Bad

TL/DR Hee hee

My favorite Michael Jackson album. Still has a few misses. I feel like "Speed Demon" would be my favorite song if it had more... something going on. As it is, it just feels thin. I've never been a big fan of "Liberian Girl" or "Just Good Friends". The album picks back up and the 1-2 Punch of "Dirty Diana" and "Smooth Criminal" really make the second half of the album for me. Probably more misses than I would usually allow for a 4 star review, but the number of all-time classics is undenaiable.

It’s absolutely fantastic and on par with thriller.

Absolutely love this album!

This is Michael Jackson at his best! More than half this album was released as singles because there's not one bad song in the BAD bunch. Musical excellence!

MJ's pivot to street tough - look at all those buckles! - is not super convincing, I mean how bad is 'Bad'? Of course no one could repeat 'Thriller' but very few songs on this one would make that one, and there is a lot of cringey shit on here (I'm looking at you especially 'Dirty Diana' and 'Liberian Girl'), and that 'Speed Demon' is crap. Not great.

Alright

Misleading title, nothing bad about this. I guess the middle section can be a bit forgettable, but that's the consequence of having some of the biggest bops of the 80s on your record. The record contains many classic songs that are super recognizable and everything that can be said about them has been said. Speed Demon and Liberian Girl are slight duds that feel a bit generic for MJ, but that's the biggest complain I have about it. So much amazing synth work and massive melodies that get stuck in your head instantly. It's really such a well produced and arranged record, makes sense why it became the splash that it did.

maldito discazo. Ni en pedo es el mejor de michael. Pero es una bomba. Todos muy buenos temas, y muchos TEMONES. Mencion especial a smooth criminal, por dios que pedazo de tema. 9.5/10

what a pop album. Such a shame he's a nonce.

Good

Slick, swaggering pop perfection, blending funk, rock, soul and R&B. Quincy Jones’s immaculate production delivers irresistible grooves, razor-sharp rhythms and enormous hooks.

Pedo

He's bad -- what more can I say?

shamone :(

Songs i’d listen to again: Another Part of Me, Man in the Mirror, Dirty Diana, Smooth Criminal, Leave Me Alone.

Not his best. 3

All time classic and a lot of Songs, that you forget was on there.

The 1st track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, I don't skip it when it comes up when I'm normally listening to music, but I haven't added it to my main playlist. The 2nd track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 3rd track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 4th track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 5th track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 6th track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 7th track is a 4/5, I added it to my main playlist. The 8th track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 9th track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 10th track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. The 11th track is a 3/5, it's not a bad track, but it's not something I would go out of my way to listen to. I would give this album a 3/5, it's not a bad album, I saved 1 song, and I'll listen to songs from this album whenever they just pop up during my normal listening sessions, but I don't go out of my way to listen to this album.

yes it is

I did not like Michael Jackson's music when it was popular. As it was popular, there had to be something to it. It's just not for me, it's overproduced, too perfect, and "shiny".

3.5

3.0

Some great tracks on here like Man in the Mirror, The Way You Make Me Feel and Leave Me Alone, a few duda as well but overall an iconic 80s pop record that still holds up pretty well today.

easily my favorite of the mj albums on the list. full of bangers

Just undeniably great in every way

Tu m'étonnes qu'on l'appelle le roi de la pop

speed demon is the greatest song ever created

Tough decision, a good album but probably wouldn't actually consciously put it on

Solid pop record, awful human being.

Smooth criminal is great but doesn’t make up for the rest. Meh.

It is a legendary album from Michael Jackson, I can’t believe how good these songs are

I liked this one. It’s easy to forget how many familiar songs are on a single album until you listen to it all the way through. Catchy songs, plenty of energy, and an easy album to enjoy. Definitely one I’d listen to again.

Trist han er pedo

2,5

Rating: GOAT/10

electric album, such a iconic album with songs that are truly timeless. mj's broad range is really on display throughout this whole album.

