MJ’s Bad: 30 Years Ago the King of Pop Hit His Prime ... so Why Is That Album Underrated?

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By Matthew Allen - http://www.theroot.com/michael-jackson-s-bad-30-years-ago-the-king-of-pop-hit-1797835413

What does it mean to be in your prime? Whether you’re an athlete or an artist, it’s that window of time when all your best attributes and virtues are at the same level. When you’re young, your raw talent and physical ability supersede your intelligence and lack of experience. Over time, said experience gets applied to your growing physical prowess, fine-tuning your intuition. You reach a zenith when your intellect, intuition, physicality and ambition all come together and you produce your greatest results.

The late Michael Jackson had no shortage of skill sets. His ability to sing, write, compose, produce, dance and perform, along with acute business acumen, led him to become the biggest-selling artist in music history.

While he was considered wise beyond his years as the wunderkind front man of the Jackson 5 starting in 1969, no one could foresee the heights that he would reach with his adult solo efforts—first 1979’s Off the Wall and later 1982’s Thriller. With the latter becoming the all-time biggest-selling album (an estimated 65 million copies worldwide, 30 million in the U.S.), you’d think that Jackson had reached his peak at that point, especially in hindsight.

Upon more thoughtful examination, however, his prime began on Aug. 31, 1987, when he released his album Bad, beginning a three-year span in which his vocals, songwriting, producing, performing and video output were just as good as the next. Problem is, this is an unpopular opinion. Although there is much evidence to support this view, there are also numerous reasons that it isn’t shared by the general public.

It started with a challenge from Quincy Jones. “This is the one where I’d asked him to write all the tunes,” Jones stated in an interview released for Bad’s 1999 reissue. On Off the Wall and Thriller, Jackson had contributed three and four songs respectively. While his songwriting was already unique and evolved—evident in his work on the Jacksons’ concurrent albums Destiny and Triumph—Jackson admitted in a 2007 interview with Ebony magazine that he and writer Rod Temperton had a “friendly competition” when it came to composing.

Temperton was a crucial member of the Jackson-Jones partnership. His six compositions on the two albums, including “Off the Wall,” “Rock With You,” “Thriller” and “Lady in My Life,” were among the strongest of Jackson’s catalog, and in addition to contributions from the likes of David Foster, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, they undoubtedly drove M.J. to craft more complex and sophisticated songs, like “Workin’ Day and Night,” “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.”

Jackson would not have the luxury of measuring his songs against those for the Bad sessions. However, he was more than up to the challenge, choosing to compare himself with himself. Not only did he craft more than 65 original songs over the course of two years, but they were also more advanced than his prior production efforts.

During the early 1980s, Jackson began to branch out as a producer for other artists, most notably on Diana Ross’ “Muscles” and sister Rebbie’s “Centipede.” While they became hits, the production was sonically primitive, at best, in comparison with the professional sheen that Jones had. (For context, listen to M.J.’s Captain EO version of “Another Part of Me” and Quincy’s version that made it onto Bad.) For Bad, he set out to go toe-to-toe with his mentor. Their engineer, Bruce Swedien, was intensely impressed with the shape of the tapes that Jackson brought in to Jones, reflecting on it in Spike Lee’s documentary about Bad: “Other artists would’ve been perfectly happy to accept a Michael Jackson demo as a finished record.”

Jones wanted a “tough album” from Jackson to change his image and sound. He wanted Bad to have its own character, and felt that trying to compete with Thriller was “self-destructive and dishonest.” Jackson, ever the paradox, partially agreed. In his 1988 autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson described the difficulty of crafting Bad with Jones, due much to the public’s expectations: “You can always say, ‘Aw, forget Thriller,’ but no one ever will.”

On the flip side, however, M.J. constantly wrote out the number 100,000,000 in red Sharpie marker on the mirrors of this home to remind himself of the goal he intended for Bad’s sales. It was imperative for him to prove the world wrong again. He seemed to equate sales with public perception of greatness. Musical taste is subjective, but numbers don’t lie.

The material of the album is high-caliber Jackson. “It’s interesting for me to reflect on the Bad album, and I realize that I have more favorite songs on this album than on any other MJ albums,” Swedien stated in his book In the Studio With Michael Jackson.

Indeed, Jackson’s versatility as a songwriter was on full display, showcasing him at his most varied and imaginative. Writer Nelson George addressed the expansive nature of Bad’s song craft in his book Thriller: The Musical Life of Michael Jackson: “Of the three Quincy Jones-produced solo albums, Bad is usually overshadowed by Off the Wall and Thriller. Yet song for song, it’s probably the deepest of the Jones/Jackson trilogy.”

