Michael Jackson Bad 25th Anniversary Edition

the wembley dvd is AMAZING (if you skip the band interlude, 'bad groove' which is a slight momentum-killer). digitally recorded CLEAR audio, michael's moves were on FIRE (e.g. 'smooth criminal', 'human nature' end, 'dirty diana', 'billie jean', 'bad'), energetic vocals (e.g. 'another part of me' being better than the music video, which was recorded the day before on 15th july), only four songs 80% lip-synced, fantastic vibe from the wembley crowd. mj at his best.

demos- 'price of fame' is brilliant. such a cool riff in 'don't be messin around'. but all the demos are great- way better than just about any pop music today. standards were definitely much higher back them.

cd is compressed though. really loud.

 

and 'abortion papers' is sooo catchy!

main complaint about 5.1 mix- NO vocals in centre channel.

 

Lots of people are missing out.

 

doesn't help that the non-picture disc vinyl has been delayed- surely it's good for a few more sales. that's what I'm waiting for. I did see the picture disc, it's soooo much nicer than the grainy Thriller25 pic-disc.

 

i think Michael/Epic Records/Optimum Productions truly missed the boat on certain occasions .. imagine if a VHS had come out of the Victory or Bad Tours just after they had finished they would have shifted a million each.

 

If you got to hear the 32-track multis as I did, you'd be amazed you got what you got. I called in Thom Cadley, who's been quietly creating some of the world's best surround mixes for over a decade now, to deal with this project.

Several things to keep in mind when watching/listening to this set. First, it was at the dawn of wireless mics, and before in-ear monitoring. The wireless mics, including MJ's, were ragged. Then, there were monitors blaring all over the stage. Background vocals were submixed to a stereo pair. Add to that a poorly-mic'd audience. And everything was moving all over the stage.

If you were to look at the ProTools screen for any given song, it would look like a crossword puzzle...there was track muting galore, to try to minimize the crazy monitor bleed. Pinning Michael to the center speaker would have defeated all the efforts that went into making him blend smoothly with everything else that was going in.

All factors considered, Cadley's mix is nothing short of miraculous. And I think the surround is involving without being gimmicky or obtrusive.

Incidentally, the CD audio in this package is essentially the same framework created by Cadley, but tweaked by Rick Kwan and me at Avatar Studios to make it a better standalone audio experience than simply porting over the DVD mixes.

Glad to see most of you are enjoying the box.

 

I'm very surprised they never did that for either the Victory or Bad tours. I'd have loved to own those.

Were any shows on the Victory tour filmed professionally?

 

I think thats an excellent point and one we often forget. As fans, we want it ALL We "want" it in todays-best sound quality and video quality and as a result often forget how hard that is to achieve given the age of the material. Today its not a problem. If Michael had completed the "This Is It" shows in London then no doubt the resulting DVD/Blu-ray would have been amazing. As it is, we have a truly thrilling and exhilarating live performance delivered in the best possible way. I cant imagine, given the problems you state, that in todays world we would get any better. Im loving it so far and thanks for all the hard work that went into making it so much fun to watch. Cant wait to see what will come up next.

Steve

 

"Abortion Papers" is fantastic and should've made the album. I like it a lot better than some of the tracks that made the album. But I guess it would've been too controversial to be put on the album. A shame.

I was hoping for the full/complete/unedited version of "We Are Here To CHange The World". Oh well. And yes, I know the shorter edit is on the Ultimate Collection box.

The Wembley concert DVD is amazing; as others have already said. It's wonderful to have it, and the picture quality is very good considering the source they had to use. 1987/88 was when I really got into his music, so this is the era of his career I have the most fond memories of.

 

What's interesting is how watching Wembley on a CRT looks amazing, Know im just anxiously awaiting the vinyl and the documentary.

Wow, awesome to have someone who worked in this project discussing it in the forums. Thank you for all your hard work!

 

now it makes a lot of sense! thanks for letting us know about your experiences- i still am enjoying the dvd! we should be grateful that the audio was recorded onto digital tape regardless of the mic setup, technology, etc and that there's even a copy of the video.

i heard that for the victory tour, michael had a dispute with his brothers about how it'd be filmed and released. at first- michael vetoed, then michael had his film crew then the brothers vetoed a release. can someone please clarify?

michael also didn't want to release a concert video as he wanted people to see him live in the flesh. that's why the bucharest 1992 concert was a such a big deal- the first ever tv broadcast of ANY MICHAEL JACKSON SOLO CONCERT. the first time anyone who hadn't seen michael live would see what the fuss was about.