I didn’t really like it in the 80s either.

Not bad at all

Amazing!

I look forward to the day I get Thriller. I said before that I really really like Off The Wall, but this album is pretty close. Undoubtably the weakest of the first three MJ albums but that's more a testament to how good the music this man was making. The weakest parts of this album are solid 7/10 songs surrounded by a selection of some insanely well produced pop juggernauts. With a minor lull in the middle this album is otherwise excellent. Man in the Mirror, Dirty Diana, Leave me Alone and of course The Way You Make Me Feel and Smooth Criminal. Once again you've probably heard every song on this album somewhere in your life but all together they present an incredible collection of some of the best pop ever made. Best Song(s): Man in the Mirror, Dirty Diana, Leave Me Alone, The Way You Make Me Feel and Smooth Criminal. Worst Song(s): N/A Rank compared to everything else so far: 15/89 (above Pink Moon, below Blood on the Tracks)

It’s not ok to like MJ anymore is it…. Still, some amazing pop on here…

Wonderful album by an incredible artist. Knowing about his personal life makes it hard to separate the music from the artist.

Great album, but not Mike’s best imo. Still plenty of bangers

I could write an entire dissertation about how good, influential, impactful, etc. this album is, but that’s been done. Let me just say: Ow! Heehee! Whoo! On a perfect album packed from front to back with god tier songs, Dirty Diana and Man in the Mirror rise even above that (whatever level that would be). This is what I would give aliens to show them Earth/humans.

This is not the best Jackson album.

Bad is bad, it's a silly goofball song that belongs in a Broadway musical comedy. And the hair-metal adjacent gestures elsewhere (e.g., Dirty Diana) are pretty lame. There's some great pop tunes elsewhere "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Man in the Mirror" but the overall aspect to me is a pop album written by committee. I was actually surprised to find that he wrote all these songs, so credit to MJ for being such a master of every formula. 2.5/5 rounding down because of the silly tracks and because the best tunes are pretty cheesy.

This is a good album. It's a really good dance music album. But it's not magic the way that Off the Wall and Thriller were. I always see it as the beginning of the end for MJ. From the cosplay cover based on the cosplay video (he was right, the lace face would have been much more appropriate) to a few of the softer tracks that are trying too hard to be edgy, there is just an air of phoniness that looms over the entire project. The Way You Make Me Feel is tremendous, and Smooth Criminal is excellent, though it has a big job recovering the side from the maudlin mood of Man in the Mirror and I Just Can't Stop Loving You, or the posturing of Dirty Diana. Swapping Rod Temperton for Glen Ballard was like The Cardinals trading Steve Carlton for Rick Wise. This is by any measure a good album. Any measure other than the two albums that preceded it anyway. 3 stars

11 tracks, 8 of which were hits. And so many 80s synths, so good.

Never been a fan. But great album

Bangin album

I didn't especially enjoy this. It feels very much like his other albums.

Several all time great pop songs on here, as well as 2 or 3 stinkers. It doesn’t reach the heights of its predecessor, but it’s still pop greatness.

i got out from my comfort zone by listening to this

Brilliant follow up to Thriller, speed demon the only weak song. Brilliant pop music, not so much the person.

Some very good songs, but a lot of filler that sounds the same in between. Would be a 2 if it wasn't for the three big hits

This album has some of his greatest songs, in my opinion. Man In the Mirror, The Way You Make Me Feel, Smooth Criminal. So good!

Great album lots of hit songs.

