Music / Bad

And the whole world has to answer right now
Just to tell you once again: Who's bad?

I'm gonna make a change for once in my life
Gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right

As I turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat
This wind is blowin' my mind
I see the kids in the street, with not enough to eat
Who am I to be blind, pretending not to see their needs?

—"Man in the Mirror"

Bad is the seventh studio album recorded by Michael Jackson. It was released through Epic Records on August 31, 1987.

His third and last album produced by Quincy Jones, Bad was the long-anticipated Tough Act to Follow after Jackson's previous effort Thriller had become the best-selling music album in history. Accordingly, the production went all-out. Jackson had fallen into a rabbit hole of technophilia at the time, and as such, the album featured some of the most cutting-edge technology that he could get his hands on, most prominently including digital synths and samplers like the Fairlight CMI and Synclavier PSMT and using digital recording equipment at a time when it had just become accessible to the majority of artists (note that the album started production the same year that Dire Straits put out Brothers in Arms, which solidified the rise of digital recording and the Compact Disc). This, Jackson's perfectionism, and various other commitments resulted in the album taking two and a half years to record (compared to Thriller, which was put together in just over half a year).

Upon and in the years after its release, Bad never reached the same success of Thriller in terms of album sales; considering how well the last album did, it was probably a fool's errand to even hope for it. However, it was still a colossal bestseller, going ten-times Platinum in the United States (upgraded to Diamond in 1999 when the RIAA opened Diamond certification) and 13-times Platinum in the United Kingdom.

It was supported by nine singles: "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", the Title Track, "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror", "Dirty Diana", "Another Part of Me", "Smooth Criminal", "Leave Me Alone", and "Liberian Girl". The first five were all #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Top 5 on the UK pop chart. The album was followed by the direct-to-video film, Moonwalker, where the video for "Smooth Criminal" brought a new iconic dance move to Michael's repertoire: the "anti-gravity lean".

A special edition, Bad 25, was released as a joint distribution between Sony, Epic, and Michael Jackson's estate on September 18, 2012. The main two-disc release had a second disc with various remixes and unreleased tracks. A deluxe edition added recordings of Michael's Bad tour concert at Wembley Stadium, London, from July 16, 1988, on both audio CD and DVD.

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Tracklist:

Side One

1. "Bad" (4:07)
2. "The Way You Make Me Feel" (4:59)
3. "Speed Demon" (4:01)
4. "Liberian Girl" (3:53)
5. "Just Good Friends" (4:08)

Side Two

1. "Another Part of Me" (3:54)
2. "Man in the Mirror" (5:19)
3. "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" (4:14)
4. "Dirty Diana" (4:41)
5. "Smooth Criminal" (4:19)

Bonus track on the CD release:

1. "Leave Me Alone" (4:40)

Bad 25 outtakes:

1. "Don't Be Messin' 'Round" (4:19)
2. "I'm So Blue" (4:07)
3. "Song Groove (Abortion Papers)" (4:26)
4. "Free" (4:25)
5. "Price of Fame" (4:33)
6. "Al Capone" (3:34)
7. "Streetwalker" (5:53)
8. "Fly Away" (3:27)

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Annie, are you troping?

