Michael Jackson’s Bad Turns 25 SOMETHING SPECIAL IS GOING ON

Bad was re-released yesterday!

The Times said on August 22, 2012:

• “Bad’s quarter-century milestone will be marked with due pomp. Jackson’s estate and Epic/Legacy Recordings are collaborating on a three-CD release (BAD25, out Sept. 18), which includes the remastered original album, plus an album of additional tracks, including demos and remixes, and a live album.

• The package also includes a DVD of never-before-seen concert footage—Jackson’s own review copy of a July 16, 1988 concert at Wembley Stadium.

• In addition, a Spike-Lee-helmed documentary about the album, the similarly-titled Bad25, will debut Aug. 31 at the Venice Film Festival. And starting this spring, Jackson has even found his way onto 1 billion Bad-themed Pepsi cans.

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/08/29/michael-jackson-bad/#an-oral-history-of-bad

Well, the mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceeding small. What was due to happen is happening at last – Michael Jackson is returning to us in his full glory and splendor.  

I am talking about Spike Lee’s film devoted to the 25^th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Bad album, the re-release of the album itself and the response both events are getting in the media and among the general public.

Frankly the most satisfaction I derive from it all is the expression on the faces of Tom Sneddon, Diane Dimond, Nancy Grace, Maureen Orth and their ilk which I can easily imagine at seeing Michael Jackson’s coming back at them in so formidable a way and from every direction they look in.

4650 votes as per September 18, 2012. Remember to sign it here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/662/053/218/support-of-affidavit-concerning-criminal-conduct-of-tom-sneddon-2005-michael-jackson-trial/?cid=FB_TAF_CIT 

Even if our petition against Sneddon (use the link on the right to sign, please) does not reach it primary goal of having Sneddon investigated for his malicious prosecution of MJ, Sneddon and his media girlfriends are nevertheless doomed now to a torture of seeing the giant figure of Michael Jackson rising on the horizon and approaching them in gigantic steps.

And this is no longer Wacko Jacko they used to squeak about before, but “Michael Jackson, the most influential artist of the 20th century”, whose music is “the power that was misunderstood” and whose life-story is now called “the engrossing life of a creative genius”.

The shift in the media and public opinion is so amazing and so relatively quick (in comparison with the two long decades of his trashing) that this change alone deserves to be recorded as another landmark event on the road to Michael Jackson’s place in eternity.

For me both the media and ordinary people’s reactions to the new film and album are equally important as they mark the trend, which does look very encouraging.

The Bad 25th anniversary album is to be released today, so I decided to make a collection of articles to mark the occasion, including readers’ comments which are no less remarkable than the journalists’ articles. What I like about these comments is the readers’ quiet confidence that things are on the right track again, and the superb way they correct the journalists’ ignorance about Jackson. This is the only right way to talk to the media these days!

Here is general information about Bad and its new version from the root.com:

It’s now been a quarter century since Michael Jackson released 1987’s Bad, the follow-up to the tough act (and international event) known as Thriller. At the time, the album was judged harshly against the monumental achievements of its predecessor; now, with hindsight, it is clear that Bad also earned its fair share of accolades and milestones.

Fans can get a chance to revisit the songs when the album gets a special re-release on Sept. 18. (The deluxe edition includes a Bad-themed case (complete with buckles), three CDs and a concert DVD, an exclusive T-shirt design and a “Bad Tour souvenir package.”)

The Times spoke to the people who worked on the original album. The list includes:

Greg Phillinganes, a musician who worked on the record and music-directed the Bad tour

Matt Forger, a music engineer and producer who worked on Bad

Spike Lee, who directed Bad25 as well as Jackson’s short film for the song “They Don’t Care About Us”

John Branca, Jackson’s lawyer and co-executor of his estate.

Bad was crafted at Westlake Studio in Los Angeles and at Michael Jackson’s personal studio, Hayvenhurst.  The formal recording process began at Westlake on Jan. 5, 1987.

• Forger: At that time he was reserved, he was rather quiet, but at the same time extremely focused. He knew everything that had to happen in a song. He was very directed, very in tune with where all the parts musically needed to be. He was very professional, very well-prepared.

