Michael Jackson's 'Bad': 34 Years Later*

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by SITKOL'76, Sep 1, 2017.

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  1. stefjnl

    stefjnl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin
    the story of MJ asking Prince to play the Wesley Snipes character in the Bad video always cracks me up

     
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  2. Leigh Burne

    Leigh Burne Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Yeah, I actually completely agree with this. I’m not sure anything on Bad matches the mega-hits on Thriller, but if you ditch the three best songs from each Bad winds up being a vastly superior album imo.
     
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  3. Bink

    Bink Forum Resident

    There really isn't any credible evidence which is why all court hearings related to the allegations have ruled in Jackson's favour.

    The testimony from multiple complainants that you speak of don't actually stand up to scrutiny.
     
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  4. Yost

    Yost “It’s only impossible until it’s not”

    Although I like Bad, I do think it didn’t age that well. The change from the classic Quincy Jones sound to the more contemporary 80’s one is understandable, but it’s not a great one when looking back.

    BTW, if you like the sound of Off The Wall and Thriller, you should certainly checkout the albums below. Sorted from great to less great (imho):
    • Quincy Jones, The Dude
    • Herbie Hancock, Lite Me Up
    • Patti Austin, Every Home Should Have One
    • George Benson, Give Me The Night
    • James Ingram, It’s Your Night

    Lite Me Up surprised me the most.
     
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  5. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    Is that the one with Rockit?
     
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  6. Yost

    Yost “It’s only impossible until it’s not”

    No. Rockit is from Future Shock, the album after Lite Me Up.

    Before Future Shock, Herbie was experimenting with “disco” on 4 albums (Feet Won’t Fail Me Now, Monster, Magic Window and Lite Me Up). The last one is the best of this series. These albums have bad reviews, because people expected jazz music from him. They're mostly regarded as commercial sellouts. But if you take them for what they are, I think they’re quite enjoyable.
     
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  7. Prince John

    Prince John Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Yup.
     
  8. Penny24

    Penny24 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco, Ca
    I used to give this album a hard time and constantly compared it to thriller and then one day I listened to it without a jaded mind and was blown away. Pop perfection.
     
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  9. innuendo141

    innuendo141 I want to pet your dog.

    Location:
    Ireland
    I know a few people who have said the same. I'd take the 3 "worst" songs on Bad over Thriller any day.
     
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  10. Prince John

    Prince John Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Spotify Stats say this for number of streams.

    1. Thriller – 2,373,522,649
    2. Bad – 1,501,203,252
    3. Off The Wall – 684,488,109
    So Thriller and Bad or songs from them are being played double or triple the amount of times Off the Wall is. Therefore, the opposite of what you say if true.

    MJ Chart Data Week of June 26, 2021
     
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  11. innuendo141

    innuendo141 I want to pet your dog.

    Location:
    Ireland
    Also add in the fact that there are at least 2 different versions of Bad and Thriller on Spotify. Bad 25, Thriller 25 etc.
     
  12. Prince John

    Prince John Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Except that he didn’t peak with Off the Wall. I’ll give that it is his most consistent album in terms of sound. He achieved higher heights and greater artistic triumphs after that.

    As far as only being in it for the money, he was too much a perfectionist and labored so exhaustively to achieve his visions for his songs and albums for it to be all about the money. He wasn’t phoning it in on Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, etc. He put more work into crafting each song as stand alone masterpieces on Thriller through Bad and Dangerous (especially the latter two albums) than he did on Off the Wall. Plus he only wrote two and a half songs on it. Nothing about it would qualify it as his peak.
     
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  13. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    Come on, the guy was obsessed with sales figures.
     
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  14. Yost

    Yost “It’s only impossible until it’s not”

    I would be too, given the standard artist contract from those days. The David Byrne autobiography gives a nice inside view on how it worked: the recording of a new album was financed by the record company, as a loan to the artist, which had to be paid back by the sales revenue. Given that each album became more expensive to make, it also had to sell better than the album(s) before. It’s kind of a pyramid scheme, imho.
     