Never been a fan but like Man In The mirror.

possibly had too high of expectations

Bad - Good 3/5 The Way You Make Me Feel - Feels good 3/5 Speed Demon - So good 3/5 Liberian Girl - Good album track 2/5 Just Good Friends (feat. Stevie Wonder) - Good album track II 2/5 Another Part of Me - Good album track III: this time it's personal 2/5 Man in the Mirror - My kinda cheese 3/5 I Just Can't Stop Loving You (feat. Siedah Garrett) - Okay cheese 2/5 Dirty Diana - Banger 4/5 Smooth Criminal - Hell yeah 5/5 Leave Me Alone - You damn right 4/5 Thoughts that come to mind: "I already know I like this record, too." "Peak Michael is so awesome." "Has anyone ever been as good at vocal improvisation than Michael ever? Feels like no." "Going to skip all the bonus stuff I have on my copy for this one, too. Except for Leave Me Alone because that song is a banger." "It so hard to listen to Michael and not try to dance. I'm sitting in my chair and just bobbing my head and moving my shoulders to the beat uncontrollably." "I am having a hard time comprehending that there are people out there that don't like this music." "Such a great finish to this one with the last 3 songs. Makes you want to just play it again."

Another MJ classic record. Still danceable but much edgier, self-aware, and daring.

More hits on this than I thought despite knowing bad is one of MJs most renown albums. Incredibly 80s, incredibly he he, and incredibly good for what it is. Not saving the entire thing but some new fun ones and happy to have listened to it.

El mero mero tirando un álbum bien calidoso Honestamente no es mi favorito de Michael, pero si bien es cierto tiene unas canciones de las más buenas de su repertorio, Bad, The Way You Make Me Feel, Man in The Mirror, Smooth Criminal y más Rock, pop y algo más combinado la verdad va muy de la mano con su personalidad y de donde viene tanta energía y fuerza Siento que de momento es un 3 pero si se escucha más y más crece en uno en definitiva Recomendable y reescuchable

Album title is a straight up lie Finally got a Michael Jackson album, and it did not disappoint. Title track starts off the album strong, and even though I don’t like it as much as some people, it’s still a great song and really sets the tone. Man in the Mirror is actually my pick for best song on this album; I love the sound and that key change hits so good. Lyrics are better than most of what you get in pop as well. Dirty Diana is catchy as hell, and continues to show how much range MJ has. Finally, Smooth Criminal is an absolute banger, I love that guitar riff and it’s just a beyond iconic song. Overall vocals are impeccable, and variety keeps the album interesting even through the non hits I do think there’s a couple of songs this one could do without; I’m not a huge Speed Demon fan, but I’m definitely just nitpicking. I think if the runtime was cut down to an even 40 mins this would be better Still, I can see how this guy became a mega star; he has an undeniable presence even without videos to back up his vocal performance, and very few artists are as capable of pushing out hits as him. I really don’t think we’ll ever get someone that has the same gravity he had

Bro was King of Pop for a reason

In a big case of separating the artist from the art, this is a solid album. A few songs were a little cheesy-80s, but there are a lot of great tracks

Not his best work but still has some great songs and some not so great.

Almost every song sounded familiar, but not quite as good as Billie Jean, Beat It, or Thriller.

He's the fucking king. There were a few songs I hadn't heard before and glad I did. Leave me alone and dirty Diana were great discoveries.

I mean, yeah. I think Smooth Criminal is one of his best tracks ever but doesn't quite hit the level of Thriller or Off the Wall. Still so good

Day1020 - give me a weird al album over any more michael jackson

Great classic tunes thx

Classic album, fav song is Bad

Some good singles and obv MJ is an icon (for better or worse) but the album for me just did not work. Maybe heard the songs too many times but a generic over produced pop album that doesn't seem to have the same MJ spunk as Thriller

