Trivia / Bad

• Content Leak: New York's CHR/Top-40 radio station Z100 came under fire in the summer of 1987 for obtaining and airing a leaked copy of the album's first single, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," and was sued for it by Epic Records.
• Creator Backlash: Martin Scorsese is all but embarrassed of his "cameo" as a Wanted poster in the music video for "Bad", in part because his daughter thought he had legitimately gone to prison after seeing said poster in the video.
  Scorsese: I thought it wasn't funny, but It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time...
• Cut Song:
  • While all of Michael's solo albums have numerous outtakes, Bad has by far the most to see official release. (Indeed, Jackson wanted Bad to contain about thirty songs, but Quincy Jones discouraged this idea.) The released outtakes include "Streetwalker", "Fly Away", "Cheater", "Don't Be Messin' Round", "I'm So Blue", "Song Groove (Abortion Papers)", "Free", "Price Of Fame", "Loving You", "Do You Know Where Your Children Are", "We Are Here To Change The World", and "Scared Of The Moon".
  • "Leave Me Alone" was initially only included on the CD version of the album (it was eventually included on vinyl reissues, but this was well after the fact).
  • Another track from the period is Michael's cover of The Beatles' "Come Together". It appeared in Moonwalker alongside the videos from the album, with a view of including it on a greatest hits compilation, which never came out. As a result, it was first included as a B-side to "Remember The Time" and then, in a slightly edited version, on the album HIStory: Past, Present, and Future -- Book I, a few years later.
  • Another unreleased track featured Run–D.M.C. and was known as "Crack Kills". According to DMC, the song didn't get finished because Bubbles, Michael's pet chimp, ended up biting Jam Master Jay during the recording process. Despite the incident resulting in the song getting canned, the group remained on good terms with Michael, and were thanked in the liner notes of Bad regardless.
• Fish out of Water: According to Martin Scorsese, Jackson pulled him aside while shooting the "Bad" video in Brooklyn, and nervously asked, "Do people live here?"
• Method Acting: To set the proper romantic mood for his spoken word intro to "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", Michael recorded it while lying in bed with the lights off.
• Milestone Celebration: A 25th anniversary re-issue was released in 2012, featuring unreleased tracks and remixes, and a bonus audio CD and DVD of MJ's concert at Wembley Stadium during the Bad Tour, with Princess Diana in attendance.
• Referenced by...:
  • The album cover for "Weird Al" Yankovic's Even Worse parodies that of Bad, featuring Yankovic in a similar pose and outfit, but with way more buckles on his jacket. Even Worse additionally features "Fat", a parody of the Title Track, with the music video similarly riffing on that of the Jackson song. Jackson, a fan of Al's work, provided some Parody Assistance by lending him the set for the "Badder" segment in Moonwalker; Al returned the favor via a cameo in the music video for "Liberian Girl" the following year.
  • In The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, a Cover Version of the Title Track plays during Mario and King Koopa's duel in "King Mario of Cramalot", one of three Jackson songs to be featured on the show.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind includes a Stand named after "Man in the Mirror", with the power to trap opponents in a mirrored duplicate of the real world. Due to trademark issues, English localizations rename the Stand "Mirror Man" (after songs by Captain Beefheart, Talk Talk, and The Human League).
  • Sonic the Hedgehog's shoes were directly based on the boots that Jackson wore in the music video for "Bad".
• Sequel Gap: The album came out five years after Thriller, owed to a mix of Jackson's various commitments throughout the '80s and his perfectionism causing production to go on for over two years (compare this to Off the Wall and Thriller, which each took around half a year).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Michael initially pitched Bad as a 30-track triple album. Whilst Quincy Jones turned it down for being overambitious, many of the outtakes have since been released, and they're typically regarded as just as good as what made the album.
  • "Bad" was intended as a duet with Prince, who turned it down. Accounts vary as to whether Prince thought the song was just fine with Jackson alone, was uncomfortable with the unintentionally homoerotic subtext of the opening line "your butt is mine," or was simply insecure about the fact that his 5'2" height made Jackson tower over him by comparison.
  • Whitney Houston and Barbra Streisand were two of Jackson's original choices to duet with on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You".
  • According to producer Teddy Riley, both Jackson and Quincy Jones specifically sought him out for Bad, but Gene Griffin, Riley's manager at the time ran too much interference, causing Jackson to back off^note Specifically, Griffin demanded to be in the studio with Riley while recording, which Jackson balked at. Riley later recollected that Griffin typically did that to steal writing credits and payments from him.. Riley later got his chance to work with Jackson on Dangerous.
  • "Speed Demon" was planned to be the tenth and final single from the album but a full commercial release was scrapped due to Jackson beginning to work on Dangerous though it would get a promotional release in France only.
  • "Smooth Criminal" began life as "Al Capone". Jackson wrote it for the movie The Untouchables; however, the film's team opted not to go with the song. Unfazed by this, Jackson chose to revamp the song.

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