Bad (album)

• 1. Introduction

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  Bad, the 1987 studio album by Michael Jackson, arrived with a forecast attached before anyone had heard a note. Two journalists, Michael Goldberg and David Handelman, wrote that selling "only" 10 million copies would beat almost every other record ever made, yet could still be read as a failure for him. Reporters were calling it the most anticipated album in history. Jackson had spent two years making it. How does an artist answer the biggest album he has ever made? Why did parts of the American press treat a huge hit as a letdown? And why do listeners keep returning to this record decades later?

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• 2. Following Thriller

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  On the 29th of November 1982, Michael Jackson released Thriller, and by the end of 1983 it had become the best-selling album of all time, with 32 million copies sold worldwide. That success gave him more cultural significance than any African American had held in the history of the entertainment industry.

  The years afterward were rough. Family ties strained, friendships with other celebrities broke, he split from the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the pressure of global stardom kept building. Jackson pulled back from public view for much of 1985 and 1986, yet he stayed in the headlines. He adopted a chimpanzee named Bubbles, and a false rumor claimed that he slept in a hyperbaric chamber.

  People close to Jackson said he was anxious about the next record. Ken Tucker of NPR Music observed that almost no album could repeat the commercial and cultural reach of Thriller. In 2017, Newsweek put the challenge more bluntly, calling it "like following up the Bible". Even so, Jackson set himself a target of selling 100 million copies.

  The title came from street slang, where "bad" means great, and also tough and courageous. It marked a shift from a youthful image toward a harder, more streetwise persona. For this era he reinvented his look with black clothing, buckles and metal-studded belts. Not everyone in America would welcome the other changes in how he looked.

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• 3. Two Studios

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  Quincy Jones had already produced Off the Wall in 1979 and Thriller, and Bad became his third and final album with Jackson. Jackson had contributed only a few songs to those earlier records, so Jones urged him to write more this time. Jones recalled the conversation: "All the turmoil in Jackson's life was starting to mount up, so I said I thought it was time for him to do a very honest album."

  Jackson wanted a harder, more aggressive sound. Guitarist Steve Stevens recalled him expressing interest in rock bands like Mötley Crüe. Digital synthesizers, including FM synthesis, the Fairlight CMI and the Synclavier PSMT, shaped the new palette, and the team often layered them to invent fresh sounds. Guitars, organs, drums, bass, percussion, saxophones, washboards and digital guitars joined them. Jon Pareles of The New York Times later called the result a "gleaming, high-tech dance record".

  The work ran on two tracks at once. Jackson began recording demos in 1983, while he was also busy with Victory, an album with his brothers, the Jacksons. Through 1985 and 1986 he wrote and recorded at his Hayvenhurst home studio in Encino, Los Angeles. There he worked with Bill Bottrell, Matt Forger, John Barnes and Christopher Currell, a group nicknamed the "B team". Their demos went to Westlake Studios, where Jones and engineer Bruce Swedien, the "A team", finished the tracks.

  Jones remembered how punishing the sessions became: "They were carrying second engineers out on stretchers. I was smoking 180 cigarettes a day." Jackson kept the B team at Hayvenhurst while the A team worked at Westlake, which frustrated Jones. The B team was dissolved by early 1987.

  Outside commitments kept breaking the rhythm. In July 1984, Jackson joined his brothers on the Victory Tour. Recording picked up again in January 1985, after the charity single "We Are the World". Later that year, work paused for Disney's 4D film Captain EO. Sessions with Jones and the A team began at Westlake in August 1986 and ran to November, stopping while Jackson filmed the "Bad" music video. They resumed in January 1987 and were finished by July.

  Jackson reportedly wrote around sixty songs and recorded thirty-three of them. He hoped to release everything as a three-disc set. Jones encouraged him to cut it to eleven tracks, and Jackson wrote all but two. Those two exceptions were "Just Good Friends" and "Man in the Mirror".

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• 4. Songs and Guests

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  Jackson wrote and recorded the title song, "Bad", as late as October 1986, with John Robinson, who had played on Off the Wall, on drums. He said it was inspired by a newspaper story about a boy from "the ghetto" who attended a private school in Upstate New York. According to Jackson, his friends were so jealous on his return that they killed him. Biographers have concluded he meant Edmund Perry. Perry, however, was killed by a plainclothes police officer, after he and his brother allegedly attacked and badly beat the officer in a mugging attempt.