Five years elapsed between Thriller and Bad. Five years in which Michael Jackson became arguably the most recognisable entertainer on the planet, acquired enormous wealth, endured unprecedented public scrutiny and established himself as a cultural phenomenon whose significance extended far beyond the records he made. Five years in which the popular music landscape changed considerably, particularly through the development of digital recording and synthesis. Five years in which his contemporary Prince produced an almost absurd quantity of inventive, provocative and occasionally quite extraordinary music. And this is what Jackson came back with? I approached Bad with considerable reluctance. In 1987, this was practically the antithesis of the music I was listening to, and my subsequent encounters with its singles had done little to encourage a reassessment. Nevertheless, I love Off the Wall, and Thriller contains some remarkable pop music. There was certainly no reason to assume I would find nothing worthwhile here. Indeed, a proper listen revealed considerably more musical intelligence in the arrangements than my memories suggested. Unfortunately, it also revealed a startling absence of artistic personality beneath the expensive surfaces. There’s a tremendous amount of money being mobilised here to say remarkably little. The first thing worth establishing is that Bad is an exceptionally accomplished recording. Bruce Swedien’s engineering is frequently superb, Quincy Jones’s production is meticulously assembled, and the musicianship is never less than professional. Its individual sounds can be enormous, but the arrangements themselves are often surprisingly skeletal. I had remembered these songs as densely packed productions, possibly because most of my encounters with them during the 1980s involved television and radio speakers. Listening carefully in stereo reveals a different picture: relatively few instrumental elements, each occupying a carefully defined position, with considerable space between them. This became apparent almost immediately on the title track. Beneath all the manufactured swagger is an arrangement drawing heavily upon the vocabulary of big-band jazz. The emphatic bass accents in the pre-chorus reminded me of Jimmy Smith’s recording of the theme from The Carpetbaggers, which I originally encountered as the theme to BBC television’s The Money Programme. The resemblance was particularly interesting because Smith himself turns up on Hammond organ. Once I knew he was there, his playing became unmistakable. There are wonderfully comic, almost bass-trombone-like figures punctuating the arrangement, while the brass stabs and repeated backing vocals in the closing choruses recall the short, emphatic ensemble riffs of swing bands. I even found myself thinking about the similarly paced backing vocals on Björk’s “There’s More to Life Than This”, which is a peculiar association to make between an enormously expensive American production and a recording that famously incorporates a performance in a nightclub toilet. The rhythmic construction is equally interesting. Instead of conventional hi-hat articulation, the drum programming employs odd, sharply defined digital pulses, sounds that make little attempt to resemble acoustic percussion. They’re deliberately unnaturalistic, and their mechanical precision provides a striking contrast with the jazz-derived instrumental vocabulary. Smith’s solo begins promisingly, although the pitch-shifted synthesisers that follow it are rather crass. And for all this ingenuity, the song itself feels slightly saggy. It lacks the effortless propulsion of the finest recordings on Off the Wall, where the bass, drums and other instruments seem to interact with an elasticity that makes the music almost impossible to sit still through. Here, the individual components are impressive, but they don’t generate the same physical momentum. That distinction between the sophistication of the arrangement and the pleasure of the music would become a persistent problem. “The Way You Make Me Feel” borrows some of the sonic characteristics of the Minneapolis sound, particularly its emphatically artificial snare, but places them within a loping shuffle that feels rather older and considerably less urgent. Jackson appears to be skipping down the street holding somebody’s hand. It’s a perfectly agreeable rhythmic gait, but a peculiar foundation for a song ostensibly consumed by sexual excitement. Jackson supplies his familiar assortment of gasps, hiccups and sweaty yelps, but the whole enterprise feels oddly hormoneless. The harmonic progression is dreadfully ordinary, and there’s very little sense of tension between the musical parts. The performance announces sexual desire without convincingly communicating it. He’s performing the outward symptoms of excitement over music that seems almost cheerfully innocent. This matters because Jackson was perfectly capable of communicating sensual pleasure. Off the Wall is full of it. There’s an abandon and an openness about his singing on that record which seems to arise naturally from the music. On Bad, those characteristic vocal gestures increasingly sound like additions to the production, a set of familiar devices employed to assure us that something exciting is happening. “Speed