HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I, often referred to simply as HIStory, is a double album by the American singer and songwriter Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995. It consists of the greatest hits album HIStory Begins and Jackson's ninth studio album, HIStory Continues. It was Jackson's fifth album released through Epic Records and the first on his label, MJJ Productions.
HIStory includes appearances by Janet Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, Slash, and the Notorious B.I.G. Its genres span pop, R&B, and hip hop with elements of hard rock and funk rock. Lyrical themes include environmental awareness, isolation, greed, and injustice. Several songs pertain to the child sexual abuse allegations made against Jackson in 1993 and Jackson's perceived mistreatment by the media.
HIStory debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and in nineteen other countries. The first single, a double A-side of "Scream" (a duet between Jackson and his sister Janet) and "Childhood", reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100. "You Are Not Alone" became the first song to debut at number one on the Hot 100 and was Jackson's final US number-one single. "Earth Song" and "They Don't Care About Us", and "Stranger in Moscow" were also released as singles. "They Don't Care About Us" drew controversy over accusations of antisemitism, which Jackson denied.
HIStory sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time, and was certified eight-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It received generally favorable reviews, though it was viewed as a regression from Jackson's previous releases. HIStory was nominated for five Grammy Awards at the 1996 Grammy Awards, including Jackson's third Album of the Year nomination. It won Best Music Video – Short Form for "Scream". To promote the album, Jackson embarked on the HIStory World Tour, his third and final concert tour as a solo artist. It grossed $165 million, making it the highest-grossing solo concert tour of the 1990s. Disc one was also re-released as a standalone compilation album titled Greatest Hits: HIStory, Volume I in 2001.
Background Starting in the late 1980s, Jackson and the tabloid press had a difficult relationship. In 1986, tabloids claimed that Jackson slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and had offered to buy the bones of Joseph Merrick (the "Elephant Man"), both of which Jackson vehemently denied. These stories inspired the derogatory nickname "Wacko Jacko", which Jackson despised. He stopped leaking untruths to the press, and the media began creating their own stories. In 1989, Jackson released "Leave Me Alone", a song about the victimization he felt by the press.
In 1993, the relationship between Jackson and the press collapsed when he was accused of child sexual abuse. Although he was not charged, Jackson was subject to intense media scrutiny while the criminal investigation took place. Media coverage included misleading and sensational headlines; paying for stories of Jackson's alleged criminal activity and confidential material from the police investigation; using unflattering pictures of Jackson; and using headlines that strongly implied Jackson's guilt. In 1993, a Daily Express headline read "Drug Treatment Star Faces Life on the Run", while a News of the World headline accused Jackson of being a fugitive; these tabloids also falsely alleged that Jackson had traveled to Europe to have cosmetic surgery that would make him unrecognizable on his return. The same year, the Daily Mirror held a "Spot the Jacko" contest, offering readers a trip to Disney World if they could correctly predict where Jackson would appear next. In early November 1993, talk show host Geraldo Rivera set up a mock trial with a jury of audience members, though Jackson had not been charged with a crime. In 1994, Jackson said of the media coverage: "I am particularly upset by the handling of the matter by the incredible, terrible mass media. At every opportunity, the media has dissected and manipulated these allegations to reach their own conclusions."
To deal with the stress of allegations and media coverage Jackson began taking painkillers, along with anxiety medications Valium, Xanax and Ativan. A few months after the allegations became news, Jackson stopped eating. Soon after, Jackson's health deteriorated to the extent he canceled the remainder of his Dangerous World Tour and went into rehabilitation. Jackson booked the whole fourth floor of a clinic and was put on Valium IV to wean him from painkillers.
Content HIStory was Jackson's first studio album since his 1991 album Dangerous and his first new material after being accused of child sexual abuse. The album comprises two discs. The first, HIStory Begins, is a compilation of songs from Jackson's albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), Bad (1987) and Dangerous (1991). The second, HIStory Continues, comprises new material recorded from January 1994 to March 1995, although one of the songs (a cover of the Beatles' "Come Together") had been recorded as early as 1986.HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I liner notes Epic Records (1995). Jackson co-wrote and co-produced a majority of the new songs; other writers include Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Dallas Austin, the Notorious B.I.G., Bruce Swedien, R. Kelly and René Moore, and other producers include David Foster and Bill Bottrell. Some reviewers commented on the unusual format of a new studio album being accompanied by a "greatest hits" collection, with Q magazine saying "from the new songs' point of view, it's like taking your dad with you into a fight.""Album Review: HIStory" Q Magazine". Bauer Media Group. June 1995. Retrieved on February 1, 2010.
Similarly to Thriller and Bad, HIStory contains lyrics that deal with paranoia. Several of the album's 15 new songs pertain to the child sexual abuse allegations made against him in 1993 and Jackson's perceived mistreatment by the media, mainly the tabloids. Two of the album's new tracks are covers. The genres of the songs on the album span R&B, pop, and hip hop with elements of hard rock ("D.S.") and funk rock ("Scream"), and ballads. The lyrics pertain to isolation, greed, environmental concerns, injustice. "Scream" is a duet with Jackson's sister Janet; with "spitting" lyrics about injustice.
