1995 Michael Jackson: You Are Not Alone

The early nineties were not a good time to be Michael Jackson. With child sex abuse allegations threatening to call a halt to both career and liberty, any and all of his previous eccentricities came home to roost to paint a picture of a troubled and disturbed individual far removed from the glossy king of pop that dominated the eighties. A marriage to Lisa Marie Presley the previous year and their joint semi-nude turns in the video for this didn't do much to defuse the 'Wacko' nickname either; frankly, the man was captain of a rocking boat that needed to be stabilised.

Though long since established as an accomplished songwriter, 'You Are Not Alone' was written by R Kelly, albeit especially with Jackson in mind. An R&B ballad of lost love and longing, my problem from the outset is that it sounds like an R Kelly song, and I don't listen to Michael Jackson to hear R Kelly. In truth too I've never found Jackson terribly convincing as a balladeer either. Not on love songs anyway; while it's true to say the voice had matured since the brittle 'One Day In Your Life', 'You Are Not Alone' still carries an edge of unwillingness to embrace the solo spotlight without his trademark yelps and whoops colouring outside the lines. That's not necessarily Jackson's fault - Kelly's dull ballad provides little room to manoeuvre and with a rigid structure to follow, Jackson is as awkwardly constrained as a teenage punk at a job interview in a new suit. Which is apt really as the interview here was with his public with the song an appeal for recognition that, after all the slings and arrows hurled in his direction, he bleeds like the rest of us.

Ironically, it's exactly this vulnerability that gives 'You Are Not Alone' the edge that lifts it higher than the song's inherent worth. Contemporary events had conspired to give what would ordinarily be workaday R&B fodder resonance outside of simply being the latest Michael Jackson single. And it's that resonance that's going to colour your reaction to this; if you're part of 'Team Jackson' then the "Another day has gone, I'm still all alone" gives you all the excuse you need to want to give him a hug. If you're not, then this is just drippy, a rather cynical tug on the heartstrings from a man sounding like a small boy lost in the mall trying to explain to a security guard where he last saw his mother. I'll plump for the latter.