• '80s Hair: Much like Thriller five years prior, Jackson sports a Jheri curl on the cover.
• Abortion Fallout Drama: Averted. In the song "Song Groove (Abortion Papers)," which evolved into "Streetwalker" before getting bumped altogether by "Another Part of Me," Jackson cries:
  Those abortion papers! Signing your name, against the word of God?
• Alliterative Title: "Dirty Diana."
• Badass Boast: "Bad", from the first until the last line, is Jackson trying to prove he is just as cool as the bad boys.
• Bilingual Bonus: "Liberian Girl" has lines in Swahili.
• The Cameo:
  • In the music video of "Man in the Mirror," Jackson sings about changing the world, while archive footage of several famous humanitarian activists and politicians are spliced in. These include Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, musician and Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, Polish union leader Lech Wałęsa, South African anti-Apartheid activists Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, Albanian-Indian nun Mother Teresa, US president John F. Kennedy, and Civil Rights Movement figures Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr..
  • La Toya Jackson has a cameo in the music video of "The Way You Make Me Feel".
• Cameo Cluster: The music video of "Liberian Girl" features a truckload of Hollywood celebrities, wondering when Jackson is going to show up at the shooting of a video.^{Among those appearing are...} Beverly Johnson, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Sherman Hemsley, Brigitte Nielsen, Paula Abdul, Carl Weathers, Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones, Jackie Collins, Amy Irving, Jasmine Guy, Rosanna Arquette, Lou Diamond Phillips, Olivia Newton-John, John Travolta, Corey Feldman, Steven Spielberg, Debbie Gibson, Rick Schroder, Blair Underwood, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Bubbles (Jackson's chimpansee), Suzanne Somers, Lou Ferrigno, Don King, Mayim Bialik, Creator/Madsen, David Copperfield, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover, Olivia Hussey, Dan Aykroyd and Steve Guttenberg. In the end, it turns out that Jackson was in the camera seat filming them all along.
• Car Song: "Speed Demon."
  I'm speedin' on the midway, I gotta really burn this road
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: The music video of "Bad" does this. After Michael gets bullied by his friends for not being bad enough and a "sissy", he yells back at them and suddenly in a blink of a second he is no longer wearing a casual sweater, but stands there in a leather suit with a whole bunch of dancing buddies who also seem to have come up from nowhere.
• Continuity Nod:
  • "Man In The Mirror" has mirror imagery, a Call-Back to "I Can't Help It" from Off the Wall (1979).
  • "Bad" is basically the same concept as "Beat It", only with Michael now joining the street gangs in being "bad" instead of telling them not to be that way. "Smooth Criminal" also shows Jackson in a criminal environment.
  • "Dirty Diana" is just like "Billie Jean" about a dangerous woman, only this time not a stalker, but a groupie.
  • "Just Good Friends" is just like "The Girl is Mine" a duet with a celebrity pop star in which both men quarrel over the same girl. Only here the tone is more playful and less teasing.
  • "Dirty Diana" is just like "Beat It" accompanied by a hard rock guitar solo.
  • Both "The Way You Make It Feel" and "Speed Demon" start off with a motor purring.
• Concept Video:
  • The music video for "Bad" is one of Martin Scorsese's many films (a short film in this case) about life in the Big Rotten Apple, depicting Jackson as Darryl, a reformed gangster attempting to prove to his former friends that he hasn't gone soft from private school.
  • The video for "Liberian Girl" revolves around Jackson's celebrity friends preparing to shoot a music video with him, constantly wondering where he is.
• Concert Film: The 25th anniversary release features film of a Wembley Stadium concert from the Bad tour, with Princess Diana and Prince Charles in attendance.
• Creator Cameo: Martin Scorsese, director of the music video for "Bad", appears on a wanted poster in the subway station. (Upon seeing this in the film, Scorsese's young daughter asked him if he had actually been to prison.)
• Dance Battler: In the music video of "Bad", Darryl proves that he's still... well... bad by performing a flashy dance with other gang members.
• Dancing Is Serious Business: In the music video of "Bad" Michael shows off his dancing skills to a rival gang, while in the music video of "The Way You Make Me Feel" he uses them to woo a woman. In "Smooth Criminal" his moves fence off other gangsters.
• Darker and Edgier: Jackson tried changing his gentle image by appearing a streetwise "badass" guy in the music video of "Bad." He also shook off his Chaste Hero image by grabbing his crotch in that same video and appearing in a more romantic boy-meets-girl music video in "The Way You Make Me Feel."