• Phillinganes: By the time we were working on Bad, Mike’s ideas became stronger and clear.

• Lee: When it came to work, he was a perfectionist. He had a tremendous work ethic. He’s not going to say, “I’m tired,” he’s not going to say anything. Until it’s done, he’s like, “Let’s go, let’s get it done, let’s do the best we can, let’s not cut any corners.” Whether it’s creatively or financially, he was not cutting any corners.

• Phillinganes: And during some downtime in the studio—there was a technical problem so we couldn’t go on until that was sorted out—Mike was getting restless and he asked me if I felt like going across the street to do a little shopping. What was across the street was a major, major, huge shopping mall called the BeverlyCenter. He puts on this wig and dark sunglasses and crooked teeth and we come out of the studio, just the two of us, no security no cops nobody, on La Cienega Boulevard and I remember thinking that time as we were crossing, “I’m crossing La Cienega with Michael Jackson and nobody knows.” We went all over the place and did a bit of shopping and he had slightly puzzled looks from cashiers. He looked like Sly Stone on crack and then he gets out the credit card and they go, “No!”

• Forger: When you were with Michael you always had this sense of enjoyment, of energy and whatever it is Michael wanted to do he wanted to enjoy himself when he was doing it.

• Lee: Great artists or whatever you want to call them perform great under pressure. He wanted Bad to exceed the sales of Thriller. He wanted Bad to sell a hundred million and told everybody about it, the president of Sony records and everybody. He would put up pieces of paper in his house, in hotels: “100 million.” He wanted to sell 100 million for Bad. Several people in the documentary talk about that.

• Phillinganes: It was a wild ride. I do remember [the concerts at] Wembley. Princess Di showed up and Michael, that lucky dog, got to be in the receiving line. We could see her pretty well in her bright yellow dress, sitting in her box. Tons of people showed up. Naomi Campbell. Buddies of mine that I had toured with showed up. Eric Clapton. Phil Collins. Barry Gibb. They were all there. We did three at Wembley, and it’s Wembley Stadium, not arena, so that’s like at least 70,000 people. You can never imagine the feeling of watching 70,000 people light torches during “Man in the Mirror.”

• Branca: [The concert footage on the BAD25 DVD is] one concert start to finish. There are no edits and piecing together of different concerts. It’s one concert, Michael Jackson at Wembley Stadium in the presence of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. He actually refers to them at the beginning and at the end of the show. We had high-quality footage of other concerts, but the audio wasn’t very good. For Wembley we had great audio but all we had visually was Michael’s VHS copy of the monitor feed.

• 

  The “Bad World Tour,” which took place between September 1987 and December 1988, earned Jackson two (more) spots in the Guinness Book of World Records. Gross revenue of more than $124 million broke the record for the highest-grossing concert tour, and the tour also earned the record of most successful concert series for selling out seven nights at London’s Wembley Stadium, where Jackson performed to a combined estimate of 504,000 people. A live album and DVD are currently being released to commemorate the 25th anniversary (theroot.com)

  Phillinganes: I wasn’t with him when he [watched the VHS tapes of his shows], but it was always to improve. He was very meticulous about every aspect of the show, particularly choreography, lighting. He just always strived to maintain that basis that he set for himself.

• Forger: To me what I come away with from the Bad album is, ironically, one of the songs that Michael did not write, and that’s Man in the Mirror. Man in the Mirror to me totally represents that place that Michael started directing his energy to. You start to really see where Michael’s heart is, where his soul is, what his intent was for what he would like to accomplish with his music, and that’s a thing that in much later material is clearly evident, and this is the time when you see that coming to the forefront I think, so strongly.

• Phillinganes: It was arguably the most transitional point in establishing his musical independence. And the songs speak for themselves. It was just a well-rounded collection of great songs.

• Branca: Clearly Michael is an artist whose popularity will live on for generations. It’s funny, I was talking to Spike Lee about this, some artists are great singers but they don’t write their songs, and some artists are great songwriters but they’re not excellent vocalists or they can’t dance. You look at Michael, and he could write the songs, he could produce them, he could sing them, he could get out and perform and dance them, and then his sense of style sort of changed fashion trends. He’s a unique artist in that respect.