Bad doubled down on the edge that was established on Thriller, both in subject matter and in instrumental arrangement. There were brooding lead bass lines on “Bad,” “Speed Demon” and “Smooth Criminal”; the paranoia of “Billie Jean” grew to a fever pitch on the heavy metal opus “Dirty Diana”; and the rumormongering and celebrity claustrophobia hinted at in past songs like “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” were more fully realized in “Leave Me Alone,” a delicious groove that combines the 6:8 time signature and clavinet-driven funk of Stevie Wonder with the wall-of-sound backing-vocal overdubs of Marvin Gaye. The “sonic fantasy” of “Liberian Girl” also made for one of Jackson’s most singular and gorgeous creations.

Jackson’s vocals throughout the 11 tracks were more malleable and complex than people were used to. His pleasant high tenor, rich with vibrato and melisma, was confident and bountiful on tracks like “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Liberian Girl” and “Another Part of Me.” His more raspy, deeper, percussive tone on the title track, “Speed Demon” and “Smooth Criminal” illustrated his wish to make his voice a literal instrument in Jones’ arsenal. The understated staccato and diction in “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and the gospel fervor and reverb of “Man in the Mirror” offered proof that Jackson’s emoting chops were on par with the likes of Gaye and Barbra Streisand.

The Bad campaign was unprecedented for its time. A CBS television special showcased the world premiere of the “Bad” short film—an 18-minute Martin Scorsese-directed piece that found Jackson addressing social ills of the black community in a way no one saw coming. Only a month later came the launch of a world tour that would stretch from September 1987 to January 1989. Jackson sold out shows on six continents; incited, by his own account, nearly 5,000 faints per gig; and earned $1 million every time he stepped onstage.

The electric majesty of his presence, the power in his vocals while he was summoning every atom of energy for his dancing, were simply incomparable. The succeeding videos for Bad were among his most celebrated, including “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Another Part of Me” and “Dirty Diana.” His dynamic opening medley at the 1988 Grammy Awards of “The Way You Make Me Feel” and “Man in the Mirror” is among the most definitive television moments of his career, which is notable, considering the iconic moments he’s given to the small screen over the years. His film Moonwalker, which premiered video treatments of “Speed Demon,” “Leave Me Alone” (which won a Grammy for best video in 1989) and “Smooth Criminal,” prompted a popular arcade game of the same name all over the country.

When the dust settled, his seventh solo album had sold 10 million copies domestically to date and yielded five No. 1 singles on the Billboard 100 (“I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Bad,” “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Man in the Mirror” and “Dirty Diana”), a record that has yet to be broken (although Katy Perry tied the record with her 2015 Teenage Dream album).

So why does Bad get a bad rap? Here are three main theories:

1. The Shadow of Thriller

Following up the biggest-selling album ever was a tall order, and anything other than a duplication of unit movements and awards would automatically list Bad as a failure. But let’s be completely clear. As far as commercial success was concerned, Jackson was deceptively consistent. Because Thriller sold so many albums, it’s easy to perpetuate the narrative that every album thereafter was a disappointment. Quite the contrary. Thriller is the anomaly that proves the argument.

With the exception of the 1982 blockbuster, all of Jackson’s albums from 1979 to 1995 (Off the Wall, Bad, Dangerous and HIStory) sold in the 7- to 10-million range. If Thriller had had sales of 12 million to 15 million rather than 30 million nationwide, Bad would not have been seen as the disappointment that it was in the press. Thriller came at a miraculous intersection of cross-discipline synergy: seven top 10 singles, music-video innovation (“Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and “Thriller”), Motown 25, the Victory Tour, a breakthrough marketing campaign. Since these occurrences constantly extended the album’s shelf life, it’s unfair to hold that against Bad. The campaign for Bad improved on all the aforementioned factors—consumer marketing, music videos, tour, TV specials—but what it lacked was the element of surprise that Thriller had.

2. Attack of the Media

Michael Jackson felt that being an elusive being would feed into his mystique. However, his eccentricities and growing rumors about his lifestyle—sleeping in an oxygen chamber, purchasing the Elephant Man’s bones, traveling with a pet chimp—along with M.J. fatigue from the Thriller era, were beginning to negatively affect the media’s perception of him.

Quincy Jones felt that Jackson’s eccentricities fueled his creative process and couldn’t understand why people were being so “myopic” about them: “It’s like saying there’s a cobweb in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.” Major media outlets could scarcely hide their disdain. “This shift in public perception had a huge impact on the way Bad was perceived,” wrote Joe Vogel, author of Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson. “Many critics and consumers simply couldn’t separate the music from the new image and sensational stories.”

Although Rolling Stone magazine gave the album itself four out of five stars, its polls rated Bad and Jackson as “Worst Album,” “Worst Male Singer,” Worst Dressed Artist” and “Most Unwelcome Comeback” of 1987. People magazine’s September cover story headline read, “Michael Jackson: He’s Back. He’s Bad. Is This Guy Weird, or What?” CBS anchor Ron Powers cynically referred to the Bad rollout as “media silliness” and a “festival of foolishness.”

