It's funny how some records age, given the sort of music they capture and the time period in which they were made. Some albums wear their age very well and easily slide into a “classic” categorization (the catalogues of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin all immediately leap to mind), but others just have difficulty feeling as though they could have been recorded yesterday or twenty-five years ago. Michael Jackson's seventh album, Bad, falls squarely into the latter category; while 1979's Off The Wall and 1982's tour de force Thriller both easily wear the “classic” mantle (even that odd-ball guitar solo supplied to “Beat It” by Eddie Van Halen has aged passably well, in its own way), Bad sits more out of place and out of time than any other record in Jackson's catalogue. Some critics have justified the sense of awkwardness about Bad as being because it is Jackson's “coming of age” record (after Thriller, Jackson had the world on a platter – but the amount of time it took for a follow-up record to materialize left a lot for the singer to answer for) and that at least sort of suits, but it could also be argued (and in listening to the record, this feels more likely), Bad is the work of a musician trying to rebel against something; what it's rebelling against is a little unclear (Jackson changed his image and lost several to the staples in his sound for this record), but the spirit of rebellion – or at least the desire to rebel, is unmistakable.
So what about rebellion, and is that possibility really little more than grasping at straws?
Well, let's really look at the possibility of rebellion being a driving force behind Bad. Usually in their teen years, children begin to try out different aesthetics and ideas because they want to see what they like and will fit them most comfortably. Some overtly rebel in style and aesthetic to unsettle their peers as well. Looking at Bad, it becomes apparent that Jackson both changed his aesthetic and went out of his way to unsettle his public image with this album. The singer had already severed his ties with Motown, but he pushed even further with Bad; the red leather jacket was replaced with the almost “fetish-identified” black leather outfit on the album cover here. Likewise, the poppier styling of “Billy Jean,” “Thriller” and “Beat It” segued into more “grown up” opinions and lyrical imagery; after “Bad” works the last cutesy bad-ass posturing out of the singer's system, Jackson leers lecherously at a “pretty baby with high heels on” in “The Way You Make Me Feel” before growing even more worldly in his taste with “Liberian Girl” and “Dirty Diana,” which stretch tentatively into “world pop” (“Liberian Girl” sounds a little like a karaoke-d interpretation of Madonna's “La Isla Bonita”) as well as revisiting the twilight hours of “Thriller” and painting groupies into the same frames the zombies of years gone by inhabited (“Dirty Diana”). Throughout every song on Bad, the 8-bit production standards which sounded urgent and cutting edge in 1987 end up sounding pretty anachronistic now, but the songs which don't rely so much on them (like the title track, “Smooth Criminal,” “The Way You Make Me Feel” and “Speed Demon,” most notably) all hold up reasonably well because they rely more on traditional instrumentation than timely technology.
Such discussion is all well and good, but it eventually wears a little thin. Like it as not, Bad was simply not Michael Jackson's finest work – in fact, it wasn't even close; so why would any fan shell out the dollars to get the deluxe edition of the set (which, by the way, comes in a pretty hilarious looking pleather box)? Two words: live performance. The DVD disc of a show captured at Wembley stadium in 1988 on te world tour in support of Bad is what makes the purchase of the Bad deluxe edition set worth it. Before a sold-out (and very, very excited) crowd, put on a show of the sort which has not really been seen yet in this century; this was a high-dollar production which included back-up dancers and glammy stage accoutrements and every kind of firework and frill one could imagine, but what really sets it apart is Jackson himself and the standard he set for the show. In this performance, Jackson proved that he was an entertainer without parallel as he faithfully reproduced all of his solo hits as well as a smattering of songs from the Jackson 5 catalogue, all without the crutches of playback audio or standin trickery/assistance. Here, songs from “Billy Jean” (yes – complete with Moonwalk moment) to “Thriller” to “Beat It” to “Smooth Criminal” to “Bad” all get faithfully worked through with not a note phoned in and not one dropped at the expense of a dance step. Looking at it now – with the knowledge of how much gets dubbed in for performers now, because they can't dance and sing at the same time – it becomes truly remarkable just how good a show Michael Jackson put on and just how pale so many of those acts who have followed him have been by comparison. This is remarkable; particularly with the knowledge that there was no added technology employed to carry it off in mind.
So is the reissue of Bad worth the expense? Yes it is – but not necessarily for the reasons that music fans would normally expect. As hindsight shows, the rebellious spirit of Bad didn't amount to much but, in this case, the added material – not the original album – is the thing to buy. The DVD in this set is the essential entry into Michael Jackson's legacy, and it is most certainly an excellent reason to seek out this set.
Artist:
www.michaeljackson.com/
www.myspace.com/michaeljackson
www.facebook.com/michaeljackson
www,twitter.com/michaeljackson
Album:
The twenty-fifth anniversary reissue of Bad by Michael Jackson is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
