Michael Jackson – “Bad” (1987)

Rating: 9

Best Song: “Smooth Criminal”

Okay, I really feel kind of irrational about Bad. I’ve lived with this music for so long that it’s a bit odd to put on my analytical hat and attempt to listen to Thriller and Bad as albums, and not just music to sing or dance along to. It’s odd to the point where unexpectedly I found myself developing new impressions. And it’s now obvious to me that Bad is the best Michael Jackson album, although I do wind up giving them the same rating. I believe I can defend that statement too, unwittingly using the framework I established in my Thriller review. Thriller certainly looks imposing with its sales records and enormous singles and music videos. From a perspective of innovation, Bad consolidates the gains of Thriller much more than it improves upon it. The basic framework was set and Bad follows it dutifully, with a mixture of funk, R&B, and rock all glossed up by Quincy Jones production. But over 25 years later, I’m not really sure why I should care which of the two was more original. This is pure pop music with very little pretention. It’s ultimately about the hooks, melodies and rhythms. And in that regard, I find Bad a much more consistent album while the high points are just as high, despite being lesser-known.

Most crucially, the songwriting credits for Bad show Michael having written 9 of the 11 songs, as opposed to 3 of the 4 on Thriller. Now perhaps I’m being idealistic and more creative control isn’t inherently a good thing. But although there are always exceptions, I really believe in general that music has more power when the main songwriter is also the performer. It makes sense to me that Jackson would be able to invest himself more in a song that he wrote himself rather than one handed to him at a recording studio. And considering that the 3 best songs on Thriller were his, the latent potential existed for more.

I’ve always wondered why, although I feel nostalgia for all Michael Jackson music to some degree, I feel it more for Thriller than I do Off the Wall, and more for Bad than I do for Thriller when the usual critical consensus is that Thriller is #1, Off the Wall #2 and everything else basically disposable. Now I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize it, but it’s because what I really love is the Jackson style, which I see as most ingrained starting here. He had basically perfected his style with the 3 big singles on Thriller but those were only 3 songs. Here, I enjoy everything that he wrote. Although the production on Bad dates it to 1987 and he has an undoubtedly commercial approach, there is serious creativity and songwriting skill here. I’ve listened to early demos of some of his songs like “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and was struck by how in the demos of the song he writes himself, the rhythm and vocal arrangements are completely laid out as they are in the actual songs. The drum machine arrangements here are emblematic Jackson and immediately distinguish him from lesser pop artists. His singing style is slightly more rough and gritty than it was before – it may be coincidence but I’ve always thought that his voice sounded different after his apparent change in skin color. Indeed, though his roots are obviously in 'black' music, there could probably be entire books written about the ways in which his music eschewed coded racial identifiers during this period in order to sell more albums. And most importantly, just as with the best songs on Thriller, his songs are dense with hooks.

As an album, I feel Bad works better than Thriller too, with a nice flow and being about as diverse as Michael would ever get. Weirdly, it has an example of basically everything I dislike about Jackson when he’s at his worst – the megalomaniacal anthem (“Man in the Mirror”), sappy adult contemporary (“I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”), dorky ballads (“Liberian Girl”), and celebrity duets (“Just Good Friends”), but I actually like all of these songs. “Liberian Girl” feels like filler at first, but works by delaying the payoff of Jackson’s pleading bridge that closes the song. “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” could use a less cloying arrangement, but the melody and chorus are basically impeccable. “Man in the Mirror” is deservedly one of his best-known songs, and it’s actually great, showing that this kind of song can work if it has some power and build behind it. It would set an unfortunate template for his future career (the gospel choir would only work this one time), but here, I have no complaints. And it’s one of the two songs not written by Jackson! The closest to filler is “Just Good Friends,” his duet with Stevie Wonder, and fitting in with my theory, I have to think it’s because it was written by outside songwriters (seriously, you have two of the most successful pop songwriters of all time and neither one of them writes the song?). But it at least has some energy and is way better than “The Girl Is Mine.”

Bad also has examples of everything I like about Jackson, too, and in great variety. The title track is sort of dopey but still awesome, and given how his other celebrity duets turned out, perhaps it’s just as well that the rumors that he wanted Prince didn’t pan out. “The Way You Make Me Feel” is a swaying, romantic mid-tempo song much like track two on his previous two albums, and is my favorite example of these, beating out even “Rock With You” as one of my singalong favorites. “Dirty Diana” is clearly Michael’s attempt at mimicking “Beat It,” this time featuring Steve Stevens, guitarist for Billy Idol. Lyrically, it’s much more in the terrain of “Billie Jean,” being a misogynistic, paranoid song about a seductress who won’t leave him alone. As a Jackson aficionado, I still find these songs fascinating as they recur throughout his career (see “Dangerous” on the next album). They’re probably sexist, but more than that, just weird because of my feeling that they don’t reflect any sort of actual lived experience by Michael. But whatever, the vocal is legitimately tense and a sign of his evolution. Bad also closes much more strongly than Thriller, with one of his most iconic songs in “Smooth Criminal,” a perfect example of a singularly MJ song with an unforgettable rhythmic base and lots of anguished falsetto singing. The CD version also features a bonus track not on the original cassette version, “Leave Me Alone,” which is one of the most infectious songs here and features surprisingly complex multi-tracked vocal harmonies in the chorus.

Overall, I see Bad as where Michael (mostly) seized full creative control and consolidated the strengths of Thriller. Although he wasn’t able to really expand his musical horizons beyond Thriller, the fact that he contributed a much larger percentage of the songwriting makes Bad a more consistent and richer album. In my dream world, I still think that he could have made an even better album if not still somewhat shackled by the demands of trying to create huge album sales, but I nonetheless see Bad as just about the perfect mixture of his creativity and his commercial potency. Moving forward into the 90s, he would, if anything, put even more of his actual emotions into his albums (which wasn't necessarily always a good thing), but he would also pigeonhole himself by latching on to commercial trends that didn’t fit the actual music. The production on Bad may forever date it to 1987, but the songs themselves are timeless.