Demon” takes the technological experimentation considerably further. The Synclavier-derived palette of short, chopped-up sounds is fascinating, with little staccato fragments of noise assembled into a restless electronic arrangement. The artificiality is part of the song’s conception rather than an incidental production characteristic. Unfortunately, the song is a pile of tosh. A reported traffic ticket provides the inspiration for some peculiar fantasy of racing along freeways and heading towards a border. An incident may inspire a composition, but that doesn’t mean the resulting composition has anything worthwhile to say about the experience. Here, the elaborate digital percussion and synthetic effects are much more imaginative than the writing. Jackson yelps meaningless syllables while somebody drops a bag of spanners in the background. The technology is interesting, but the song seems barely worth the effort expended on it. “Liberian Girl” manages to introduce another kind of artificiality. It opens with a Swahili declaration of love, despite Liberia being in West Africa and Swahili belonging principally to East Africa. The choice struck me as exoticism for the hell of it, about as culturally specific as Toto’s “Africa”. The geographical mismatch isn’t inherently fatal to the song, but the language seems principally intended to supply a generalised impression of Africanness rather than illuminate anything about its subject. The lyrics are even less convincing. Jackson tells us that this woman has changed his life, apparently in a manner comparable to the movies. Which movies? Bambi? The Towering Inferno? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Eraserhead? The possibilities are considerably more entertaining than the song. The problem with “just like in the movies” is that the comparison does all the work the songwriter should have undertaken. It invokes a ready-made romantic sentiment without establishing the nature of the relationship, the character of the woman or the particular experience that makes this love extraordinary. We’re asked to recognise an enormous emotion without being given much reason to believe in it. “Just Good Friends” has an agreeable 808-like bounce, and the presence of Stevie Wonder ought to make it an event. Instead, it occupies much the same territory as “The Girl Is Mine”, with two enormously talented singers engaged in a lightly competitive romantic exchange. Wonder stretches remarkably little lyrical material through elaborate melisma, filling the space with considerable vocal technique but precious little substance. By this point, I was developing the distinct impression that a substantial proportion of the album’s lyrics were placeholders that had somehow survived into the final recordings. Musical lorem ipsum. Words selected because they fitted the required rhythmic and melodic spaces, rather than because anybody had anything particular to communicate. “Another Part of Me” came and went with scarcely any effect. Its origins in Captain EO make sense; it has the air of music accompanying the audience’s departure from a cinema, half listened to while people retrieve their coats. There are some attractive jazzy harmonic changes, but nothing about the song demands attention. Jackson turns up, does his recognisable Michael Jackson things, and departs. This was becoming a curious experience. The more closely I listened, the more I could identify interesting production and arranging choices. Yet the compositions themselves remained almost entirely unmoving. I wasn’t hearing incompetence. I was hearing extraordinarily competent music apparently lacking a compelling artistic purpose. The comparison I kept returning to was Prince. Both artists were operating at the highest levels of popular music in 1987, with access to sophisticated recording technology and enormous audiences. Yet their output could scarcely have represented more different artistic priorities. Sign o’ the Times, released earlier that year, was a sprawling, restless examination of sexuality, religion, social anxiety, absurdity, romantic awkwardness and human behaviour. Its opening track surveyed AIDS, drug addiction, teenage gang violence, the Challenger disaster and the peculiar contradictions of human ambition. Prince delivered those observations over an extraordinarily skeletal electronic arrangement, with a restraint that allowed the words themselves to establish their significance. “Starfish and Coffee” created an entire imaginative world through the apparently inconsequential details of a schoolgirl’s life. Her classmates, her teacher, her place in the queue, her favourite number and her extraordinary breakfast all gave her a recognisable personality. It was playful, affectionate and wonderfully peculiar. And there was “It”, with its brutal drum machine and almost absurdly economical arrangement, making a handful of words about sexual pleasure and transgression communicate an entire conflict between desire and morality. None of this required elaborate orchestration. It required imagination. “Hot Thing” was another useful point of comparison. Its arrangement is almost outrageously sparse, yet the groove is charged with sexual energy. “Housequake” is gloriously ridiculous, but every ridiculous decision seems to contribute to its