the tapes Riley had brought with him and fell in love with them immediately. Compared to Michael’s previous work, these tracks included different chord structures. The rhythm was fresh and unconventional, with a fast tempo that hit like a hammer.

The Groove Riley had been working on that party night was among those tracks. Michael didn’t know anything about the story behind this piece. Riley says: “I didn’t tell him anything about it; he didn’t know.”*

(*By “shooting,” Riley means the gunshot at the party that night, which inspired him for this track.)

Several weeks later, Riley was shocked when he heard the name Michael had chosen for the track: “Blood on the Dance Floor!”

Riley’s hair stood on end.

“It was as if he’d somehow found out from the shadows. He interpreted the mood of the song like that.”

Over the following months, Jackson and Riley worked intensely on several tracks—sometimes separately, sometimes together—in the Larabee studio in Los Angeles.

Riley says: “He had built the melody... ‘Blood on the Dance Floor! Blood on the Dance Floor!’ Wow! Oh my God!.. He had crafted the lyrics and the harmony, and then we built the song up, layer by layer.”

For the beat, Riley used a top-of-the-line drum machine (MPC 3000). To create the hits, they compressed the strings. (Jackson always said: “I want it to be dry and inflexible.”) That was the sound used on the album “Dangerous.” Riley says: “Listen to Remember The Time. It’s very similar.”

Blood on the Dance Floor, however, didn’t make it onto the album “Dangerous.”

Riley says: “It wasn’t ready on time. There were still some vocals left. Michael loved the song, but he listened to it and said, ‘I like your work, but it still needs more.’ He was a perfectionist.”

When the Dangerous album process began, other songs entered the ring and took priority—among them Remember The Time and In The Closet.

Michael didn’t return to “Blood” for almost seven years.

Now it’s January 1997. Jackson, in the middle of the History world tour, decided to rest in the city of Montreux, Switzerland, during the break between the first and second halves of the tour. (According to reports, while he was there, he even tried to buy his longtime favorite—Charlie Chaplin’s house.)

At Mountain Studio, Michael went back to that old track once again. Musician Brad Buxer says: “We took Teddy’s digital audio tapes and worked on them with a four-man male group.”

The final multi-track version—engineered and mixed by Mick Guzauski—was built carefully from the last version Michael and Riley had recorded.

Riley says: “When I heard the final version of the song, I thought, ‘I wish I had done this.’ But Michael knew exactly what he wanted and was satisfied with the result.”

In a way, it was an unconventional dance track. Like “Billie Jean,” it had a dark and disturbing atmosphere. (According to the song’s lyrics, Michael is stabbed from behind in the place you least expect—on the dance floor.)

Michael’s pounding, harsh vocals awaken a sinister feeling in the listener. Whatever it is, it isn’t sad. The beat is thrown out of the speakers like a whip, and resisting it is pointless.

Jackson had told Riley that he thought this song would be a “Smash”—meaning it would break through and become extremely popular among people.

“Michael explained it like this: ‘A hit track stays on the charts for one or two weeks. But the name of a song that stays on the charts for six weeks is Blood on the Dance Floor.’ He felt that Blood on the Dance Floor would be a “Smash.””

“Blood on the Dance Floor” was released on March 21, 1997. It was strange that in the United States there was no promotion for the song. Riley says this didn’t matter to Michael.

“He thought that if people in America were interested, they would discover the song themselves. He wasn’t worried about anything.”

The song went on to triumph around the world, landing in the top 10 in 15 countries and reaching number one in three countries, including the UK.

Many remixes were made and played constantly in dance clubs.

The “Blood” track—left over from two of Michael’s big studio albums from that decade (Dangerous, 1991, and History, 1995)—became one of Michael’s most enduring rhythmic tracks of the 1990s.

Fifteen years later, I ask Riley what makes this song unique?

“This song was straightforward and aggressive for Michael. He was always looking for something stronger. But the amazing thing is how Michael understood the energy of this song. Before I told him the story of that night, he had understood it through the music himself. I’ve never seen anything or anyone as powerful as Michael.”

Source: eMJey.com / Joseph Vogel, The Atlantic