3. The Skin He’s In

Most distressing was the drastic change in his appearance since Thriller, due to his lighter skin tone and plastic surgery. Because of his reclusive nature, and delay in disclosing his diagnosis of vitiligo to the public (via a 1993 live ABC interview with Oprah Winfrey), the alterations seemed far more dramatic to the general public, and the black community especially felt that he was turning his back on them. Accusations of skin bleaching and selling out became relentless.

That September, Village Voice writer Greg Tate summed up many people’s state of mind in his scathing piece on Jackson and Bad following its release, entitled, “I’m White! What’s Wrong With Michael Jackson.” In it he cited his disdain for Jackson’s new look, calling it “self-hatred” and “self-mutilation,” and characterized a negative review of the album as divine retribution: “Proof that God don’t like ugly, the title of Michael’s new LP, Bad ... accurately describes the contents in standard English.” Ouch.

Although M.J. truly had little control over his pigment-destroying disorder, to be fair, his tendency to push duality found him attempting to have it both ways: reassure others of his blackness with the imagery and nuanced sounds of Bad while also making himself a neutral symbol of global acceptance. “More than David Bowie, or Prince, Jackson became the most famous symbol of androgyny,” Vogel wrote. “It made him increasingly impossible to define—or claim—by any group.”

Perhaps some critics felt this was the only way to restore some of the darkness in his skin tone: by dropping trou and metaphorically wiping their backsides with Jackson and his album. However, had they been listening closely enough, and without prejudice, they would have noticed that although the melanin was leaving his skin, it was prevalent in his art more than ever. Elements of James Brown (“Bad,” “Speed Demon”) West Africa (“Liberian Girl”), gospel (“Man in the Mirror”) and groove-laden funk (“Leave Me Alone,” “Smooth Criminal”) ooze through the speakers all over the 11 tracks. And when he does heavy metal (“Dirty Diana”) and pop balladry (“I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”), he isn’t selling out but, rather, is reappropriating their origins in black innovation.

Final question: Can you call an album that sold over 35 million copies worldwide underrated? When debates about Michael Jackson’s best albums happen, only Off the Wall and Thriller come up. There lies the hidden and definitive contradiction that drove the artistry and ambition of post-Thriller M.J.: Half of the world expected too much from him, while the other half underestimated him. That’s how it was possible for the most popular musician in history to constantly have a chip on his shoulder. And 30 years after this album’s release, and eight years since Jackson’s passing, the whole world still has to answer right now: Who’s bad?
 
I really like this comment:

I wasn’t alive at the time so I never knew that Bad received poor reviews. It seems so weird, and clearly expose the media bias that existed (and still exists today). It’s why critics are often mocked, this makes me think of the movie The Shining which is now considered one of Stanley Kubrick best work and yet Kubrick won a razzie award for it. Critics are really unrelatable, they always have their own agenda and rarely give an untainted opinion. As for Bad I personnaly love that album, it’s even my favourite album. My friends at school also really like the bad era, they called it the best M.J. era. Although we’re technically 30 years late, it’s probably also why we’re unbiased. Thriller was a great album too but if we compare everything to Thriller then no one on earth is a success. With that logic we can say that: Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Madonna, the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie are all flops because none of them had a success that approached Triller.
 
Not sure if I'd call bad underrated.
Then again, I wasn't even alive for the release of Bad, so maybe it really was underrated and I just don't know. *shrugs*

I really like this comment:
Same (it really puts things in perspective).
It's messed up how he pretty set himself up to fail and doing so was unavoidable.
He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.
I mean, what was he supposed to do?
Retire after Thriller?
 
It shouldn't be as I just love it. Bad was the album that truly cemented my fandom and love for all things Michael Jackson. With Off the Wall as a child I knew he could sing, by Thriller I knew he could dance and was cool, but by Bad I saw his humanitarian side and the combination of a nice guy who could sing and dance like no one else on the planet was the straw that broke the camel's back and my Michaelmania was awoken!

Why is Bad under rated, rather than write long essays, I will get to the point of my opinions of why it is not as high as the other albums (Please let me stress, this is what I think of why it is under rated and not my personal opinion of Bad, which is that I think it is his best album of all time and my absolute favourite Michael Jackson album and probably my 2nd favourite album of all time - Clue the #1 was also released in 1987 by a funky black guy).