The lyrics for the R&B ballad "You Are Not Alone", written by R. Kelly, pertain to isolation. Two Belgian songwriters, brothers Eddy and Danny Van Passel, claimed to have written the melody in 1993. In September 2007, a Belgian judge ruled the song had been plagiarized from the Van Passel brothers, and it was banned from radio play in Belgium. "D.S.", a hard rock song, has lyrics about a "cold man" named "Dom S. Sheldon". Critics interpreted it as an attack on district attorney Thomas Sneddon, who had led the investigations into the allegations against Jackson.
"Money" was interpreted as being directed at Evan Chandler, the father of the boy who accused Jackson of child sexual abuse. The lyrics of "Childhood" pertain to Jackson's childhood. Similar to "Scream", the lyrics to "They Don't Care About Us" pertain to injustice, as well as racism. In "This Time Around", Jackson asserts himself as having been "falsely accused". The song includes a guest rap by the Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls). "Earth Song" was described as a "slow blues-operatic", and its lyrics pertain to environmental concerns. On HIStory, Jackson covered Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" and the Beatles' "Come Together".
"2 Bad" was influenced by hip-hop, with a sample of Run-DMC's "King of Rock" and another guest rap verse by Shaquille O'Neal. The similarity in lyrics and name have led to some seeing it as a spiritual successor to Jackson's 1987 track, "Bad". "Stranger in Moscow" is a pop ballad that is interspersed with sounds of rain, in which Jackson references a "swift and sudden fall from grace". "Tabloid Junkie" is a hard funk song with lyrics instructing listeners to not believe everything they read in the media and tabloids. The album's title track, "HIStory" contained multiple samples, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.Jackson, Michael. HIStory booklet. Sony BMG. p 50 "HIStory" was not released as a single from HIStory, but a remix of the song was included on Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix and released as a single in 1997.
As an introduction for "Little Susie", Jackson used his own variation of "Pie Jesu" from Maurice Duruflé's Requiem. The song's accompanying album artwork resembles the painting "Beautiful Victim" by Gottfried Helnwein, which may have inspired the song. Jackson admired Helnwein's work and had purchased some of his paintings. Helnwein later painted a portrait of Jackson.
Promotion Sony Music spent $30 million to promote the album, one of the most expensive promotional campaigns ever for an album. They expected the album to generate eight or more singles and sell 20 million copies worldwide. HIStory was concurrently released in six formats: vinyl record, compact disc, cassette, VHS, laser disc, and MiniDisc. The music press were anticipating how well it would sell. One analyst for SoundScan expressed the opinion that the press was out of touch with the public when it came to Jackson; the public liked him, while the press did not. He believed that "naysayers" in the media would be left surprised with the commercial reception.
During this period of time, Jackson made a series of public appearances, becoming the first time that he faced the public eye following the allegations. On June 14, 1995, Jackson was interviewed with his then wife Lisa Marie Presley by Diane Sawyer for a television special. It was watched by 60 million in the United States and 500 million worldwide, but received mixed reviews from critics. On September 7, 1995, he opened the MTV Video Music Awards with a 15 minute long medley. Jackson had intended to further promote the project through the release of a two-hour televised concert special on HBO titled Michael Jackson: The King of Pop – One Night Only, which was scheduled to have been filmed across two days beginning on December 8, 1995 at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, and aired on December 10. Jackson was hospitalized on December 6 after falling ill during rehearsals, and the special was postponed and ultimately canceled. The hospitalization also forced him to cancel a planned appearance at the 1995 Billboard Music Awards.
To promote the album, Jackson embarked on the HIStory World Tour, which grossed $165 million (equivalent to $268 million in 2019). It was Jackson's third and final concert tour as a solo artist. The tour, beginning in Prague, Czech Republic on September 7, 1996, attracted more than 4.5 million fans from 58 cities in 35 countries around the world. The average concert attendance was 54,878 and the tour lasted 82 tour dates. Jackson performed no concerts in the United States, besides two concerts in January 1997 in Hawaii at the Aloha Stadium, to a crowd of 35,000 each; he was the first artist to sell out the stadium. VIP seats cost, on average, $200 per person. Each concert lasted an estimated two hours and ten minutes. The tour concluded in Durban, South Africa on October 15, 1997.
The album cover depicts a 10-foot sculpture of Jackson in a "warrior-like" pose, created in 1994 by Diana Walczak. To promote the tour, Epic placed ten 30-foot replicas of the statue in locations around the world, including the River Thames in London, Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and the pedestal of the destroyed Stalin Monument in Prague. The statues were built over three months by a team of 30, made from steel and fiberglass, and weighed around 20,000 pounds each. Another statue, built from wood and plaster, was placed at the Los Angeles Tower Records store. In 2016, the original statue was installed at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas.