HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I was released on June 16, 1995 as a double album. Disc one collected fifteen previously released singles. Disc two contained fifteen new recordings. That structure is unusual, and it tells you exactly what the record is doing: reminding the listener of an established body of work, then presenting new material in that context.
Disc two is the interesting half, and it is the most emotionally direct writing of Michael's career. Scream, a duet with his sister Janet produced with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, is built on an abrasive industrial rhythm and a lyric about being overwhelmed by public pressure. Its music video remains one of the most expensive ever produced.
They Don't Care About Us is a percussion-heavy protest track. Michael revised one lyric after criticism and issued a public apology and a corrected pressing — a specific, documented instance of an artist responding to concerns about wording. The song's two music videos, both directed by Spike Lee, were shot in Salvador, Brazil and inside a Rio de Janeiro location, and remain among the most viewed in the catalogue.
Stranger in Moscow is the quiet centrepiece and, for many long-time fans, the finest recording of the second half of his career. A slow, rain-textured arrangement with almost no percussion for the first minute, it is a song about isolation that never raises its voice.
Earth Song, released as a single in late 1995, went to number one in the United Kingdom and became the Christmas number one that year. Its arrangement moves from an unaccompanied vocal to a full gospel choir over six minutes, and it became the emotional centrepiece of the HIStory World Tour.
You Are Not Alone, written by R. Kelly, made chart history by becoming the first song ever to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Childhood, its double A-side, is the most autobiographical lyric Michael ever released.
The album is not tidy. Some of the production is dense to the point of exhaustion, and the anger on tracks like D.S. and Tabloid Junkie is unfiltered in a way that some listeners find uncomfortable. That discomfort is the point of the record.
HIStory sold more than 20 million units worldwide as a double album, making it the best-selling multi-disc album of all time. The supporting tour played 82 dates across 58 cities on five continents to roughly 4.5 million people. It remains the album fans argue about most — and, for that reason, the one they revisit most.