1. Some people at the time and Michael too, were expecting Thriller2 and what they got was something different, they got a perfect 1987 Michael Jackson album, not 1983 reborn.
2. It is shadowed by the biggest selling album of all time and an album considered the peak of his creativity.
3. Some seem to pick on Speed Demon and Just Good friends as fillers, when in reality they are not.
4. It was the first album in which he appeared to look more Caucasian that African American.
5. By 1987, the ridiculous gossip stories and tabloids were starting their prurient fascination with his private life and coining unkind monikers. It seemed now people were more interested in his nose, Bubbles, skin colour and a hyperbaric chamber than his music.
6. The fact it sold only 10 million copies in the USA and 30 million worldwide instead of the 100 million he wanted.
7. The fact it has been 5 long years and music had changed greatly. Plus by 1987, his new rival in the funky Black music stakes was Prince who had released 5 albums in the interim between Bad and Thriller and they had sold about 25 million copies between them. Madonna was another rival and she had sold some 30 million albums between 1983's Madonna and 1986's True Blue, and had some 10 big hits.
8. Other musical competition included his sister Janet, whose album Control had sold some 10 million units and Terence Trent DiArby and George Michael also selling big numbers in 1987.
9. In 1982, he was the only real titan in Black pop artists. Only Lionel Richie and Diana Ross came close, by 1987 he was competing with Richie, Prince, Janet, Whitney Houston, New Edition and newcomer Terence Trent D"Arby. People who were buying Bad, were probably buying those records too.
10. Although Bad's momentum would carry through into late 1989, most of those other artists had moved into other projects and not as successful as Michael, only Prince really remained as a true rival and fortunately many music fans supported both artists.
11. Starting in 1987, Prince would release commercial or critically regarded albums in the same year as Michael. In 1982, it was the breakthrough 1999, 1984 the year of Victory, saw Victory suffer as many potential fans flocked to Prince's Purple Rain. 1987 was the year of the opus - Sign o the Times, 1991 saw the commercial comeback Diamonds and Pearls, which had 2 Top 3 hits.(In fact Black or White supplanted Cream at the top of the charts) and 1995 saw the critically acclaimed and fan favourite the Gold Experience. Only 1997 saw nothing new from Prince, but 2001 saw Prince release the Jazzy dogmatic album the Rianbow children, which flopped terribly, but then again Invincible did not set the world on fire.

Even back in 1979, Prince's first breakthrough hit settled in 10 places behind Rock with you. The song I wanna be your lover got to #11, but spent 12 weeks in the Top 20 and sold a million copies, and already critics were comparing the singer of the song as Michael Jackson with bigger balls.

Sad but true, I love Bad and that will not change.
 
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I really wish MJ would have said something about his vitiligo during this time.
Exactly. When I first saw the album cover as a kid, I couldn't wrap my mind around both images being the same person. And even later, I still didn't know about the vitiligo until Blood on the Dance Floor came out...so I recall wondering what was going on with his appearance during the Dangerous and HIStory years. Michael said at one point, "What does my skin have to do with my singing or dancing?" My answer now would be something like this - "Nothing, but you've done this job long enough to know the power of perception. If you don't help people understand the changes you're going through, they won't."

Simply put, I think Michael wanted a degree of success from the public, without being accountable to them in terms of explanation. He seemed to think that because he refused to see the world in terms of color, gender, or national heritage, the rest of the world would simply fall in line. But most people simply aren't like that; we define ourselves and others by certain parameters. He spent at least a few years feeding some of those crazy stories to the press, and then refused to address either them or ones made up later by others. By the time he sat down with Barbara Walters in 1993, it was almost too late...and his foolish decision to settle with Evan Chandler cemented that part of his fate. The next 16 years would place him firmly on defense mode, constantly on edge and stressed to the max. In the end, Michael was still human like the rest of us...and we can only take so much pressure before breaking.
 
Thought Dangerous was his absolute peak overall. When you combine the artistic aspect with performance I believe he reached the greatest peak any performer ever has and I love Bad.
 
Yeah, no, sorry. Coming from someone who loves Bad more than Thriller, I'm not buying it. Bad isn't underrated. If you want to talk underrated Michael Jackson, you gotta wait a few more years then we can talk underrated.

The author doesn't exactly give much of an argument, many of the points he give just don't even seem relevant anymore. Yes, the Bad era was the time people started to see Michael Jackson as a weirdo but guess what? Most people nowadays can accept Michael was weird but still admit to respecting his music. Yes, maybe upon it's release and for a while after it lived in the shadow of Thriller, but the material on that album has no doubt pushed past that stigma and been able to stand on it's own two feet. I've been a fan for almost a decade now but I've never got the feeling that Thriller overshadowed Bad, to the point where people ignored Bad.

The album Bad contains some of Michael's most famous and loved songs. Period.

The term underrated has more so to do with how it's received, than how well known it is. A song like Tabloid Junkie for example is one that I'd argue isn't underrated. It was rated very highly not just by fans, but by critics too. It's rated very highly by those who know of it so the song is relatively unknown, but not underrated. However, I don't consider this a two way street. I still think when considering songs that are well loved, high sales/streaming numbers can still play a factor into considering how well something is loved because if it receives a lot of plays, then more often than not a lot of people consider it good, keep returning to it and thus appreciate it, right?