  15. innuendo141

    innuendo141 I want to pet your dog.

    Location:
    Ireland
    True. The Bad 25 documentary by Spike Lee more than confirms this. I think it's a large reason why the Invincible project was abandoned prematurely.
     
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  16. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    I am convinced that the albums were highly profitable for MJ. He sold a bit more than Talking Heads.
     
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  17. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    Lady In My Life is forgettable? That song still gets played on smooth r&b stations
     
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  18. Hexwood

    Hexwood Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I've always preferred Bad to Thriller. The cover artwork is crap, though. Speed Demon is still my go-to jam on the album. The rockier sound suited MJ.
     
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  19. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    684m is still higher than Dangerous, despite Dangerous being more recent, more tracks and twice as many singles. So using such stats to argue that OTW is some forgotten flop isn't totally accurate.

    You might be shocked but there are people who don't consider Rumours Fleetwood Mac's best album, Born In The USA Bruce Springsteen's best album or Purple Rain Prince's best album either. Opinions are like a-holes and there are a lot of people who love Off The Wall for whatever reason (the era, production, etc...). Thriller is literally the benchmark for success, no album before or since will compete with its sales and overall impact, so it's a pointless debate. Some people might like OTW better than later albums.
     
  20. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    High sales don't mean that something is really good. It just shows a lot of people find it pleasant to listen to.
     
  21. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    I'm actually on your side on this debate
     
  22. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    I know, supported your argument.

    Actually it's like the big mac. Best sold food in a restaurant but it is crap.
     
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  23. Prince John

    Prince John Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I never argued it was some forgotten flop. My post quoted another post that said Off the Wall aged better than everything that came after it. I proved that was false. People can like what they like. Claiming it aged better or stating he peaked on that album is another story.
     
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  24. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    There's a lot of factors though. Thriller and Bad reached far bigger audiences than OTW did thanks to MTV vs. OTW being at a time where videos were low budget clips in a studio that you might see on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert or American Bandstand or something. Everyone alive in the 80s remembers watching MJ videos on MTV and remembers where they were the first time they saw "Thriller" or "Bad" or "Smooth Criminal", not as many people remember being tuned into the radio in 1979 and hearing "Rock With You". MTV was pretty much a communal experience in the 80s and 90s and Michael was the biggest and brightest star of that era. Off The Wall didn't have MTV to boost it as it hadn't been invented yet. Even a song that peaked at #65 in that era reached a wider audience than many top 10 hits do simply because everyone was watching MTV at the same time.

    Also, as above mentioned, Thriller and Bad (and Dangerous and everything else) were more across the board mainstream than OTW was. Off The Wall was disco/soul and might've not appealed to people who weren't in that lane, while Thriller, Bad and Dangerous were pop, rock, dance music, everything in between so they reached a much bigger audience. It makes sense why those albums were bigger, but I get why some people might like OTW more. Especially people whose favorite era was the 70s gravitating to OTW and not Bad is understandable because 1979 and 1987 are entirely different.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2021
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  25. Gary_Stewart

    Gary_Stewart 2 Kings 2:23-25

    Location:
    West Hollywood, CA
    The name of the logical fallacies you've employed are the Strawman Argument and the Bandwagon Fallacy.

    The Bandwagon Fallacy assumes something is true (or right or good) because others agree with it. In other words, the fallacy argues that if everyone thinks a certain way, then you should, too. One problem with this kind of reasoning is that the broad acceptance of a claim or action doesn't mean that it's factually justified. People can be mistaken, confused, deceived, or even willfully irrational in their opinions, so using them to make an argument is flawed.

    A Strawman Argument attacks a different subject rather than the topic being discussed — often a more extreme version of the counter argument. The purpose of this misdirection is to make one's position look stronger than it actually is. The Strawman Argument is appropriately named after a harmless, lifeless scarecrow. Instead of contending with the actual argument, they attack the equivalent of a lifeless bundle of straw — an easily defeated puppet that the opponent was never arguing for in the first place.

    The funny thing is you spent time researching an argument that doesn't even make sense.
     
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