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

That was a good album as well.

 

Yes, it is!

 

Michael clicking on all cylinders!!
Bad had a over digital cold sound on cd but this cold digital sound made Bad have a unique sound. Digital cold blackness is of BAD, 30 years later it's more true than ever.


Bad 25 Box set, Deluxe Edition, CD+DVD

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Format Audio CD

 

I'm a sucker for "Speed Demon", mostly because watching Michael face a claymation rabbit in a dance-off is Michael-on-acid.

 

Seriously, though, the trilogy of tracks that end the album ("Dirty Diana", "Smooth Criminal", "Leave Me Alone") are so weird, dark and paranoid in a great way. Some of his best work.

 

I owned the "Fat" single before I ever owned Bad.

 

I agree. Most of the time I just listen to these 3 songs.

 

Proves that Michael is a legit songwriter, too.

 

I never knew there was any doubt.

 

A great album which holds so many memories for me. I do rank it as his fourth best, however, beating out only History and Invincible. But the fourth best MJ album is still a wonderful, wonderful album.

I was four when it came out, so didn't have the anticipation or expectation that many here did, but I was certainly a huge fan at the time. I remember being really confused that my copy had Leave Me Alone on it but all my friends' didn't (I was the only person I knew with a CD player). It's weird how that's one of my earliest memories!

In 1988 I was flying to Florida from London with my family and listening to, on my Walkman, Thriller/Bad tracks which I had taped on to a cassette. While in the air and flying somewhere over the east coast of the US an air stewardess asked my mum if I would like to go into the cockpit to see the captain! I remember going in and the captain asking me what I was listening to - I had the headphones on around my neck - so I told him Bad by Michael Jackson. He looked at me, shot me a massive smile and gave a big thumbs up. I don't remember the view out the cockpit windows, or anything else of that, bar that conversation.

Anyway, I'm just turning this into a post about reminiscing now, rather than about the album itself, so as you were!

 

Definitely his 3rd best album...

 

Never really liked this album. Way too overthought and calculated. I did like Thriller and Off The Wall, but after that I had heard enough Michael Jackson for a long time I guess.

 

Yeah, agree. I love it. I do love Dangerous more though (and maybe HIStory).

Great album. And Michael still looked good.

 

HISTory has a few good songs, but he showed his anger and not in a constructive way (ie-great songwriting). It's bogged down by too many vengeful songs that don't go anywhere (DS, Money).

 

Four solid hit blockbuster albums in a little over 10 years was quite amazing!

 

First album I ever owned; a Christmas gift in '87. My favourite MJ album by a mile.

 

Well, I've never really warmed to this album, and disagree with Paulwalrus that Michael still looked good here. I actually think he started appearing "strange" about a year or so before in '86 with all that Captain EO stuff, and things just seemed to get progressively worse from there.

That said, looking at Bad now, here's how I might re-jigger it:

1. Leave Me Alone - dunno why this was a "CD only" track...I think it should've been the lead-off song, as I find it to be much stronger than "Bad"; I'd delete the title track with its excessive hiccupy chipmunk choruses, and its even worse (pun intended!) video, palatable mainly 'cuz it inspired Weird Al's "Fat."
2. The Way You Make Me Feel - a decent enough shuffle tune of sorts, but I didn't buy into its video back then, especially that horrible crotch grabbing...wtf, did he really think that was sexy?! Keep the song, lose the video (or re-shoot it, if possible).
3. Streetwalker - there were a fair amount of decent outtakes during this period that could've made the cut, including this song, which I prefer over its reimagining as "Dangerous" and the similar "Speed Demon"; I'd relegate the latter to Captain EO, or leave it on Moonwalker, and agree with an above post calling the video for it psychedelic...well, sort of (that rabbit was just too much)!
4. Cheater - a "funky, loose, and alive" number according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine...I agree, it should've been on here, and I'd say is more "alive" than the not bad, but not great "Liberian Girl" (IMHO, of course).
5. Loving You - I prefer Michael's earlier collaborations with Stevie Wonder, so I'm also deleting "Just Good Friends" (that wasn't an original composition of theirs anyway), and swapping in this song, which was later re-worked for Xscape (I like it more than the somewhat similar "Free").
6. Song Groove (a.k.a. Abortion Papers) - if Bad had contained more gutsy numbers like this, as opposed to the comparatively poppy "Another Part of Me" (depending on your p.o.v.), then I might've stayed on board with MJ a bit longer, but then again, maybe not given he was the "King of Pop" after all.
7. Man in the Mirror - almost deleted this cloying Oprah-esque song as well, but it's just too ingrained, and really seems like the thematic centerpiece of the original album to me, so it stays.
8. I Just Can't Stop Loving You - this was one of the few songs I remember genuinely enjoying at the time, despite its relative sappiness.
9. Scared of the Moon - this has an ethereal quality to it that I like, which I think would flow seamlessly from the prior track, and had appeared on The Ultimate Collection box set.
10. Fly Away - I associate "Smooth Criminal" more with Moonwalker, which was fairly ambitious featuring some of MJ's most choreographed dance moves such that most of it seems like an entirely separate entity, and the hair metal-esque "Dirty Diana" with Jackson's subsequent "victory lap" stadium tours, than the Bad album per se, so I'm dropping those in favor of this song, which had appeared on the 2001 Bad: Special Edition (I could also have chosen "I'm So Blue" but I think I like "Fly Away" better).
11. Don't Be Messin' 'Round - has a groove similar to "Leave Me Alone" and I think would make a good, if slightly hypnotic, closer to the album.