So just now I had a look at the total play counts for both albums. Off the Wall was just short of 160 million plays. Bad on the other hand, has more than 440 million plays. Would it really have that many plays if it was truly underrated? How many legacy albums can attest to the fact they have almost half a billion plays on Spotify? That's quite heavy for an album that old!

I see people all the time praising the material from that era, and it benefits from a very high exposure rate when it comes to the context of Michael Jackson. I just looked up 'best Michael Jackson songs' on Google.
-A Rolling Stone readers poll gave the Top 5 MJ songs, 3 were from Thriller (guess which lmao), another 2 from Bad.
-NME did a poll, of the Top 20 MJ songs 6 were from Bad. That's more than half the album! 5 were from Thriller, 3 from OTW.
-A poll by GRAMMYS.com had Billie Jean at #1 with 23% of the vote, MITM at 16%, TWYMMF at 13%, BoW at 9%, then DSTYGE/RwY at 6%.
-For a listing of Top Ten MJ songs on AXS.com, 4/10 were Bad songs - more than any album.
Now this is only 4 polls off the front page of Google (although the first 3 are big names in music), but as you can see Bad is very well represented when it comes to the more appreciated Michael Jackson music.

So we can see that Bad is not only very well respected by the general public, who evidently give it quite a heavy playcount, but the material on that album has a very good representation in polls relating to the ranking of Michael Jackson's music, often outranking other albums. Is Bad underrated? Not even close. It's very well appreciated by the general public.
Also, the author completely sucks with his dates. Bad was not reissued in 1999, and that Katy Perry album did not come out in 2015. It came out half a decade earlier in 2010, matching Michael Jackson's record in 2011.
 
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I really wish MJ would have said something about his vitiligo during this time.

Simply put, I think Michael wanted a degree of success from the public, without being accountable to them in terms of explanation. He seemed to think that because he refused to see the world in terms of color, gender, or national heritage, the rest of the world would simply fall in line. But most people simply aren't like that; we define ourselves and others by certain parameters. He spent at least a few years feeding some of those crazy stories to the press, and then refused to address either them or ones made up later by others.

Yeah I definitely see both of your opinions to this. I always find it conflicting because I think it would've helped his case a lot more if he was just open with the public and spoke somewhat openly about it. But on the other hand, it's his personal medical history so he has the right to keep it to himself. But then again on the other hand, everyone can see it right before their eyes so of course people are going to question it.

I wonder if would it have even helped public perception of him though? Many people didn't believe him in 1993, thinking he made up the condition. Maybe if he went into a bit more detail than he did in Oprah, just explaining how it made patches, so he used make up then the make up got too much so he did whatever to completely rid himself of the pigmentation.
 
Michael's talent was on its highest point during Bad and Dangerous. I can't understand how dumb people can be and think that Michael would turn his back on his own race. I'm not going to start about the other nonsense rumours, because it's ridiculous how people can believe such crap. Bad is WAY better than Thriller. Surely, Thriller is a gem, but Bad is the bigger gem.

I just wished Michael told everyone earlier about his disease, although I cannnot blame him that he wanted to keep his medical issues private. Michael is still the best of the best, the ultimate greatest of all time that no one ever would top.
 
It shouldn't be as I just love it. Bad was the album that truly cemented my fandom and love for all things Michael Jackson. With Off the Wall as a child I knew he could sing, by Thriller I knew he could dance and was cool, but by Bad I saw his humanitarian side and the combination of a nice guy who could sing and dance like no one else on the planet was the straw that broke the camel's back and my Michaelmania was awoken!

Why is Bad under rated, rather than write long essays, I will get to the point of my opinions of why it is not as high as the other albums (Please let me stress, this is what I think of why it is under rated and not my personal opinion of Bad, which is that I think it is his best album of all time and my absolute favourite Michael Jackson album and probably my 2nd favourite album of all time - Clue the #1 was also released in 1987 by a funky black guy).