• Deliberately Monochrome: The Talky Bookends of the "Bad" music video were shot in black-and-white.
• Deranged Animation: The music video of "Leave Me Alone."
• Drives Like Crazy: "Speed Demon" about driving too fast and getting a speeding ticket as a result.
• Drugs Are Bad: Averted. During production, Quincy Jones set up a collaboration between Jackson and Run–D.M.C. for an anti-drug song called "Crack Kills." The song was never finished.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Jackson started shooting music videos for the Bad album well before the songs were actually finished. As a result, a couple of the videos don't match up perfectly to the final mixes of their respective songs.
  • "Bad" has a totally different organ solo in the video.
  • The "Smooth Criminal" video has two extra lines during the second verse.
• Face on the Cover: Michael striking a badass pose in leather.
• Fading into the Next Song: "Speed Demon" segues directly into "Liberian Girl".
• Femme Fatale: "Dirty Diana," about a girl who winds every man around her finger.
• Gospel Choirs Are Just Better: The music video for "Man in the Mirror" features a choir helmed by Andrae Crouch as well as the Winans singing in the background.
• Gravity Master: Jackson's iconic 45 degree angle lean in the music video of "Smooth Criminal." ^note Accomplished by wearing shoes with pegs which locked into the floor.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Jackson in the album cover and the Title Track's music video.
• Just Friends: "Just Good Friends."
  Baby loves me, but she never shows
  She cares (no, you won't see her kiss and hug me)
  Baby loves me (no, she acts like I'm not there)
  That doesn't mean she doesn't love me
  If they ask her
  Tell 'em that we're just good friends
• Leave Me Alone!: "Leave Me Alone."
• Let's Duet: "Just Good Friends" with Stevie Wonder and "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" with Siedah Garrett (although Garrett was not credited on the single sleeve, and the two vocalists sounded so similar some listeners weren't even aware the song was a duet). Garrett later recalled she didn't know she would be singing a duet with Jackson until the day of the recording session. She had assumed she would be working on her own solo album and was surprised to see Jackson at the studio until Quincy Jones informed her the two would be singing "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" (which she had already learned, assuming it was meant for her own album) as a duet.
• Mr. Fanservice: Jackson takes off his shirt in the music video of "Dirty Diana".
• Moonwalk Dance: In the music video of "Smooth Criminal".
• Mundane Made Awesome: "Speed Demon" is the most awesome song about getting a speeding ticket ever.
• Murder Ballad: "Smooth Criminal" is about a young woman getting attacked, and possibly killed, by an intruder in her apartment.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: "Just Good Friends" is the only song on Bad that either didn't get a single release or have an accompanying music video. Even the Bad 25 documentary openly derides this song.
• Mythology Gag: The music video of "Leave Me Alone" has Jackson satirizing the media frenzy around his own persona. For instance, we see him dancing with the skeleton of the Elephant Man, in reference to the press rumour that he was interested in buying the bones of said person.
• New Sound Album: The album was less dominated by funk than his previous output and moved more toward pop music.
• Obsession Song: "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", where Jackson wonders what he'll do without her, and "Dirty Diana", where he feels threatened by a woman who is known to be a seductress.
• One-Word Title: "Bad".
• One-Woman Song: "Dirty Diana" and "Liberian Girl".
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: "Bad" and "Man in the Mirror" cemented the idea that Jackson shouts "shamone!" when he sings.
• The Power of Love: "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Liberian Girl", "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" and "Just Another Part Of Me".
• Properly Paranoid: "Dirty Diana", about a dangerous Femme Fatale, and "Leave Me Alone", about Jackson's feelings about the tabloid press attacking him. In "Speed Demon" Jackson also feels as if he is being followed while driving on the highway.
• Record Producer: Quincy Jones.
• Re-Cut: Jackson mostly worked at his own pace during the creation of Bad, but the album ended up being rushed out the door in summer 1987 to meet a strict deadline. As a result of this, quite a few songs on Bad were gently tweaked after the fact and included on later pressings, at Jackson's insistence. (Most of these were originally done for 7" single releases before quietly being slipped back into the album proper.)