Michael Jackson on stage in 1987

The BAD25 anniversary package is available Sept. 18—and, although Jackson’s team is still focused on BAD, John Branca says there may be even more unreleased Jackson material to keep fans sated in the future, since an additional album’s-worth of vocal and performance material exists.

•  Branca: Michael himself did Thriller 25 and that was important to him, so BAD25 was an obvious and a logical choice. Several things are exciting about the package in addition to calling attention to the album and the incredible documentary that Spike Lee has done. We’re including some previously unreleased music. This is music that Michael worked on for the album and it’s quite, quite good. In fact, Michael had debated for a long time about including a song called Streetwalker on the album and at the very last minute he chose Another Part of Me instead. So we have Streetwalker included on the rarities disc. That’s exciting, to be able to share this music with the fans.

•  Lee: By getting access to the Michael Jackson archives, I saw stuff I never knew even existed.

• Branca: We’ve been in the process of digitizing all of Michael’s archives of audiovisual and written material. We monitor the fans and we’re in dialogue and communication with them, and one of the Wembley stadium concerts is the one that the fans really wanted, so we were searching for that concert and fortunately we found this… We found some interesting notes that Michael had for some of the short films on the album, for example for Smooth Criminal, we found a sketch that Michael did for the outfits that are worn by Michael and the dancers in the short film. Michael designed those with the armband and everything. And we found his notes from when he was conceiving the idea for the Smooth Criminal short film, where he was studying the works of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

• Forger: I mixed “Don’t be Messin’ Round” and “Free” and the one which is called “Song Groove (A/K/A Abortion Papers).” These were tracks where all of the material had already been recorded. Nothing was added, nothing was recorded, it was just going through and taking the tapes that hadn’t had an appropriate mix and just doing a representative final mix of the way Michael would have wanted the songs to sound.

• Branca: In the shadow of Thriller, which is the biggest-selling album in the history of the record business, Bad is perhaps under-appreciated. I don’t think people realize how many hit singles came from that album. This will be really a statement that will remind everybody how important, how influential that album was.

• Forger: When I look back and I think about what I took away from that experience and that time, to me it was an opportunity to learn, and for me to understand more not only about music but to learn so many things from Michael. It’s a fantastic high because you’re just enjoying yourself on a tremendous level, and now when you look and back and have an opportunity to reflect on it, you realize it was a rare time. It was a rare time in pop culture, in the world, in the history of music, and also in Michael’s career.

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/08/29/michael-jackson-bad/#bad-25

The next article proves what we thought all along – at the end of the 80s, even prior to 1987 when Bad was released, the media started its onslaught against Jackson, and shifted its attention from his music and dance to his personal life, making him an innocent target of their most vicious ridicule.

And although I’ve never seen Spike Lee’s film the honest way he talks about Michael is a sign that the film he made should be really something extraordinary:

Spike Lee remembers Michael Jackson at the Toronto Film Festival, Sept. 2012

Spike Lee calls media treatment of MJ ‘shameful’

The Canadian Press
Published Saturday, Sep. 15, 2012 1:30PM EDT

TORONTO — Spike Lee’s new documentary “Bad 25” captures Michael Jackson in the turbulent time before he crafted 1987’s “Bad,” a period when the notoriously meticulous King of Pop worked with feverish obsession on trying to top his own megahit “Thriller” while the tabloids vigorously devoured the remnants of his personal life.

But even after “Bad” made good and topped charts around the world, the album’s release saw the decided shift of attention from Jackson’s pristine pop to his apparently bizarre personal behaviour (Chimps! Amusement parks! The Elephant Man’s bones!).

Here is a reader’s side-note to interrupt the story for a moment:

• gertrude “Michael’s Jackson’s behaviour was not bizarre – THAT was an OPINION the MEDIA attempted to sham us into believing was a fact. FACTS are not OPINIONS, of course, and I commend this writer for describing the media as cruel, which since they slandered, suppressed the truth about, and BULLIED Jackson to death, is putting it mildly”.

(continued) And for that media-fuelled rubbernecking, Lee says there’s plenty of shame to go around.