1. Some people at the time and Michael too, were expecting Thriller2 and what they got was something different, they got a perfect 1987 Michael Jackson album, not 1983 reborn.
2. It is shadowed by the biggest selling album of all time and an album considered the peak of his creativity.
3. Some seem to pick on Speed Demon and Just Good friends as fillers, when in reality they are not.
4. It was the first album in which he appeared to look more Caucasian that African American.
5. By 1987, the ridiculous gossip stories and tabloids were starting their prurient fascination with his private life and coining unkind monikers. It seemed now people were more interested in his nose, Bubbles, skin colour and a hyperbaric chamber than his music.
6. The fact it sold only 10 million copies in the USA and 30 million worldwide instead of the 100 million he wanted.
7. The fact it has been 5 long years and music had changed greatly. Plus by 1987, his new rival in the funky Black music stakes was Prince who had released 5 albums in the interim between Bad and Thriller and they had sold about 25 million copies between them. Madonna was another rival and she had sold some 30 million albums between 1983's Madonna and 1986's True Blue, and had some 10 big hits.
8. Other musical competition included his sister Janet, whose album Control had sold some 10 million units and Terence Trent DiArby and George Michael also selling big numbers in 1987.
9. In 1982, he was the only real titan in Black pop artists. Only Lionel Richie and Diana Ross came close, by 1987 he was competing with Richie, Prince, Janet, Whitney Houston, New Edition and newcomer Terence Trent D"Arby. People who were buying Bad, were probably buying those records too.
10. Although Bad's momentum would carry through into late 1989, most of those other artists had moved into other projects and not as successful as Michael, only Prince really remained as a true rival and fortunately many music fans supported both artists.
11. Starting in 1987, Prince would release commercial or critically regarded albums in the same year as Michael. In 1982, it was the breakthrough 1999, 1984 the year of Victory, saw Victory suffer as many potential fans flocked to Prince's Purple Rain. 1987 was the year of the opus - Sign o the Times, 1991 saw the commercial comeback Diamonds and Pearls, which had 2 Top 3 hits.(In fact Black or White supplanted Cream at the top of the charts) and 1995 saw the critically acclaimed and fan favourite the Gold Experience. Only 1997 saw nothing new from Prince, but 2001 saw Prince release the Jazzy dogmatic album the Rianbow children, which flopped terribly, but then again Invincible did not set the world on fire.

Even back in 1979, Prince's first breakthrough hit settled in 10 places behind Rock with you. The song I wanna be your lover got to #11, but spent 12 weeks in the Top 20 and sold a million copies, and already critics were comparing the singer of the song as Michael Jackson with bigger balls.

Sad but true, I love Bad and that will not change.

You are ridiculous if you think the results of Bad has anything to do with Prince. Your post revolves more around Prince and his projects than it does about Bad.

And btw Bad isn't even underrated imo. Not buying that at all. It's one of his most popular albums to date
 
Yeah I definitely see both of your opinions to this. I always find it conflicting because I think it would've helped his case a lot more if he was just open with the public and spoke somewhat openly about it. But on the other hand, it's his personal medical history so he has the right to keep it to himself. But then again on the other hand, everyone can see it right before their eyes so of course people are going to question it.

I wonder if would it have even helped public perception of him though? Many people didn't believe him in 1993, thinking he made up the condition. Maybe if he went into a bit more detail than he did in Oprah, just explaining how it made patches, so he used make up then the make up got too much so he did whatever to completely rid himself of the pigmentation.
We'll never know, I suppose...but he never did completely rid himself of it. Jermaine wrote in his book, that he saw Michael with his shirt off around the time of the 2003 allegations...and he quoted it as looking like "a white man with a big coffee stain". Michael may have done something to his face, hands, and arms, but everything else was left alone. I think one report said it covered up to 75% of his body. You can see hints of it in some older pictures, where he's casual and his arms or neck are exposed. Even the glove from the Motown 25 performance is stained by brown makeup on the inside.
 
bad honestly wasn't underrated at all and in the late 80s that's all other performers ever strived to be or to try to match or try fathom the baddest of them all Michael joseph Jackson. The bad era was pinnacle when we think about it, Moonnwalker his film to accompany the album, was state of the art as it was the first reality film ever .thats probably why so many of us/public didn't actually understand it cause it was YEARS before its time plus he threw a sort of anime, in the creative mix also.

....lol think about what i just said and what you just realised too. well ,that in itself was GROUNDBREAKING.
plus we had a video game ... mostly everyone in the 80s was playing moonwalk.! , or knew about it we even had his autobiography . which was again , a special time -because it was when he opened up a little . so ,bad has a lot of legendary staus in the world of MJ in my opinion.

bad was the START of the most ground breaking art ,visuals, mystery and sound for M. In my opinion it was the whole package , awesomely marketed beyond belief cause it kept consumers wanting for more.

and I also agree with other comments here that it was dangerous when michael was truly at his peak.
 
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I agree. Sign O The Times sold only 1 million copies in the USA, and it was even more behind Bad worldwide. Let's not act like it was some sort of huge competition to Bad.

It actually sold 1.8 million copies on release and 3.5 million worldwide. Sign o the Times is a 5 million seller, not Bad league which I clearly stated, as Bad sold about 10 times as many albums in the states and the rest of the world. But Sign o the Times got more critical pundits than Bad. Bad delighted music fans, but Sign delighted the Critics and is seen as Prince's legacy regardless of sales. It still had 3 Top 10 hits, half of the Top 10s on Bad, both Another Part of Me and Leave me alone failed the Top 10. Bad had 5 number 1 smashes, but Smooth Criminal stalled at 8, APOM at 11 and I don't even think Leave me alone charted. U got the look was kept out of the Top spot by Bad in October 1987.