personality. Prince’s electronic sounds don’t merely demonstrate technological possibilities; they express the particular way he imagines music. The comparison became even more pointed when I remembered the sheer quantity of music emerging from the Prince universe during the years between Thriller and Bad. There had been Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, Parade, Sign o’ the Times, and an astonishing quantity of associated projects, collaborations and unreleased material. In early 1988, while I was studying at Bretton Hall, I managed to acquire a vinyl bootleg of Prince’s Black Album, probably from somewhere in Camden. It made me rather popular. I remember people sitting in rapt attention as we listened to music that wasn’t supposed to have been released. The only comparison I can make is obtaining unreleased Beatles recordings while the Beatles themselves were still together. This was a world in which extraordinary musical creativity seemed to be occurring faster than its creator could release it. The records were sometimes provocative, sometimes ridiculous, occasionally uncomfortable and frequently brilliant, but they sounded as though somebody was pursuing ideas with genuine enthusiasm. That was the musical world I inhabited when Bad appeared. The comparison isn’t an exercise in retrospective cleverness. These records were contemporaneous, and the differences were apparent at the time. Nor is this an argument that pop music needs to be profound, politically engaged or lyrically sophisticated. I love records that communicate little beyond the pleasure of dancing, and Off the Wall itself is an excellent demonstration of how much can be expressed through rhythmic interaction, vocal character and sheer musical exuberance. The question is what an artist brings to the material. A simple song can be extraordinarily individual. A technologically elaborate one can be almost entirely anonymous. “Man in the Mirror” initially seemed to offer a welcome change. Written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett, it has a memorable chorus, a recognisable moral subject and an effective arrangement that builds towards a gospel climax. The sentiment is laudable. The narrator sees suffering, recognises his own tendency to look away and resolves that things must change. But change into what, exactly? The verses establish a legitimate problem, yet the chorus reduces its solution to the repeated demand for personal transformation. You’ve got to look at yourself. You’ve got to change. You’ve got to become something other than what you are, whatever that might be. There’s a potentially worthwhile argument about personal responsibility buried in the song, but it’s never developed beyond the broadest possible instruction to become a better person. The gospel choir and increasingly emphatic performance make the conclusion feel momentous, although the underlying idea has advanced remarkably little. The emotional certainty is enormous. The moral insight remains elusive. “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” provided a more convincing musical proposition. Here, at last, was a composition with some genuine melodic and harmonic sophistication. It’s a decent attempt at adult-oriented pop, reminiscent in places of the more mature romantic material on Off the Wall. The arrangement is awash with DX7-like synthesisers and orchestral bombast, and the song has something of the quality of a romantic number from a stage musical. There’s still relatively little emotional urgency, but the underlying composition is interesting enough to survive its extravagant presentation. Jackson sounds more comfortable singing a developed melody than trying to manufacture sexual excitement through his usual repertoire of vocal exclamations. “Dirty Diana”, meanwhile, returns to the album’s peculiar relationship with danger. Steve Stevens supplies the guitars, but his considerable musical personality seems underused, reduced largely to furnishing the necessary rock theatrics. Lyrically, the song is remarkably prissy. Diana is presented as a dangerous, sexually assertive woman, while Jackson occupies the position of the besieged innocent. The recording wants the excitement of sexual transgression while simultaneously maintaining a posture of moral disapproval. It’s all very theatrical, but the drama is strangely unconvincing. Prince would probably have involved bubble bath oil and several minutes of copulation before the first chorus. By this point, I was also becoming conscious of how many of the songs seemed to occupy positions analogous to established Thriller successes. A rock excursion, a celebrity duet, a spectacular dance number, a grand romantic ballad. The correspondences aren’t exact, but the record increasingly feels like an attempt to supply another collection of familiar Michael Jackson products. “Smooth Criminal” at least possesses a terrific instrumental hook. The clipped, insistent riff generates genuine rhythmic tension, and Jackson’s vocal delivery becomes an integral part of the arrangement. He uses words almost as percussion, breaking phrases into sharply attacked syllables and repeated rhythmic patterns. In this instance, his mannerisms have a recognisable structural purpose. The voice and the electronic instruments work