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Prince's cover of BAD (1986) [still unreleased]

MJJExpert

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From Princevault.com:

"Bad is an unreleased cover version of the track by Michael Jackson, released as a single in 1987, and included on Jackson's album of the same name.

Prince's version was recorded sometime in late 1986. After Jackson sent it to him proposing they would record it as a duet together. Prince was invited to Jackson's house to talk about the collaboration. In a 1997 interview with Chris Rock Prince commented on it: “You run that video in your mind. The first line in that song is, “your butt is mine” so I was saying, ‘Who gonna sing that to whom? Because you sure ain’t singing it to me, and I sure ain’t singing it to you.’ So right there we got a problem.”


Susannah Melvoin recalls how Prince was actually sent the track – and he reworked it. “Michael wanted Prince to sing it with him. Prince couldn't believe Michael had the nerve to call it 'I'm Bad.' He was like, ‘There's nothing badass about him.’ He could not let Michael get away with it. Not only was he not going to sing it with him, he went into the studio and re-recorded it to what he thought it should be and sent it back to Michael. Like ‘No. And by the way, this is what it should be.’ That was the end of that. But that's how Prince was.”

Quincy Jones later claimed that Prince (politely) commented “You don’t need me to be on this, It’ll be a hit without me.'”

Prince's version of the track remains unreleased". Hope Prince Estate make a miracle! :punk:

Recording Sessions
Late 1986 Sunset Sound, Hollywood, CA, USA (assumed) Basic tracking
Recording Personnel
Prince - all vocals and instruments (assumed)
 
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MJJExpert;4298776 said:
From Princevault.com:

"Bad is an unreleased cover version of the track by Michael Jackson, released as a single in 1987, and included on Jackson's album of the same name.

Prince's version was recorded sometime in late 1986. After Jackson sent it to him proposing they would record it as a duet together. Prince was invited to Jackson's house to talk about the collaboration. In a 1997 interview with Chris Rock Prince commented on it: “You run that video in your mind. The first line in that song is, “your butt is mine” so I was saying, ‘Who gonna sing that to whom? Because you sure ain’t singing it to me, and I sure ain’t singing it to you.’ So right there we got a problem.”


Susannah Melvoin recalls how Prince was actually sent the track – and he reworked it. “Michael wanted Prince to sing it with him. Prince couldn't believe Michael had the nerve to call it 'I'm Bad.' He was like, ‘There's nothing badass about him.’ He could not let Michael get away with it. Not only was he not going to sing it with him, he went into the studio and re-recorded it to what he thought it should be and sent it back to Michael. Like ‘No. And by the way, this is what it should be.’ That was the end of that. But that's how Prince was.”

Quincy Jones later claimed that Prince (politely) commented “You don’t need me to be on this, It’ll be a hit without me.'”

Prince's version of the track remains unreleased". Hope Prince Estate make a miracle! :punk:

Recording Sessions
Late 1986 Sunset Sound, Hollywood, CA, USA (assumed) Basic tracking
Recording Personnel
Prince - all vocals and instruments (assumed)
Click to expand...

If this is true, this would be interesting to hear.
 
Not gonna lie, I have no interest in hearing this.

Beyond personally not being a Prince fan, I think it's insanely disrespectful that he'd say, "I'm not going to duet this song with you. Oh, by the way, HERE'S what it should actually sound like." Like, what the hell?
 
Prince never recorded his own version of the ‘BAD’ song.

Also, Susan Rogers (who was Prince’s sound engineer at that time) revealed that Prince confessed to her that he just did not do that stuff (referring to the ‘BAD’ duet song).

Additionally, Susan Rogers stated that Prince refused to duet on the ‘BAD’ song because he also thought at the time that the ‘BAD’ duet song (and its music video) was a way for Michael Jackson to make himself look better compared to Prince.

So, Prince turned down Michael Jackson’s offer to duet on the ‘BAD’ song for these two reasons, but instead he submitted his ‘Wouldn't You Love To Love Me?’ song for inclusion on the ‘BAD’ album.

But Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones turned down that Prince’s song which ended up on Taja Sevelle’s self-titled debut album which was released in 1987.
 
mj_frenzy;4298854 said:
Additionally, Susan Rogers stated that Prince refused to duet on the ‘BAD’ song because he also thought at the time that the ‘BAD’ duet song (and its music video) was a way for Michael Jackson to make himself look better compared to Prince.
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Bit of Prince's insecurity there, if true.

It's like declining to fight cause you know you'll lose the belt. haha
 
ChrisC;4298856 said:
Bit of Prince's insecurity there, if true.

It's like declining to fight cause you know you'll lose the belt. haha
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I love MJ but he tried to play prince and I happen to agree with prince here. This wouldn’t be a fair fight. MJ wrote and composed the song and he came up with the concept of the music video and prince would have merely sung the lines MJ wrote and in the video he would not be able to play his guitar or so anything other than having a dance off with MJ (which MJ would have won). I don’t think anyone in their right mind would have said yes to such a collaboration if they were in prince’s shoes.
 
