1995 Michael Jackson – Stranger In Moscow (US: #91 UK: #4)

“Stranger in Moscow” is an R&B ballad, penned by Michael Jackson in 1993 during his Dangerous World Tour stop in Moscow. The instrumental portion of the song is based on the end credits theme of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994), a video game which Jackson and his tour keyboardist Brad Buxer were brought in to compose music for. Jackson dropped out of the project after scandals involving him arose around this time. The lyrics for the song are based upon a poem written by Jackson. A background guitar was played by Steve Lukather while keyboards, synthesizers and bass are credited to David Paich and Steve Porcaro and arranged by John Barnes. Originally, HIStory was planned as a greatest hits release, with a few new tracks. However, Michael Jackson and his collaborators were so pleased with the result of “Stranger in Moscow” that they decided to give HIStory a full studio album as the second disc. Jackson used elements of Russian imagery and symbolism to help promote the concept of fear and alienation in the track, in a similar fashion to Simply Red’s album Love and the Russian Winter several years later. It concludes with a narrative, spoken in Russian, by a KGB interrogator (Ed Wiesnieski). The narrative, translated into English is, “Why have you come from the west? Confess! To steal the great achievements of the people, the accomplishments of the workers…”.

Album

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (usually shortened to HIStory) is the ninth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on June 16, 1995 by Epic Records. This is Jackson’s first album on his own label, MJJ Productions, and consists of two discs: the first disc (HIStory Begins) is a […]

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Musicians

Guitar	Steve Lukather
Bass (Synthesizer)	David Paich
Keyboards	David Paich
Keyboards	Steve Porcaro
Synthesizer	David Paich
Synthesizer	Steve Porcaro
Vocals	Michael Jackson

Produced By

Michael Jackson

Songwriters

Michael Jackson

Charts

US: #91
UK: #4