“People, they had the hater-ade. They were drinking hater-ade,” the two-time Academy Award nominee said in an interview from a swanky hotel suite Saturday during the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie screened.

“Read the reviews of the ‘Bad’ album. They wrote like this was some piece of (crap). And (they) don’t call him by his name — ‘Wacko Jacko?’ It’s shameful…. Those people should be ashamed what they did to him.”

And while Lee’s reverential film remains studiously focused on Jackson’s work, it also reveals much about an intensely private man who really never experienced privacy.

“Bad 25” picks up in the wake of the titanic success of Jackson’s second album as an adult solo artist, 1982’s game-changing stunner “Thriller.” The best-selling album of all time, “Thriller”‘s sales numbers are still too gaudy to believe — after all, it’s been certified platinum 29 times over in the U.S. alone while going twice diamond in Canada.

But Jackson wasn’t satisfied with that. Just as he was determined to make “Thriller” a much bigger success than his 1979 disco-informed classic “Off the Wall,” Jackson thought he could similarly top the biggest hit of all time. As Lee’s film uncovers, Jackson even used to scrawl “100,000,000” on mirrors and notebooks as a reminder to himself of the impossibly lofty sales number he wanted to achieve with “Bad.”

Of course, that produced an almost unprecedented amount of self-imposed pressure for a pop artist.

So Lee’s film captures Jackson obsessing over not just the 11 tracks that formed “Bad” but also its ambitious music videos (one of which was directed by film luminary Martin Scorsese), the choreography of the album’s eventual epic tour (which included a show in front of 72,000 fans at London’s Wembley Stadium) or even bits of promotional minutiae only tangentially related to Jackson’s music.

Lee says Jackson believed that he couldn’t stop pushing himself or everything he had worked to build would deteriorate.

“He was not stupid,” said Lee, clad in a glittering Michael Jackson T-shirt with matching custom Nike kicks.

“He saw people, black artists, who were at the top and then broke. He saw many great black artists who were confined to just being black artists.

“Michael’s about breaking boundaries.”

Still, Lee can’t necessarily relate to Jackson’s unyielding eye for detail.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist. Now, me, I’m not going to do 80 takes like David Fincher of somebody picking up a magazine. I’m not going to do that!” he adds, laughing as he picks up and slams a nearby lifestyle mag for emphasis.

“But it was his money…. He put his money into his work.”

Along with Lee’s film, the 25th anniversary of “Bad” is being celebrated with a spiffy new deluxe re-release on Tuesday.

The new two-disc set includes a remastered version of the original album, plus a slate of worthy B-sides that were once axed from its concise tracklist. (With characteristic honesty, Lee dismisses a portion of the second disc’s new material, screwing his face into a frown as he warns: “Forget about the remixes.”)

Michael Jackson in a concert at Wembley stadium on July 15, 1988

Lee doesn’t think there’s room for debate over how the record — which featured such hits as the title track, “Man in the Mirror,” “The Way You Make Me Feel” and “Smooth Criminal” — wears its age.

“Look at the Billboard charts when ‘Bad’ was released 25 years ago, and then listen to those songs, and see if they still sound contemporary or dated,” said Lee, whose film will air on ABC on Nov. 22 in Canada.

“‘Bad’ still stands up. Those other songs that were on the Top 10 list 25 years ago? Who were they? Thin Lizzy? Are we still speaking about those people?” he asks incredulously.

“The greats will stand the test of time. It’s not even an argument.”

Although Lee has condemned those who eagerly gawked at Jackson’s downfall (the film doesn’t cover the accusations of child sexual abuse brought against the singer in 1993), he does admit to some level of curiosity about one specific element of Jackson’s life: his gradually lightening skin tone.

While it was later reported that Jackson’s colour was changing due to the skin condition vitiligo and treatments for lupus, Lee watched the transition with some interest.

“Black folks were wondering about (that) — I’m not going to lie,” Lee said with a chuckle, pinching his own skin. “Because Michael never came public that he had this disease. I was one of them. Like, ‘Wait a minute man. What’s up brother?’

“I’m not going to lie. That’s full disclosure. And I’m not speaking on behalf of 45 million African Americans, but there were discussions about Michael’s complexion.”

