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

It's a great album that BEGS for a non 80s remix

I like it better than 'Thriller'.

His last great album, IMHO

 

I remember sitting and playing this in the office where I was working and everyone commenting how good it was. People seemed to expect to be let down by it, as if MJ wouldn't be able to get even close to "Thriller". Perfect pop - still a good listen today. Still a terrible cover image though!

 

Never cared for it. His voice changed and he was exaggerating his vocal mannerisms in a way I found very unappealing. My copy of Bad has been played less than a handful of times and was the last MJ album I ever purchased. Now, a record that DID get played ALL the time at my house? Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation!

 

It very much (and quite understandably) felt like MJ and Q were trying to follow up “Thriller” rather than trying to create. It was overlong for me and pretty dated given its reliance on the Synclavier. It can’t be argued that many of the tunes jump out of the radio nicely though.

Ed

 

Well, I could understand this. But we do have at least a few examples that Michael still sounded like Michael and not Jason Malachi in this era. For instance, you have "Hold My Hand" (which ultimately got released on 2010's Michael album) which was recorded in 2008, and it sounds just like the Michael Jackson that the world knew, while the three notorious tracks don't. Also, supposedly "Best Of Joy" had newer vocals as well, but I suppose it's hard to know, as apparently that song had been around at least as far back as the Dangerous era.

 

Was that different organ solo in the music video? The music video version had an extended organ solo.

 

Yeah, I imagine it's a different take.

 

For me, 30 years down the line, Thriller is the creative peak, Bad is the commercial peak and Dangerous is the sound that has dated best.

Bad is the one though that I always go back to, it’s one of the very few albums I can stick on and not be tempted to skip the odd track; just a complete masterclass in creating an album stuffed with singles that could sit in the charts for years.

As a trilogy of consecutive albums, few artists have rivalled this in my opinion.

 

Have to respectfully disagree on this point - both Off The Wall and Thriller have held up incredibly well (especially since artists are still going back to those sounds). Dangerous and the very industrial sounding New Jack Swing genre that it belongs to haven't. There isn't much NJS revivalism compared to the reverence that Disco and 80s dance-pop gets these days.

And as far as MJ albums go, I generally think that Off The Wall has the least-bad album tracks. I enjoy all of his albums though.

 

Off the wall was the creative peak IMO.

 

Listening to a Bad right now, and I’m thinking about why no Michael Jackson albums are given the Mofi treatment.

Duh. What the heck for? They’re already audio perfection!

 

Much prefer this album to Thriller.

Don't get me wrong, nothing on it reaches the same level as "Beat It", "Thriller" or "Billie Jean" ("Smooth Criminal" is the closest it gets), but end-to-end I think it's a far more consistently excellent album - knock those three mega tracks off Thriller and I've never thought you're left with much of an album. Knock the three best songs off Bad and there's still a ton of fantastic music on there.

 

I still hope that we get a Super Deluxe Edition box set that contains all the outtakes together in one set. There still a lot that was recorded during the Bad sessions that hasn't been released yet.

 

Always liked Bad. The other day, Smooth Criminal came on the radio and I thought, 'man, over 30 years later, this song still has an amazing groove...it could've been released last week.' Michael's obsession with finding a groove, a rhythm, the "feel" of a song really comes through on these tracks. They hold up so well.

 

I haven't heard this in god knows how long, but I came across the Bad 25 reissue. HORRIBLE mastering by the way, with a hell of a lot of compression and pretty harsh EQ. (Listening and comparing the bonus tracks that were already on the 2001 reissue, they're even brighter on Bad 25.)

Some terrible new remixes too, but that aside, what's kind of nice is discovering "Don't Be Messin' Around" and "I'm So Blue." They may be 'demos' but they sound close to finished and as-is they're very engaging tracks. Along with the CD-only bonus track "Leave Me Alone," that's three sturdy cuts that could have easily replaced the underwhelming "Speed Demon," "Liberian Girl" and "Just Good Friends" (tracks 3 through 5, which is kind of a long drag).