  Prince was once meant to share that song. Jones suggested the two stars record together, and "Bad" was planned as a duet. In 1997, Prince said he declined because of reservations about the opening line, "Your butt is mine". He offered Jackson a song he had written, "Wouldn't You Love to Love Me", but Jackson rejected it.

  Jackson's mother, Katherine Jackson, asked him for an R&B song with a shuffle rhythm. That request became "The Way You Make Me Feel", which he developed in 1985 under the working title "Hot Fever". Jerry Hey of Seawind wrote the horn arrangements, and members of his group had also played on Off the Wall and Thriller.

  A traffic ticket gave "Speed Demon" its start, according to Jones. Jackson arrived late to a studio session after being pulled over, then wrote the song in 1986. Christopher Currell, who plays the Synclavier on it, proposed the racing-car intro and is credited for the sound effects.

  Jackson had written "Liberian Girl" as early as 1983, and it was set for the Jacksons' 1984 album Victory until it was cut. He told Jet magazine in 1987 that the melody came while he was playing pinball. He then went quickly upstairs to put it on tape. South African jazz singer Letta Mbulu adds a Swahili chant.

  The most famous song from the album began at a dinner. Jones invited a group of songwriters to his home and asked them to write hits for Jackson. Siedah Garrett came up with a line about a man looking in the mirror, and Glen Ballard supplied the melody. Within a week they had recorded a demo of "Man in the Mirror". Garrett phoned Jones, who was in a meeting, to say they had found a perfect fit. At Jackson's request, the pair wrote a longer middle eight and adjusted the lyrics. Jones brought in the Andraé Crouch choir for gospel vocals.

  Garrett also sang with Jackson on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", recorded in May 1987, the same month as "Man in the Mirror". Jackson first wanted Whitney Houston or Barbra Streisand for the duet. Streisand declined. Houston's label, Arista Records, judged it "too risky" while she was promoting her new album Whitney. It was his first duet with a woman since "It's the Falling in Love", sung with Patti Austin on Off the Wall.

  Stevie Wonder, who wrote "I Can't Help It" for Off the Wall, appears on "Just Good Friends", written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle. He also plays the synthesizer solo. Jones later admitted, "I made a mistake with 'Just Good Friends'. That didn't work." In September 1987, Jackson returned the favor by recording "Get It" for Wonder's album Characters.

  "Another Part of Me" began in 1985 as music for Captain EO, the short film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It plays as the title character and his crew fly off into space at the end. Jackson revisited and edited it in 1986, and it landed on Bad.

  "Dirty Diana" is a hard rock song written and recorded by Jackson, with a guitar solo from Steve Stevens, who played for Billy Idol. It was the first rock song he had written since "Beat It" in 1982. Its lyrics, about a woman who "likes the boys in the band", may echo the groupies he said hung around him and his brothers in the early Jackson Five days.

  "Smooth Criminal" opens with an eerie, heartbeat-like sound and drops straight into a crime scene. The repeated line "Annie, are you OK?" comes from Resusci Anne, a mannequin used in CPR training. Jackson joined the standard training question to the dummy's name. In 2001, the hard rock band Alien Ant Farm covered the song on their album Anthology, and it stayed at number one in Australia for eight weeks.

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• 5. Backlash at Home

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  Released on the 31st of August 1987 by Epic Records, Bad set off a brief second wave of "Michaelmania" as fans across the US rushed to buy it. One record store manager compared the demand with what Bruce Springsteen's Live 1975-85 had drawn the year before. He also compared it with the American debut of The Beatles' Please Please Me in July 1987.

  The numbers backed him up. Bad entered the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart at number one and held the spot for six consecutive weeks. It sold over 2.25 million copies in its first week, the fastest start in US history at the time. By June 1988 it was certified 6× Platinum, matching the American sales of Off the Wall. In 2021 the Recording Industry Association of America certified it 11× Platinum, making it Jackson's second most successful album in the US.