Of course, there were discussions about virtually every element of Jackson’s life.

Ten of the 11 songs on Bad were accompanied by an elaborate music video. The only one not given the visual treatment is “Just Good Friends,” a collaboration with friend Stevie Wonder (theroot.com)

Lee had access to a deep well of sensational archival footage, supplementing original interviews conducted with Jackson collaborators including Scorsese and director Joe Pytka (as well as such admirers as Kanye West, Mariah Carey and Canada’s Justin Bieber) with clips of Jackson in the studio or warming up on video sets.

But amid all the shots of Jackson fervently fretting over some seemingly insignificant tone or lyric, there are revealing insights about the strange way he lived his life.

This is a man who adopted devious disguises just to meet up with his brothers for dinner, whose every public appearance devolved into hysteria and whose earliest memories of childhood were indivisible from showbiz.

“He had to sing and dance to eat since he was six years old,” Lee said simply.

At one point in the film, a teary-eyed confidante of Jackson’s relates a conversation they shared in which the singer yearned to be a fly on the wall at a party, to see what normal people talked about.

And one of the bonus tracks on “Bad 25” is the knotted, claustrophobic “Price of Fame,” in which Jackson laments the cost of dealing with the demands of a massive audience that’s blindly obsessed with him.

Lee doesn’t think long when asked what that cost was.

“Look, he’s not here. He’s not here. Not in this physical form,” he replies.

“You get to be the most recognizable person on this planet, there’s a price for that…. You could say he paid with his life, really.”

Full story: http://www.cp24.com/entertainment/spike-lee-calls-media-treatment-of-mj-shameful-1.957363

“It was his money. He put his money into his work” – this phrase somehow brought home to me where Michael’s money really went into – into those 80 takes of one and the same episode and all of them in search of perfection. What a wise investment it was…

The next article says that Michael learned the work ethic from his father (which is probably correct). Only recently did we see an email from Paul Gongaware’s of AEG who accused Michael of being “lazy” and heard AEG  insisting on “tough love” towards Jackson to make him work – and here we are, life itself is refuting these callous lies about the man. Michael never needed to be pushed about as he was the one who did ten times as much as anyone else would and did it all by himself!

Paul Gongaware of AEG wrote to its CEO Randy Phillips: “. “We let Mikey know just what this will cost him in terms of him making money…. he is lazy and constantly changes his mind to fit his immediate wants.”

September 16, 2012

Spike Lee’s Michael Jackson doc transcends the man in the mirror

By Liz Brown

Metro Canada

What do you do when you’re the man behind the bestselling album in music history?

You vow that your next one will be even better, naturally.

Such is the pursuit of perfection that propelled — and plagued — Michael Jackson as he spent two years writing and composing Bad, his followup to 1982’s Thriller.

In Spike Lee’s documentary, Bad 25, we learn that in the Bad years, Jackson scrawled ‘100 million’ on his bathroom mirror, so every morning as he brushed his teeth, he’d be reminded of his goal — sell 100 million records.

The album, released in 1987, ended up being a commercial and critical success, with around 40 million copies sold. But it never came close to the sales of Thriller, which rang in somewhere near the 100 million mark.

The failure to reach his 100 million goal wasn’t for lack of effort on Jackson’s part, though.

Bad 25 reveals the late-night dance sessions, the meticulous recordings and the almost pathological work ethic of a man who seemed to be chasing a near-impossible dream.

“Michael got his work ethic from his father,” says Lee on Saturday at Toronto’s Trump Hotel, dressed in a T-shirt sporting Michael Jackson’s iconic Bad pose, just hours before the North American premiere of his documentary at TIFF.

“(Joe Jackson) had him singing and dancing from five, six years old. I’m not going to make a villain out of Joe Jackson. Many people do, but he got their asses out of Gary Indiana and his children didn’t have to work at the steel mill that he slaved at. Something worked. He’s not all bad.”

But as anyone knows, getting out of Gary and becoming the world’s biggest pop star didn’t come without its struggles. As Jackson was promoting Bad and selling out venues around the world in a 16-month tour that set three world records, darkness was moving in on his star power.

