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Michael Jackson "Bad"

Nigel

Nigel

pfm Member
Did anyone watch Spike Lee's "Bad 25" documentary? Can't believe this album is a quarter of a century old. Great sound, still feels fresh, especially if you haven't heard it for a few years.
 
I watched it too, an interesting documentary, though I felt the non-involvement of Quincy Jones pretty much destroyed it. It was too long too, e.g, I really don't care where Justin f***ing Beaver was when he heard Jackson had croaked. I didn't realise Jimmy Smith played on the title track, so I learnt something too. I'd still argue Bad was the weakest of his three big albums, Off The Wall being the best by far IMO.

PS if buying this music on CD hunt down the original masterings as the remastered versions are pretty much ruined.
 
Tony L said:
Off The Wall being the best by far IMO.
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Indeed. Looking at previous years with knowledge we have gained since, can distort our recollections. He was absolutely sub zero cool after that album and you would have been hard pushed to find a better collaborator than Quincy.
 
Agreed,

1. Off the Wall
2. Thriller
3. Bad

Bad is the fifth best selling album of all time apparently.

Yes, I wondered why Q wasn't featured in the present as well.
 
I've been revisiting some old albums from Jackson along with Earth Wind & Fire and others.

These do rather make most current occupants of studio mastering suites sound highly amateurish - rather like giving your precious recording to a five year old and seeing what they come up with.

Massenberg's work with EWF in particular is superb.

I like Jackson's work. "Beat It" was a rather unfortunate choice of title though with the benefit of hindsight.
 
IIRC, "Bad" had Jimmy Smith on the title track - an inspiring choice.

His first 3 albums for CBS are still great listens and are fine examples of what mega budgets, no time limits and top producers and studios gets. The music industry will never support that kind of approach again.

That said, IMHO, the best thing MJ did was "Scream" - dead funky.
 
Go play Stevie Wonder's Innervisions if you haven't heard it for a while. It's so obvious where MJ's little characteristics were borrowed from.
 
Don't Stop regularly finds its way into my road trip mixes. I also drop it in to hard dance / rock / metal mixes to confuse the long hairs.
 
Am listening to the "Special edition", of BAD, it sounds ok to me. Tony is this the version you said to avoid ? It was released in 2001 I think.
 
spengenuk said:
Am listening to the "Special edition", of BAD, it sounds ok to me. Tony is this the version you said to avoid ? It was released in 2001 I think.
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The original issue is warmer and more dynamic, it's easily identifiable by the red splash top left of the sleeve. I'd strongly recommend hunting down black on silver label Epic original CDs of all three albums, they are lovely sounding things. The very recent anniversary edition of Bad is reputed to be truly horrible - I heard a short clip on Steve Hoffman's site and it sounded compressed to hell. Why they do this to such well mastered stuff is simply beyond me.
 
Hi,

I must check this out as I didn' see it on Sunday.

I prefer Off the wall to Thriller. Both are quality albums. Wasn't keen on Bad when it came out. I like it more now but it isn't his best work.

I'm more of a fan of his stuff from the 70s either solo or with the Jackson 5 or with the Jacksons.


Dean
 
Tony L said:
PS if buying this music on CD hunt down the original masterings as the remastered versions are pretty much ruined.
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I'm of the opinion that the Quincy Jones remasters are considered the best, they are for thriller and dangerous (IMO), I don't however have the Bad Quincy Jones mastered version but I am about to purchase it.

Perhaps i'll wait before firing the trigger.
 
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