Little Michael does it again Bad is aggressively 80's, absurdly catchy and unfortunately, a tad underwhelming with only a FEW select songs. Michael is similar to James Cameron in that they are both extremely talented creators who surround themselves with equally competent staff and crew to help make their productions the most polished pieces they can make. This shine can obfuscate the flaws of a bad film in Cameron's case, but when you are dealing with something as segmented as an album it doesn't quite work. Some of these songs are not necessarily 'Bad', but stick out like a sore thumb while sitting next to some of the most genre defining tracks of the era. This shouldn't take away from how incredible the highs of this album are. It has nearly all of my favourite MJ tracks in one place, each of which lift to the equivalent of a 9/10, but prevent me from being able to say it is perfect album. I don't even know what to discuss about the things I liked in this album (I feel like it is all self-evident). Some of these songs are Michael operating at 100%. A lot of it is similarly in-your-face as Thriller. The amount of synth in this album feels like a very rich meal, where it is so plentiful that you will enjoy it at first but might be a little sick by the end if you don't have the stomach for it (I thankfully did). On top of having some of my favourite MJ tracks in songs like Bad, Smooth Criminal and Dirty Diana (those starfuckers got a crazy ass song after them huh) I feel like each of these work better as songs than Thriller does. Where these are all great songs with equally incredible music videos (the synchronised dance in Smooth Criminal goes unnecessarily hard) I always felt like there was a piece missing when you didn't experience Thriller with the music video included. I don't know what the fuck they were thinking with Speed Demon, I enjoy the instrumentals on this one but feel taken aback by the lyrics. A really dumb song even by pop music standards that feels like it was born from the brain trust of 'badass' Michael Jackson iconography (remember at the end of the Black or White music video where he is screaming in the rain then just animorphs into a panther?) Liberian Girl is a similar situation, where parts of the song individually are really fucking good but I can't see myself wanting to listen to it. Another case where it would be better as just an instrumental track. The backup singers towards the end salvage it a little bit too.