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Themidwestcowboy;4298860 said:
I love MJ but he tried to play prince and I happen to agree with prince here. This wouldn’t be a fair fight. MJ wrote and composed the song and he came up with the concept of the music video and prince would have merely sung the lines MJ wrote and in the video he would not be able to play his guitar or so anything other than having a dance off with MJ (which MJ would have won). I don’t think anyone in their right mind would have said yes to such a collaboration if they were in prince’s shoes.
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Why would Prince not be allowed to play?
 
You know i never thought about that. I guess Prince was right. i mean he was right about the song being a hit without him. but also he could have did the song first then do the short film with him.

but in my opinion that duet would have been awesome at the time. :D
 
He was right? Sorry, wait, did MJ send him the song and insist on absolutely no creative input whatsoever from Prince? I had no idea about that. I'm not surprised he said no then.
 
oh wow. did he? well if that's true i guess we shouldn't be discussion this because he didn't want to do it. mostly because he didn't like the lines.
 
Why is everyone getting worked up about a second hand story? We don’t even know if that mysterious version exists at all.
 
I doubt this to be honest. One reason to consider is that it would be the perfect time for the Prince estate to release his version of Bad on the Sign O The Times reissue coming at the end of the year, the amount of unreleased tracks, worked on around 86/87, on there is huge and there is no sign of Bad.
Plus could you imagine the hype that would generate them for their project, Prince reworks a Michael Jackson classic
 
We don't know in what state the "Bad" song was when Michael presented it to Prince. It could have been very rough, so with room left for creative collaboration.

If they had done the song together, the concept for the VIDEO probably would have been a lot (if not completely) different. The Martin Scorsese short film as we know it, likely got developed after the song was finished / it was picked for the album / Prince had long refused the duet.

Prince said in one of his interviews about the Wesley Snipes character: "That would have been me". But I think that's just his simplified hindsight theory of how he possibly could have ended up being the bad guy / loser of a battle in a duet video. It doesn't mean the concept for the short film existed at the time Prince refused the duet, or that he ever knew about it before seeing it on TV.


SmoothCriminal1995 said:
I doubt this to be honest. One reason to consider is that it would be the perfect time for the Prince estate to release his version of Bad on the Sign O The Times reissue coming at the end of the year, the amount of unreleased tracks, worked on around 86/87, on there is huge and there is no sign of Bad.
Plus could you imagine the hype that would generate them for their project, Prince reworks a Michael Jackson classic
Click to expand...

If it exists, what if it's rather disrespectful and was only ever meant for Michael to hear, like some sort of creative prank. :D
 
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ChrisC said:
He was right? Sorry, wait, did MJ send him the song and insist on absolutely no creative input whatsoever from Prince? I had no idea about that. I'm not surprised he said no then.
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It is true. MJ had already written the entire song and prince was just merely going to sing the lines. I can't find the quote but Prince allegedly even said that he must be out of his mind if he thinks Prince was going to agree to that. The same thing happened with I Just Can't Stop Loving You and The Girl Is Mine etc.
 
I think it’s always worth to consider when something was said. Human memory is fallible, people tend to fill in blanks with information from third parties. The function of memory is to have a working model of the past, not necessarily an exact copy of actual events.
 
Prince "played" BAD live for sure
(interpolated covering James Brown's COLD SWEAT).

First and last live appearance:
31 August 1988 (a.m.): Große Freiheit '36, Hamburg, (West) Germany (a few mockingly hummed bars only)
7 November 1988 (a.m.)|: The Palace, Hollywood, CA, USA, (aborted)
source: http://www.princevault.com/index.php?title=Bad

Due to Prince giant music production in the years, it is therefore completely probable he has recorded a Bad demo, even for joke or - as I assume - for the sheer pleasure to experiment something new.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Not gonna lie, I have no interest in hearing this.

Beyond personally not being a Prince fan, I think it's insanely disrespectful that he'd say, "I'm not going to duet this song with you. Oh, by the way, HERE'S what it should actually sound like." Like, what the hell?
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I have ZERO interest in hearing it as well, IF it exists, as I am NOT a Prince fan, at ALL. I have actually heard this story before and I'm not sure how much truth there is to it. It sounds like fictional drama for P.R. purposes.
 
Themidwestcowboy said:
It is true. MJ had already written the entire song and prince was just merely going to sing the lines. I can't find the quote but Prince allegedly even said that he must be out of his mind if he thinks Prince was going to agree to that. The same thing happened with I Just Can't Stop Loving You and The Girl Is Mine etc.
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To be honest that sounds more like Prince covering for the fact that he was insecure about it haha

The Girl Is Mine is markedly different in the finished version compared to Michael's demo (in that the finished version is not as good) so I don't quite get the comparison.
 
Instead of proposing the song "bad" to Prince, both MJ & Prince should have worked together on a new song from scratch.
 
ChrisC said:
To be honest that sounds more like Prince covering for the fact that he was insecure about it haha

The Girl Is Mine is markedly different in the finished version compared to Michael's demo (in that the finished version is not as good) so I don't quite get the comparison.
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I don't think this has anything to do about insecurities but just common sense. You have to remember that these two were put up against each other and like it or not they had a rivalry going on. The right thing to do would to have a song and a music video written by the both of them. Do you think Michael would ever accept such a thing if it was the other way around?

Ok maybe The Girl Is Mine isn't a good example but IJCSLY is.
 
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