Anyway, I sequenced it like this with my preferred mixes. Nice LP length at 44:45:

1 Bad (7" mix) 04:08
2 The Way You Make Me Feel (full-length remix from updated edition) 04:58
3 Leave Me Alone 04:39
4 Don't Be Messin' Around 04:20
5 I'm So Blue 04:10
6 Another Part Of Me (7" mix) 03:48
7 Man In The Mirror 05:19
8 I Just Can't Stop Loving You (7" mix) 04:14
9 Dirty Diana (original album version) 04:52
10 Smooth Criminal (7" mix) 04:13

 

“Liberian Girl” is one of my favourites on the album

 

No worries mate, different strokes for different folks.

BTW, drloudness shows that the iTunes mastered version of Bad 25 has a substantially higher DR number. On the two bonus tracks I wanted, it was 10 for the iTunes download where the CD was a 7. I downloaded those two tracks and to my surprise, it is a noticeable improvement, especially on "I'm So Blue."

I'm sure these were originally very dynamic recordings like the other Bad tracks, but when the bass comes in, it doesn't so squashed like the CD, and it doesn't distort like it's overloading either. You really notice this in the opening for "I'm So Blue." Just sucks that they're compressed, lossy files even with the higher bitrate, but it's much better than just having the CD as your only option.

 

I've got Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad on vinyl, and am listening to Bad right now.

I found these three vinyl reissues at a used music store in their standard black vinyl editions, and jumped at the chance to grab them, since most chain stores these days just sell the picture disc editions that I don't find appealing.

While I don't believe that Bad holds a candle to the two previous albums, I still think that it is a strong collection of tracks, with "Dirty Diana" being my fav. That brings back some serious memories from my sophomore year of high school when the album was released.

I always say, only half jokingly, that I was 11 years old in 1983 when Thriller was at the peak of its popularity, and that anybody my age who says that they disliked that album at the time is a liar. The same cannot be said of Bad, since many people my age had moved on from Michael Jackson by the time that it was released, but the songs are still golden.

I know that a lot of folks have no desire to be entertained by Michael Jackson's music these days, and I understand those sentiments, but his music was a big part of the soundtrack of my youth, and, when I revisit the albums, that same rambunctious innocence shines through.

 

I don't know about "non-80's" entirely, but certainly the drum sounds are distracting, 30 years on. I know it was the sound of the times, but some of the electronic snare sounds sound like they were from a cheap keyboard, not the kind of state of the art (at the time) drum machines of the time. I suppose Quincy was trying to make the stuff stand out a bit by having the drums stand out in the mix, but it's a bit distracting. Like I think "Leave Me Alone" is a great track, but that snare is just awful, to the point of being distracting. Kind of keeps me from enjoying some of this album more than I probably would otherwise.

 

I've always been intrigued by Michael's solo albums because it feels like he's one of the rare big star artists who had many albums where you can convincingly rank his albums by quality in order from release. (And yes...I'm aware I'm not counting a couple albums that were released under his name when he was like 14 years old. So be it. I'm also not counting posthumous releases)

- Off the Wall
- Thriller
- Bad
- Dangerous
- History
- Invincible

Individual opinion is obviously going to differ because that's what opinions are, but I don't really think anyone would be considered "crazy" or whatever if they ranked his albums in terms of quality exactly by their release order. Just seems uncommon to me. It's exactly how I think of Bad; multiple really good songs on it but not as good as his previous 2, but better than anything he did afterwards.

 

kind of cool -to see this album , get more and more critical praise---as time passes

 

since we are making lists

1-History
2-Dangerous
3-Thriller
4-Off The Wall
5-Bad

but they are all 5 star albums

then we come to Invincible
which is 3.5 stars at best

 

Don't worry about the naysayers, they have been naysayers all along
If he was a "White Guy" , you wouldn't have heard a word about the nonsense

 

BAD is one of my all time favorite albums ever.
The previously unreleased original 80 songs released on Bad25 was nice to have but I dont think Sony issued the best ones from the sessions....songs like Throwing Your Life Away should have been included.
Only poor track on original album is Just Good Friends.....wish Streetwalker was included instead.