according to the same rhythmic logic. The lyrics are another matter. The opening image of an intruder entering through a window accompanied by a “crescendo” is a particularly irritating example of words chosen for their dramatic sound rather than their precision. I have a longstanding objection to the casual misuse of crescendo, which describes an increase in volume rather than simply a loud or dramatic event. More broadly, the song describes an episode of violence without developing much perspective on what has happened. Annie is principally a name around which the repeated vocal phrases are constructed. The song works rhythmically, and there’s no obligation for a dramatic vignette to provide a profound narrative or moral argument. Nevertheless, I found myself asking the same question that had followed me through almost the entire album. Why? Why this story? Why this presentation? Why all this elaborate musical construction when the emotional or imaginative content so rarely justifies the effort? The question isn’t whether each recording can explain its existence in some philosophical sense. Music can justify itself simply by being exciting, pleasurable, beautiful, funny or strange. My frustration was that so much of Bad seemed determined to announce those qualities rather than actually communicate them. And then, at the end, came “Leave Me Alone”. Originally included as a CD-only bonus track, it turned out to be one of the most convincing recordings on the album. Suddenly Jackson sounds genuinely irritated. Something has got under his skin, and he wants to tell us about it. The vocal aggression feels motivated rather than manufactured. The rhythmic insistence reflects an identifiable emotional state, and there’s a lovely descending melodic figure through the pre-chorus. For once, the song’s purpose, its composition and its performance seem to belong together. It’s not a masterpiece. It doesn’t offer an extraordinary revelation about celebrity or privacy. But it sounds like a recording made by somebody who has something particular he wants to express. There’s a real person somewhere behind the curtain. And that makes the rest of the album’s shortcomings considerably more frustrating. The record spends most of its time cosplaying risk and danger whilst offering absolutely none. It presents streetwise aggression without menace, sexual excitement without hormones, romantic devotion without much evidence of an actual relationship, and moral seriousness without much substance. Its theatrical effects are immense, but the emotions beneath them are frequently unconvincing. There is genuine musical intelligence here. Jimmy Smith’s organ, the big-band figures, the elaborate digital programming, the occasional harmonic excursions and the rhythmic construction of “Smooth Criminal” all provided things worth hearing. But much of that inventiveness seems to have been employed in decorating songs that possess remarkably little individuality. The five-year gap between Thriller and Bad doesn’t establish that Jackson owed the world a more personal or adventurous record. Nor can I know what motivated every decision made during its development. But after hearing the results, I can’t escape the impression that the primary objective was to maintain the extraordinary commercial scale of the Michael Jackson enterprise. Off the Wall had something to prove, and it communicated its ambition through extraordinary musical pleasure. Thriller pursued global domination with a collection of songs distinctive enough to support that ambition. Bad feels like the maintenance of an established operation, with increasingly sophisticated technology supplying sounds that the compositions struggle to justify. There is a distinction between music that rewards attention and music that merely occupies it. I experienced that particularly sharply when, after finishing Bad, I returned to John Zorn’s Spy vs Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman using a better-quality recording than the one I’d heard previously. Greater clarity revealed more musical structure, more interaction and more intelligence, and the music became more powerful as a result. Close attention to Bad had often produced the opposite experience. The arrangements yielded interesting details, but the more closely I examined the songwriting, the less substance I found. I finished with a greater appreciation of the craftsmanship and a considerably lower opinion of the album itself. That’s the distinction that matters to me. I want music to reward the attention I give it. I want to hear choices that seem to matter to the people making them, whether they’re communicating desire, affection, irritation, absurdity, anger or simply the joy of playing together. For most of these forty-eight minutes, I heard an artist deploying the unmistakable signatures of Michael Jackson without giving me much sense of Michael Jackson himself. An extraordinary amount of skill, money and technology has gone into making this record, and I can appreciate much of that effort. But appreciation never developed into affection, and the occasional flashes of musical ingenuity were nowhere near enough to rescue the experience. Varnished vacuity. An extraordinarily accomplished production, and an album that left me overwhelmingly unmoved.