  • "Bad," the title track, had the most significant alterations done to it. The updated mix discards most of the jazzy horn arrangement heard in the original version, holding the horns back all the way until the fifth chorus at the end of the song. The rhythm guitar during the choruses was also brought down quite a bit.
  • "The Way You Make Me Feel" originally had a rather odd mix, with Jackson's lead vocal a bit too low in volume. This was rectified in the updated mix.
  • "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" had a spoken-word intro from Jackson, which was completely removed in the updated mix.
  • "Dirty Diana" shortens the crowd applause at the end of the song.
  • "Smooth Criminal" went through two remixes: the first one added a brand-new Synclavier overdub to thicken up the bass line, while the second removed the heavy breathing noises from the intro. The official music video includes time-lapse excerpts from Moonwalker, though a video of the song's scene from the film also exists.
• Refuge in Audacity: In the music video of "Bad" Jackson caused controversy for grabbing his crotch while dancing.
• Repurposed Pop Song: "Another Part Of Me" was originally featured in the film Captain EO.
• Ripped from the Headlines: The framing story for the "Bad" music video was loosely based on the 1985 death of black Exeter prep student Edmund Perry, who was fatally shot while attempting to mug an undercover cop.
• Shout-Out:
  • The music video of "Bad" was inspired by West Side Story while "Smooth Criminal"s 1930's and 1940's gangster look came about after Michael watched The Third Man, His outfit in the latter video was inspired by Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon.
  • The line "Annie, are you OK?" in "Smooth Criminal" is a reference to a phrase used in CPR training courses. Resusci Anne, otherwise known as "Annie" in English-speaking countries, is the name of a mannequin commonly used in CPR training. As part of the training, trainees are taught to say "Annie, are you OK?" to the dummy in order to check that the patient is conscious and responsive. A paramedic in the field is supposed to address the patient by her actual name, but many have been known to say "Annie" out of habit. Michael Jackson once took a CPR course.
  • The music video of "Leave Me Alone" has shout-outs to Elizabeth Taylor, The Elephant Man (tying in with the tabloid rumor that Jackson attempted to buy the real Elephant Man's bones) and to Gulliver's Travels when gigantic Jackson breaks free from the ropes that pulled him down to the ground all the time.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: "The Man in the Mirror" tells us the world can be changed.
• Special Guest:
  • The music video for "Bad" was directed by Martin Scorsese. Wesley Snipes plays one of the street hoodlums.
  • The celebrity cameos in the music video of "Liberian Girl".
  • Stevie Wonder sings along in "Just Good Friends"; Jackson would return the favor by appearing on Wonder's song "Get It" later that year.
  • Siedah Garrett has a duet with Jackson in "I Just Can't Stop Loving You".
  • The guitar soloist on "Dirty Diana" is Steve Stevens, otherwise known as the sideman of Billy Idol and the guitarist playing the Top Gun theme.
• Speed Demon: One of the tracks is titled "Speed Demon". Naturally, its lyrics are about going fast to considerably reckless degree.
  Speedin' on the freeway gotta get a lead way
  (Speed demon)
  Doin' it on the highway gotta have it my way
  (Speed demon)
  Mind is like a compass, I'm stoppin' at nothin'
  (Speed demon)
  He say, "pull over boy and get your ticket right"
• Spoken Word in Music:
  • "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" originally has a spoken intro by Michael, but it has been removed of all compilations and re-issues of the album.
  • "O.K., I want everybody to clear the area right now!" - "Smooth Criminal".
• Stock Sound Effects: A car can be heard humming at the start of "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Speed Demon".
• Super-Speed: "Speed Demon", about someone who drives too fast on the highway.
• Take That!: "Leave Me Alone", directed at the tabloid press.
• Title Track: "Bad"
  Because I'm bad, bad, really really bad!
• The Trouble with Tickets: "Speed Demon".
  Pull over boy and get your ticket right
• Updated Re-release: Four times. First in 2001 as a part of promotion for Invincible; then in 2009 for the box set titled The Collection; again in 2012 for it's 25th anniversary. The 2001 and 2012 releases included unreleased tracks, and latter release included a concert DVD and audio CD where Michael performed at Wembley Stadium during the Bad Tour, with Diana, Princess of Wales in attendance. It was then re-released with its original tracklist (including "Leave Me Alone") in 2013 as part of iTunes' exclusive box set The Indispensable Collection.
• White Void Room: Michael on the album cover.

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