As you can see, I'm only keeping 4 of the original cuts (one of which being "Leave Me Alone"). For me, the main problem with Bad, aside from the over-saturation of MJ at the time, plus his increasingly disturbing appearance, was the herky-jerkiness of the musical arrangements/production, which seemed to lack the tunefulness of earlier efforts, and just seemed more forced overall.

AFAIK, there still hasn't been a definitive release of Bad containing all the songs I've listed, plus likely more to be found in the vaults, nor a proper stateside re-issue of the related Moonwalker video, so perhaps if these happen, MJ's reputation could be somewhat restored. I'm not holding my breath, though....

 

Not to stay off thread, but what do you think of Invincible? I think it's a lukewarm album as released and far from his best, but I made a pretty killer double album out of it using the rest of the outtakes we got from the XSCAPE set and what not. Completely changed my opinion.

 

But I think you probably find his appearance disturbing, because of how radically it had changed, it's the change that is disturbing. It isn't like that to me since the apperance that I think of really when I think of Michael Jackson is the Dangerous era one.
What I mean by he still looked good here, is he still didn't have that strange plastic apperance that him, and other people who go crazy with plastic surgery, begin to have. he still looked normal, and natural (ignoring how he looked before).

 

Great playlist!

Personally, the only two songs I could bear with eliminating/moving to b-side status are Just Good Friends and Speed Demon. I enjoy them just fine but they are the only two that don't seem to match the strength of the rest of the material, imo. The album's got a pretty serious/dark vibe throughout with songs like Dirty Diana, Bad, Leave Me Alone, Smooth Criminal and Just Another Part Of Me. If I had to pick a big flaw it'd be those 2 tracks getting in the way. The other ballads and songs don't stand out as bothersome to me because the material is strong enough to warrant them being there regardless. Hell would have to freeze over before I eliminate The Way You Make Me Feel or Liberian Girl or Man In the Mirror.

Loving You and Scared of the Moon though, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, would absolutely go on in place of the 2 songs I just mentioned. That'd be about as perfect a version of "Bad" as I would want without completely deconstructing the entire thing from scratch, lol.

 

I think it's dumb as hell that he ended up looking the way he eventually did by the 2000's, but I can't blame him for it at all. The guy obviously deep-rooted appearance issues from when he was a kid and all the emotional trauma of his upbringing, etc. As someone with depression (mainly rooted in excessive childhood bullying) I can understand his want to look different - or at least how he thought he should look. I think he probably had Body Dysmorphic Disorder or something and spiraled off the deep end with plastic surgery in a quasi-obsessive attempt to satisfy that which could never be satisfied.

 

I know you didn't ask me but I also loved Invincible, 2001 is a Jackson year to me (Janet was on 'All For You' that year)

 

First, let me say that I've always loved and admired the talented phenom that was Michael Jackson. Hell of a performer. But I don't listen to any of his albums. Shuffling playlists are my preferred way to listen to Mike. Bad was one of the most disappointing releases for which I've anxiously awaited. I think MTV premiered the video for the title song a few weeks before the album release. I didn't like the song. What, is he back to being 6 years old again?, I thought. I'm bad??? After the relative sophistication of tracks like Human Nature and Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' on Thriller I felt Mike was becoming a cartoon. I remember the day Bad came out. The cover was dazzling, though admittedly, a bit bizarre. I ripped open the packaging, skipped the title cut and dove into the rest... My impression was slightly more positive than the reception of Prince's Around The World in a Day after the amazing Purple Rain - He could've kept this.

Then he released the extended video, Moonwalker (1988), which features video versions of songs from Bad. That changed my impression of the songs almost altogether. It's also a personal recap of his career up til then and remains one of my favorite extended music videos of all time. Thanks Mike!

 

From a dance perspectuve I still can't decide which video is better: Thriller or Smooth Criminal


Think SC has the edge.

Glad we have both.

 

Good interview with Bad engineer/producer, Matt Forger.