The key change in Man in the Mirror is one of the corniest things in all of pop music. Smooth Criminal is still a banger, though.

this album just reminds me of my grade 2 class. kids kept singing Bad for a term and a half. album's pretty good really, although Alien Ant Farm did it better. 3.55/5

#286/1001 🇺🇸 The follow up to Thriller should perhaps have been titled Filler. Late 80s FM radio was filled with the sound of this barrel being scraped. There are some genuinely great songs on here but it certainly didnt merit 9 of the tracks being released as singles. Best Tracks: Smooth Criminal, Liberian Girl, Man in the Mirror .

*Very high highs and some others songs that are OK. *The mid-tempo songs are not at all as good as the singles.

Aside from the bangers this album has, Another Part of Me is one of the bests imo!!!

No skips

Wow, I really haven't interacted with his stuff beyond the hits you often hear. This is such a fun piece of work. His energy is on 10 the entire time in such an impressive way. Looking forward to more of his work on this list (as I'm sure there will be)

Must we? Today we revisit a classic lagging indicator album -- the sales and media coverage remain extremely high, even after inspiration and creative genius have unmistakably exited the building. For a star of this magnitude, the general public takes a little time to catch up. Rhythm of the Saints also sold a lot of copies. Bad is the signature single here, and I just skipped to the next song about two thirds of the way through, because it became so tedious. The Way You Make Me Feel -- good song, deeply undermined by dated, lame late 80s production approach. Speed Demon -- very lame, boring song I made it only halfway through Liberian Girl -- a double helix of terrible ideas, between the awful, insipid approach in instrumentation and production and the cringy, exoticizing "African" flourishes. But does this analysis really cover how lame the lyrics are? Triple helix of terrible? Etc. Man In the Mirror seemed to me a mystery when it came out -- why are people buying this obviously lame effort? Why are we not noticing that this is terrible? It has a somewhat sturdy structure musically, so it kind sticks in the memory. But the sound! Terrible! Never mind that he failed to heed his own advice and start with the man in the mirror and make important changes. But for some reason, that never sticks to Michael J. Impeccably crafted slop. Bleh. Against all expectations, Leave Me Alone turns into an exercise in what Michael J does so well. Where was this for the preceding 44 minutes?

meh

I don't really understand why people think this album has stood the test of time. It seems very thin after the couple of hits. A lot of filler and a production style that seems very dated. It's also hard not to cringe at many of the lyrics.

I can't tell if I don't like these songs cus they're overplayed or I just don't like them. However without this album we wouldn't have both weird Al's fat AND alien ant farm's superior cover of smooth criminal

I somehow haven't listened to this album as a whole before but it plays really well. I feel like some of the songs don't fit too well as one cohesive project but there's no debate that this album is full of classic hits!

Beyond Man in the Morrow and Smooth Criminal all a bit boring. I expected to find some hidden gems but they were not there.

The title doesn't give this album enough credit, I'd say it's pretty good at least.

Just Good Friends is (smooth) criminally under listened to compared to the rest of the album.

Not bad at all, but Thriller is better

re contra sí.

ALBUNAZO VIEJO CIERREN LA PAGINA

Forever not doing this.

Some good songs but overall kinda corny

Classic MJ - a bit long for my taste m

Should have been Weird Al "Even Worse", that's 5 stars.

And they say you can’t judge an album by its name.

It's not Thriller or Off the Wall, it's still quite a behemoth of pop product, but it isn't wall to wall excellence like the previous two. Although a lot of the sounds were I guess experimental and out there at the time, they sound fairly dated now.