 

and also there's CROWD NOISE! but in a good way. i certainly felt like i was there, watching the jumbotrons in the stadium!

bucharest dvd had way too much, any other pro-shot video from the bad world tour has so little crowd noise that you'd think that the audience that night sucked

 

Bucharest was the first worldwide. Yokohama was broadcast in Japan in 1987.

Jackson 5 and Jacksons concerts were televised in Mexico 1976, Venezuela 1977 and London 1979. there may very well be more.

 

Didn't MJ take out some copyrights to release a New Orleans Jacksons VHS video in the very early 80's? Just before Thriller took off.

 

dunno. could be. a huge chunk of it is on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcTltS9XOBc

 

Hey, I wouldn't mind seeing that released on DVD!

 

I'd LOVE to see good home video releases of either the Triumph or Victory tours. The Destiny tour would be cool, too, but I love the "Jacksons Live" album and would love to finally SEE what they did, too!

 

WOW! at least it has the epic (pun intended) 'destiny' songs unlike earlier 1978-1979 dates.

and 'don't stop til you get enough' so SOON after 'off the wall' wow.

 

I agree Colin. Triumph and Jacksons Live are great albums. Id love to see the concert and see what the actual show really looked like.

Steve

 

I found some snippets on Youtube - here's part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc91fY6gJ58

Kinda looks like the feed for the in-arena video system, but I could be wrong.

Never understood why the Jacksons sat on this material - especially NOW, when they seem so eager to milk all things MJ. It'd be cheap to get the Jacksons tours out on video and I suspect they'd sell pretty well - why not do it?

 

I think a Jacksons tour video release would be fantastic and would be a great idea. Quite a number of shows were filmed professionally and I don't understand why there hasn't been a good release of a Jacksons concert. There's a Europe VHS called "Jacksons Live at the Rainbow" but no DVD release. I think for Triumph or Destiny Tours they are at their best but Victory is way more exciting in terms of what people remember and would probably sell a lot better. If they went for Victory Id like them to release their last show as the Jacksons (till 2001), which is Dodger Stadium.

Anyways, as for Bad 25:
Heres a pic of the 3LP version, looks fantastic.

 

Al, I've admired much of your work and thus it saddens me to read an apologist's post like this from you.

The multitracks were well recorded, sufficiently so for Michael to have approved the recordings and mixes at the time.

I had no problems as you describe. Michaels wireless mic sounded warm and clear and certainly not ragged.

You may not know that Michael was well known for liking his on stage monitors LOUD. This was not in any way an obstacle to recording or mixing. I just accepted it and looked to make the very best of michael's PERFORMaNCE which after all was the reason for recording in the first place.

From what you say, it would appear that you or Thom decided to 'brute force' the technique of gating and muting everything before mixing, which is likely where you came seriously unstuck. Michael of course moved around the stage a lot (!) and given that Michael DEMANDED loud onstage monitoring, if you'd gated or muted his mic when not singing you'd have made yourself an ungodly mess of a mix whenever his mic was open.

Finally, if you were unhappy with the bv's mixed to a stereo pair, you had the option of using individual track splits from the analogue 48 track multis which were locked to the mitsi 32 track.

The technique has to fit the performance, NOT vice versa.

My 2 cents worth of rant off/

 

The Bad25 documentary will be airing on Thanksgiving night at 9:30 EST/8:30 CST on ABC:

http://abc.go.com/shows/michael-jac...t=nllink-1991f6ca-Click here for more info >>

 

I watched the documentary, and it got me to thinking about when this album first came out. I am not so good with words, but I found this on the drownedinsound.com site that best describes how I felt when I saw the "Bad" video the first time:

"Bad. The least appropriately named album ever.....because if we were to answer the question: 'Who’s bad?', as asked in the title track, then that answer wouldn’t be the pampered, damaged, genius freak-pansy.....‘Bad’ – the silly cartoon ‘street fight’ imaginings of a millionaire pop star who probably hadn’t set foot on an actual street in 15 years...."

Wesley Snipes vs......MJ?!? LOL!!!! I mean, how could snipes look MJ in the eyes and not bust out in tears and laughter wondering how in the he££ ANYONE would take this seriously? MJ looked about as threatening as Pat Boone dressed in leather. I could never take the video seriously.

I was surprised NOT ONE person in the documentary even remotely alluded to this comical ingenuine-ness.

 

I think the MJ estate waited too long . . . Not that this sort of thing can be rushed out the door, but the frenzy surrounding his death was probably tapped out by the concert movie and its soundtrack.