And also once again, you world class wrecking kru are attacking me or mentioning Prince again, yet you skip and gloss over the parts where I am praising Bad to the heavens, and the other reasons why it is considered under rated, such as his increasingly bizarre behaviour, lack of Thrillerability and competition from artists like George Michael, Madonna, U2, TTD and many others.

Prince deserved to be mentioned this time, as his career had really taken off between Thriller and Bad, and even Qunicy and Michael saw him as a threat and were put off by Prince suggesting Bad had homoerotic lines in it and that is why Prince ain't singing on it (The real reason was Prince knew it would be a huge hit withor without his involvement, also he was smarting from Michael turning down "Wouldn't you love 2 love me").
 
Michael's talent was on its highest point during Bad and Dangerous. I can't understand how dumb people can be and think that Michael would turn his back on his own race. I'm not going to start about the other nonsense rumours, because it's ridiculous how people can believe such crap. Bad is WAY better than Thriller. Surely, Thriller is a gem, but Bad is the bigger gem.

I just wished Michael told everyone earlier about his disease, although I cannnot blame him that he wanted to keep his medical issues private. Michael is still the best of the best, the ultimate greatest of all time that no one ever would top.

I can understand it, tbh.
His skin color and appearance was radically different/ Looking at the Thriller cover, vs the Bad cover, one could easily think he lightened his skin.
I understand his skin disorder was a private matter for him, but when you're that popular and live constantly in the public eye and make no comment about a major change in your look, it's easy to understand how rumors and assumptions can fly.
 
[And actually this is the irony in these type assessments of MJ's career that go on about how much his sales fell back after Thriller. Well, so did Prince's after Purple Rain. So did Bruce Springsteen's after Born in the U.S.A. So did Madonna's after Like a Virgin. Only MJ had a bigger success to fall from than any of those artists, so the media became preoccuppied with his supposed "fall", but ignored that his peers fell too. So to explain MJ's loss in popularity after Thriller with Prince doesn't seem right. If that was the case then Prince's sales would have risen while MJ's sunk, but that wasn't the case. Prince's sales dropped massively too.

In fact, if you want to talk about rivals, George Michael was a lot closer to MJ in popularity in the late 1980s than Prince.

This!!!! 100%!!!!

I don't know as much as the knowledgeable members here (I love all the insights tremendously!).

However, I was a child of the 80's and to me it was a magical time for music and music video. I'll always believe that Thriller was a revolution, way ahead of it's time, it set the bar for what could be achieved. That being said, it was BAD that I played non stop, that my Michael loving friends and I drooled over.

I think, hypothetically, if Bad of been first, it would have done exactly what Thriller did, it would have been the revolution. Thriller then would have been in the "shadow" (so to speak) of Bad.

Again, I don't know as much as you guys do, just my personal opinion and experiences from "living in the time".
 
BAD wasn't underated by music fans at the time. It was an absolute smash, despite the media and 'critics' attempts to destroy MJ's comeback.

You had to be there at the time but 5 #1's in the USA and a worldwide 'knock em out the park' world tour made MJ bigger than ever.

Yes, it would have sold many more millions across the world with the type of media 'love in' that the likes of the Beatles get (or even Prince got at that time), but that's the whole point.

Look at the numbers achieved! Look at the 'critics' rabid attempted 'take down' of MJ that really gained momentum at that time. Michael yet again had to fight against all the odds (and no little racism) to create history and an era remembered by all. Not for the last time, either.

The "critics preferred Prince"!? Who cares?? They can have him. The rest of us have the greatest artist that ever lived.
 
BAD was a smash hit all around the world. A hugely successful album with hugely successful singles, and a massively successful world tour. Huge endorsement deals, iconic music videos and costumes. I would say that BAD is probably more influential on today's pop culture that Thriller was. The problem was that it directly followed Thriller and didn't sell as many copies. The media played down this album as soon as it was clear it wouldnt' match Thriller's sales. Possibly sooner. Generally the media has said it was a let down, a flop, a failure. Slating MJ's appearance and (admittedly bizarre) antics. Over the years the media has pushed the agenda that MJ was done after Thriller. That he was somehow a flop later in his career. That Thriller contained his best work. YES Thriller was his biggest selling album - the biggest selling album in the world....ever! - but the statistics show that BAD, Dangerous and HIStory should be considered HUGELY successful global albums! I can see a case for Vince being considered a 'flop', but the others?? Not a chance.

If there's one MJ album that is consistently underrated by the general public I would say it is Dangerous...but that's a discussion for another day :)
 
I would say that BAD is probably more influential on today's pop culture that Thriller was.

