It's not Bad it's brilliant! (Bad - Michael Jackson)

Member Name: JacintaZoo

Product:	Bad - Michael Jackson
Date:	01/12/00 (291 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Diverse range of topics are sung about, fantastic melodies and vocals

Disadvantages: Not enough pictures of Michael in the album cover!

You know the song, you know the video. Even if you don't have the album you will have seen its cover.

This is one of the albums which established Michael as being the biggest selling artist of the 1980s. But we know that there was a lot of drivel which sold well during that decade, so does it justify all the praise?

The album opens with the title track, Bad. I will say now that it is extremely difficult to review a Michael Jackson album purely on it's musical merit, without being swayed by the vivid images of much-played videos depicting his electrifying dance.

The atmosphere builds as the song opens and we are met with the threat that "Your butt is mine, gonna tell you right, don't show your face in broad daylight". Clearly not a love song! Which is typical of Michael Jackson, because his albums tend to sway from the conventional luvvy-duvvy themes, as is evident from this song.

The song becomes a jazzy upbeat ode to cleaning up the streets and making the world "a better place". Call it a kind of righteous anger, for if you "don't like what I'm saying then won't you slap my face because I'm bad!"

If being bad is a good thing, or being good is a bad thing (he's getting me confused) - well this theme of being a tuff-guy nice-guy gangster is repeated in the video to the song Smooth Criminal, only taken back a few decades to the 1930's.

The 'video' itself is not really a video at all. It is a segment from Michael's film Moonwalker, hence the fact that it has little to do with what the song is actually about.

The song begins with the sound of a beating heart. This adds to the suspense... Who's is it? Michael's?

No. It is Annie's, and when the beating stops this is the last we ever hear of her. Michael sings in a low pitch which sets a gloomy tone which is most appropriate, for he goes on to tell us that Anni
e was "struck down, it was her doom".

Michael asks Annie repeatedly if she is 'ok'. Again and again he asks, with the tension building until he screams "So Annie are you ok, are you ok Annie?"

The tone changes completely and we are swept into Michael's high falsetto as he cries "Annie are you ok? Will you tell us that you're ok?" The passion and energy with which he sings, pleading with her to respond, is wholly compelling. He details the events as they happened, with her running into her apartment and being "struck by... Hit by a smooth criminal". This line is hammered in like a nail in her coffin for it is sung with such finality. Yet it is not the end. Again and again he asks if she is ok, until he is left pleading with her woefully until the song ends. Simply a brilliant composition.

Not so brilliant in my opinion is Another Part of Me, which is the album's weak point. It was one of the songs from Michael's 3D movie which was once played at Disneyland, called Captain EO. It is very much out of context unless you see the film. However, it's got a great melody and you can have fun trying to work out what it means.

Michael teams up with Stevie Wonder to sing the excellent Just Good Friends, and with Siedah Garret on I Just Can't Stop Loving You. (Note: the latter song has two different versions available, one with Michael's spoken-intro and one without.)

Siedah Garret also co-wrote (with Gien Ballard) the song Man in the Mirror, which is my personal all-time favourite Michael Jackson track. He sings about changing the world, and even though he employs an enrapturing gospel choir to help him sing this message, by no means is this Sunday morning mass. He's not here to preach. He's simply seeking to change that man in the mirror. However, he sings with such force, such zeal for the cause that it's hard not to feel you ought to be doing
the same.

For rock lovers there is Dirty Diana, a song about groupies. There's also (well it's got a guitar in it) Speed Demon, a song which is included in the soundtrack to Moonwalker. This song is about a guy speeding on his motorbike, and not really one to play in your car unless you want to get a speeding ticket!

Michael veered from the well-trodden track of creating an album full of love songs as well as he might. However, he entertains us on the pop-sounding song The Way You Make Me Feel. Here we have Michael singing his best pick-up lines and this song is punctuated with all of Michael's trademark "hee hee"s, "aaow"s and there's even an "acha-ooh" in there too!

He actually gets the girl on Liberian Girl. Since this album's release, it has been sampled, re-mixed and re-sampled by artists who have all been moved by the wonderful melody and amazing vocal performance which Michael gives.

It really is a fantastic song, which kinda fits in with the theme of this whole album. Fantastic. If I really do have to say anything harshly critical, that would be that the album was wrongly titled.

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