An adorably animated music video for “Leave Me Alone” pokes fun at Jackson’s tabloid troubles. He goes on a wild ride being chased by paparazzi, dances with the bones of the Elephant Man and dodges the shocking claims of newspaper headlines like, “Michael Weds Alien,” “Jackson’s 3rd Eye Starts Sunglasses Fad,” “Michael and Diana Same Person” and “Bubbles the Chimp Bares All About Michael.” (the root.com)

The media became increasingly cruel as Jackson’s behaviour became increasingly bizarre — there were tales of him sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, his pet chimpanzee Bubbles, and rumours that he had tried to buy the Elephant Man’s bones.

In the documentary, Jackson’s choreographer and confidant Vince Patterson shares some advice he gave the superstar: Don’t ever let a bully know they’re hurting you.

It’s a poignant moment when we are reminded that despite his fame and fortune, Jackson was human — a remarkably talented human — and that somewhere in the mess of scandals and rumours, the wonder of that talent got lost.

Bad 25 reminds us just how wondrous that talent was. Witness the lean in Smooth Criminal (don’t hold your breath — this doc doesn’t reveal the secret behind it), or the head-turning intro to The Way You Make Me Feel.

For Lee, Bad 25 is an ode to Jackson the performer; a tribute to an artist and friend he respected.  “I try not to focus on the fact that he’s not here, because the way I take it, Michael’s not here in his physical form, but he’s here in his spiritual form and his music is here,” says Lee.

http://metronews.ca/scene/372001/spike-lees-michael-jackson-doc-transcends-the-man-in-the-mirror/

The readers commented:

• layonmcd • I’m puzzled why this science fiction gets trotted out for public consumption every time Jackson’s name comes up. I’m talking about: “The media became increasingly cruel as Jackson’s behaviour became  increasingly bizarre — there were tales of him sleeping in a hyperbaric  chamber, his pet chimpanzee Bubbles, and rumours that he had tried to  buy the Elephant Man’s bones.” This is ridiculous, distorted, and desperately needs rethinking. We’ve known for almost two decades now that Jackson didn’t sleep in a hyperbaric chamber (it’s a piece of medical equipment he donated to a hospital burn center), that many people enjoy exotic pets, and in fact Jackson did NOT try to buy Elephant Man’s bones. Can you give this a rest? No need to continue the “cruel” part of it by repeating these lies over and over.  The bizarre behavior belongs to the media endlessly repeating the tall tales, not Jackson. Stop with the hyperbaric chamber, pet chimp, Elephant Man bones narrative! It ceased to be amusing years ago.

• elke hassell  Michael Jackson saved Bubbles from a Research Institute. FACT! Quote:“Why not just tell people I’m an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They’ll believe anything you say, because you’re a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, ‘I’m an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight’, people would say, ‘Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts.  He’s cracked up. You can’t believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth.” END QUOTE. People got to stop this nonsense once and for all, to believe everything that has ever been said about him. Start saying SORRY MICHAEL JACKSON FOR WHAT WE DID TO YOU, and thank the Lord that Michael was a FORGIVING SOUL!

• masonjud  The same old stale chestnuts reheated — the chimp, the chamber and the bones — are hardly worth a yawn by today’s standards of epic excess, self indulgence, and being famous for being famous. The media became increasingly cruel not as ‘Jackson’s behavior became increasingly bizarre’, but as he became astronomically successful. Michael Jackson earned every bit of his well-deserved fame, and he thanked God for it every day — God and rehearsal. Looking forward to Spike Lee’s documentary and delighted it will air on network television square in prime time where it belongs. In due course the Empire of Trash Media and Junk Food Journalism will collapse of its own arrogance and corruption.

Together with these readers I am thrilled by the perspective that the anniversary of each consecutive album by Michael Jackson will be a discovery of his music by the generations of new fans. I even presume that Michael Jackson belonged so much to the future that the public simply did not catch up with him, and that people will come to appreciate his later work when they are ready for the albums to be re-released again. (Will there be an Invincible 25^th album in 2026? And shall we have to wait that long? Can we make it earlier, please?).