Yeah! You remind me of a snippet from Bad 25, where Kanye West briefly discusses how while Thriller was more iconic, it was actually Bad that was more influential!
 
No matter what Michael did after Thriller, whatever records he broke.. Thriller always sadly eclipses it! It bothers me because he had great GREAT work after that album, to many there favorite album is BAD.. but the publicity always seems to fallow Thriller no matter what.

BAD on the other hand lives today in pop culture in a way that Thriller doesn't...
 
:) I do believe also that bad was the album that has influenc3d many of our artists today which is really something nice to think about.
 
More rewriting of history. The Victory album was never meant to sell big. MJ didn't even put any effort into it, he didn't even appear in videos. It was a side-project that he didn't put his heart into, most of the songs he didn't even contribute to. As for the tour, it was a massive success and was the highest grossing tour at the time, so what are you talking about?

Yes and this is the biggest deductive fallacy made if I ever saw one. His two premises is that Victory was released in 84 (the same year as Purple Rain) and that it suffered and comes to the conclusion that it "suffered" because of Purple rain lol. Not taking into consideration that Victory was a sideproject, was not promoted by Michael, he did not appear in any music videos, had no songs from victory on the victory tour and only had 2 songs with Michael on the lead and.

And also I put quotation marks around "suffered" since Victory actually is the most commercially successful project released by the Jacksons and the tour was the biggest tour of the time breaking records and selling out the Dodgers Stadium for 6 nights in a row.
 
I don't think Bad is that underrated. It has sold 35 million ww and is one of the most iconic albums in the history of popular music. Of course, it doesn't have the Thriller level success or legacy but Thriller was once in a lifetime album that no other album could have ever competed with. If you are looking for MJ's underrated works, look no further than Dangerous. Now that's a album that deserves some recognition from the general public despite it selling over 30 million. Shame on the estate for not doing a re-issue of that album on its 25th anniversary.
 
Today in 45 minutes WDR 4 (Radio) will celebarte one hour long Michaels Bad album.


http://www1.wdr.de/radio/wdr4/index.html

Legenden: Michael Jacksons "Bad"-Album wird 30

1982 hat sich Michael Jackson mit "Thriller" schon zum "König des Pop" gekrönt. Das Album hat die 80er geprägt, wie kein anderes. Für den Nachfolger hat er sich fünf Jahre Zeit gelassen.

R WDR 4 Legenden | Heute, 21.00 - 22.00 Uhr | WDR4 | mehr
Die Rekorde von "Thriller" konnte er zwar nicht einstellen, aber auch "Bad" wurde ein Meisterwerk: Jeder Song ein perfekt in Szene gesetzter Ohrwurm, luftig und elegant produziert von Quincy Jones. Fast alle Songs hatte Michael Jackson selbst geschrieben; fast alle waren auch als Single erfolgreich. Nach "Bad" gab es keinen Zweifel mehr: Michael Jackson war ein musikalisches Genie. Sein zunehmend bizarres Leben allerdings schien 1987 das Sprichwort zu bestätigen, dass Genie und Wahnsinn oft sehr nah beieinander liegen.

Just google-translate:

Legends: Michael Jackson's "Bad" album will be 30th

In 1982 Michael Jackson was crowned with "Thriller" as "King of Pop". The album has shaped the 80s, like no other. He has left five years for the successor.

R WDR 4 Legends Today, 21.00 - 22.00 hrs WDR4 | more
He could not set the records of "Thriller", but "Bad" also became a masterpiece: each song a perfectly tuned earworm, airy and elegantly produced by Quincy Jones. Almost all songs had been written by Michael Jackson himself; Almost all were also successful as single. After "Bad" there was no more doubt: Michael Jackson was a musical genius. His increasingly bizarre life, however, seemed to confirm the proverb in 1987 that genius and madness are often very close together.
 
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I think bad was underrated when it came out by, so called, music critics. Unfortunately, these same music critics are likely to praise each song nowadays mainly because back then they were more likely to let their own prejudice on MJ cloud their reviews.

Today though, the album is as highly regarded as Thriller was.

It's Michael's later work that is mostly overlooked. Everything after Bad, does not get the recognition it deserves, either by the Estate or the media
 
Another great German article about the BADs 30th annv. by news tv N-TV

Michael Jackson tanzt im Himmel
30 Jahre "Bad" - Schlecht klingt anders

Von Kai Butterweck - http://www.n-tv.de/leute/musik/30-Jahre-Bad-Schlecht-klingt-anders-article20008954.html

Its pretty interesting how they mentioned:

Until today "Bad" has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. Of such figures, these-day icons such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Co can only dream of. Ergo: All right, dear Michael. We wish you a great celebration on cloud 30!
 
Underratted? If Bad is underrated what can we say about his 2 studio albums from the '90's?
 
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