  Still, many in the American media called it a disappointment. According to Billboard, Thriller had sold 12 million copies in the US by December 1983, a little over a year after its release, and Bad fell well short of that pace. The shortfall was widely blamed on Jackson's controversial new image, which included plastic surgery and a lighter complexion.

  The hostility could be physical. In some Washington neighborhoods, Bad posters hung on utility poles were mutilated with spray paint and knives. Na'im Akbar, an African American psychologist, condemned Jackson: "As far as I'm concerned, Michael Jackson engaged in a form of self-mutilation that was a rejection of his cultural self".

  A 1988 Rolling Stone readers poll of 23,000 people named Jackson the worst male singer, the worst dressed and the worst male rock artist. Readers also voted Bad the worst album, "Bad" the worst single and worst video, and called his return the most unwelcome comeback. Editor David Wild remarked that the reaction had more to do with Jackson's "quirky personality" than his music.

  Jackson's manager, Frank DiLeo, said in 1989 that he and Jackson were happy with the results. "Americans like to build 'em up and tear 'em down," he said, adding, "I'm sure that affected us. But we did the best we could." Abroad, the hysteria had not faded at all.

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• 6. Five Number Ones

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  Twenty-four countries besides the US sent Bad to number one, among them Austria, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Worldwide, it became the fastest-selling album in its first week. About 11 million copies sold in 1987, enough to make it that year's best-selling album, and it took the same title again in 1988. Within a year of release it had reached around 18 million. By January 1989 sales hit 20 million, and by 1991 it had sold 25 million, second only to Thriller. Total sales now stand above 35 million, a place in the top 10 of all time.

  The UK embraced it fiercely. Bad opened at number one with 350,000 copies in its first week, a record at that time. It sold 1.6 million copies in under four months, and 980,000 more in the following year. It was the UK's best-selling album of 1987 and its third best-selling of 1989. Over the whole 1980s it ranked second, ahead of Thriller. Today it is certified 14 times Platinum there, with sales of 4.2 million. France awarded it a diamond certificate for 1.4 million copies. Canada's industry association also certified it diamond, for shipments above 1,000,000.

  On the 2nd of July 1988, "Dirty Diana" became the fifth number-one single from the album on the Billboard Hot 100. Jackson was the first artist ever to place five number ones on that chart from a single album. Epic Records marked the moment with a promotional poster reading "No One's Ever Been This Bad". Billboard gave him its first Spotlight Award for the feat. Katy Perry matched the record with Teenage Dream in 2011 and remains the only artist to do so.

  The path there started with "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", which reached number one in the US, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the UK and Zimbabwe. "Bad" followed as Jackson's eighth Hot 100 number one and stayed two weeks. "The Way You Make Me Feel" was the third in a row. "Man in the Mirror" also reached the top, as well as number one in Italy. Seven Bad singles reached the UK top ten, a record for any studio album that stood for over 20 years.

  The rest of the singles had quieter fortunes. "Another Part of Me" stopped at number 11 on the Hot 100 but topped the R&B singles chart. "Smooth Criminal" peaked at number seven, and retrospective reviews rank it among the album's best songs. Outside the US and Canada, "Leave Me Alone" topped the Irish charts. It was Jackson's answer to negative and exaggerated tabloid rumors, and its video later won a Grammy. In 1988, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded "Fat", a parody of "Bad", which won the Grammy for Best Concept Music Video at the 1989 ceremony.

  "Liberian Girl" missed the Billboard Hot 100 but reached the top 20 in various countries and number one in Ireland. Chico Freeman, 2Pac and MC Lyte have sampled or covered it. Last came "Speed Demon", released as a promotional single on the 4th of September 1989 as part of the campaign around Jackson's film Moonwalker.

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• 7. Stage and Screen

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  CBS aired The Magic Returns, a commemorative special on Jackson's life, in prime time on the day Bad was released. At its end, the network debuted the short film for "Bad", directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring Wesley Snipes. The campaign copied the Thriller plan. As "The Girl Is Mine" had opened that earlier era, the first Bad single, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", was a ballad duet. Two "more obvious modern pop knockouts" backed by music videos followed.

