Michael Jackson: Bad [EPIC]

Why you'll love it

Bad was the first album ever to send five singles to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100: "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror" and "Dirty Diana." It was Jackson's third and final record with Quincy Jones, and "Smooth Criminal" is on it too.

This edition

• Single LP, 10 tracks
• Epic pressing of the 1987 album
• Produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson

About the album

How do you follow the best-selling album of all time? If you're Michael Jackson, you take two years, write almost all of it yourself, toughen up your sound with fresh digital synths and a few hard-rock guitar stings, and come back in buckles and black leather. Bad arrived in August of 1987 to impossible expectations and promptly met most of them, which is a sentence that can be said about very few records in history.

The singles alone tell the story: "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Man in the Mirror," "Dirty Diana," "Smooth Criminal," the Siedah Garrett duet "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," and a Stevie Wonder cameo on "Just Good Friends" for good measure. It was Jackson's third and final collaboration with Quincy Jones, and the sound of the two of them pushing pop as far toward hard-edged funk as it would go without falling over. Put on "Smooth Criminal" and try to sit still. We'll wait.

Also at Kops: more Michael Jackson on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On Epic, a reissue of the 1987 album.