  Frank DiLeo, among others, helped shape the marketing, which also included Moonwalker in 1988. The film performed "Speed Demon", "Leave Me Alone", "Man in the Mirror" and "Smooth Criminal", the last two released as stand-alone videos at the end. It also held the video for "Come Together", a song that returned seven years later on HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. Moonwalker became the best-selling home video of all time.

  The Bad tour, sponsored by Pepsi, opened in Japan, where Jackson had not performed since 1972 with the Jackson 5. The first 14 dates there drew a record 450,000 people. In London, he played seven sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium, beating the previous record held by Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Genesis. Diana, Princess of Wales, and Prince Charles attended the third concert, on the 16th of July 1988. The tour earned Jackson three entries in the Guinness World Records.

  By the end, Jackson had played 123 concerts in 15 countries for an audience of 4.4 million. The tour grossed $125 million, which set records for the largest-grossing tour in history and the largest paid attendance. It was his first solo world tour.

  At the 1988 Grammy Awards, Jackson performed "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Man in the Mirror". He had declined to perform at the ceremony during the Thriller era in 1984. Paul Grein of Billboard called it "Exhibit A to anyone who wants proof of his artistry and command when he was at the peak of his powers." Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times described "one of the most striking performances ever by a pop performer on national television", one that "overshadowed everything else" that night. A year later, "Man in the Mirror" earned a Record of the Year nomination at the 1989 Grammys.

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• 8. Verdicts and Legacy

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  Edwin J Bernard of Record Mirror ranked Bad above Thriller, praising "little compromise and a lot of genius". Simon Frith of The Times called it "peerless pop: funky, flamboyant, and just a touch feral". Jay Cocks of Time praised Jackson's vocals and singled out "Man in the Mirror" as one of his finest achievements. Davitt Sigerson of Rolling Stone argued that the album's lesser tracks, such as "Speed Demon", "Dirty Diana" and "Liberian Girl", made it richer than Thriller's forgettable moments.

  Other critics held back. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice missed the "genius" of "Beat It" or "Billie Jean". Richard Cook of Sounds said the album lacked "that once-in-a-lifetime spark". Richard C. Walls of Creem enjoyed it as "tuneful, clever, infectious pop", but found it "more of the same" as Thriller and "not an advancement".

  The 1988 Grammy Awards produced one of the night's biggest surprises. Jackson was the joint most-nominated artist outside the classical field, with Bad up for Album of the Year and several other categories. Bad won Best Engineered Recording, but that award went to the engineers and producers, so Jackson himself won nothing. U2's The Joshua Tree took Album of the Year. Little Richard, who was in the audience, said, "I'm shocked. I'm stunned … I think a lot of people are."

  Elsewhere the trophies piled up. At the 1988 Soul Train Music Awards, Bad won Best R&B/Soul Album - Male, and it won Best Album at the 1988 NAACP Image Awards. The Japan Gold Disc Awards gave it the Grand Prix Album of the Year in 1988, and Jackson took the International Solo Artist award at the 1988 Brit Awards. The Smash Hits readers poll named Bad its best LP on the 6th of October 1987, five weeks after release. On the 5th of April 1990, Jackson was honored at the White House as "Artist of the Decade" by the Capital Children's Museum.

  Rolling Stone placed Bad at number 202 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums, 203 in 2012 and 194 in 2020. NME ranked it number 204, and the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die includes it. In 2017, Consequence of Sound named it the best album of 1987.

  Spike Lee argued 25 years on that Bad sounds the "freshest" of the big 1987 albums, a group that included The Joshua Tree. Writing for The Quietus, David Bennun said the album "changed pop music forever", and he heard it in artists such as Usher, Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars. Ludacris said the video for Justin Bieber's "Baby" was meant as "a 2010 version" of the "The Way You Make Me Feel" video. Kanye West called Jackson's outfit in the "Bad" video "far more influential" than his Thriller look.

  On the 3rd of May 2012, Jackson's estate and Epic Records announced Bad 25, a 25th anniversary edition released on the 18th of September 2012. In 2018, the jacket Jackson wore in the "Bad" video sold at a New York auction for $298,000, about three times its original asking price.

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