I am also rejoiced to see that it wasn’t only me who welcomed and appreciated the “Michael” posthumous album:

• 

  Model Tatiana Thumbtzen appeared in the music video for “The Way You Make Me Feel” and became the first person to publicly kiss Jackson in an onstage performance of the song. Thumbtzen claimed she had an affair with Jackson but later retracted the claim in a tell-all book and admitted in a European documentary that she took the initiative to kiss him onstage and never got to see or speak to him ever again (theroot.com)

  layne4  In the shadow of Thriller and surrounded by media focused on nonsense at that time, BAD truly deserves this re-release and recognitiion. I’d like to add that Spike Lee’s documentary BAD25 has been critically praised and was a huge hit in France, London and Toronto. Oh, and personally, over produced or not, I am happy to own and appreciate ‘Michael’.

•  Chaz: Thanks for the write-up on the re-release of the “Bad” album. As it fell into the massive shadow of “Thriller” it didn’t get the critical attention it might have otherwise, especially since the tabloid media were already poisoning any hope Michael Jackson ever had of the focus staying on his art. Like others here, I highly value the “Michael” album warts and all, and I also think that “Just Good Friends” is notable for two of the best singers ever giving it their best energy and a full-on effort – Michael’s vocal is stellar. Not sure what your poke at his other producers means, but he had some really good ones down the line – “Dangerous25” should be another treat if more treasures pop out of the vaults. Hope I’m still alive to see it. (Hello, Estate? We aren’t getting any younger!)

• Tabinformed The attention to detail and the work ethic that Michael Jackson Jackson put into his art makes it timeless. There are so many layers and so much to learn about it. It would be nice if today’s artists spent that much time on their craft. Though the 2010 “Michael” album was somewhat overproduced, I still think it stands above most of today’s artists. It was controversial only because Michael Jackson’s fans are very particular and know his music and high standards well. I choose to love the album for the love that the producers of each song clearly put into their work. It was a glimpse into what Michael was working on in his last years as well as the regard that those who worked with him through the years had for him. There are some great tracks on there including “Hollywood Tonight” whose remix became #1 on the Billboard dance chart. It has a killer hook.

The next review is rather funny. The author admits he is “one of twelve people” (implying that all the rest are already fans) who have no particular fondness for Michael Jackson, but even a hardened non-fan like him was moved to tears by Michael Jackson’s performance of “Man in the mirror”.  The journalist sees it as a clear indication of” something special going on” with which I readily agree – we also feel that something special is going on.

One of the more emotional moments I’ve had in a theater all year

Jordan Hoffman September 11, 2012

Hello. My name is Jordan Hoffman, and I am one of twelve people on God’s green earth who holds no particular fondness for Michael Jackson.

…The point is this: if a film can bring me to tears — TEARS — by a performance of “Man in the Mirror,” a song I normally roll my eyes at when I hear it at CVS, a song that reflexively fires my “change the station” maneuver on the car radio, this is an indication that something special is going on.

Spike Lee’s “Bad 25″ is, on the face of it, nothing too removed than one of those “Classic Albums” programs that used to air on VH1. Songs are discussed one by one, with tidbits about the recording and writing, and sometimes the mix is finagled so we get to focus on what the bass player is actually doing. “Bad 25,” however, is a Spike Lee film.

…With incredible access to Jackson’s estate, “Bad 25″ shows just how involved he was in every aspect of the album, from writing, recording and producing, as well as the business. For Jackson, of course, an album wasn’t just the music. It was the style, choreography and “short films” that accompanied each track.

Jackson’s drive is made evident through phone messages to collaborators, rehearsal videos shot all through the night and copious notes to self from his diaries. The influences are as diverse as Mavis Staples, Buster Keaton, Fred Astaire and “The Third Man.” It is impossible not to feel tremendous respect for this artist.

Jackson’s life is full of sadness, too. His collaborators (some famous, some not) all describe his inability to live a normal life. His idiosyncrasies aren’t dismissed, but they are put in context. Try to dance a mile in his shoes.

Lee breaks from the standard talking head doc format in discussing Jackson’s death. Everyone — and the list of boldfaced names is as diverse as Stevie Wonder, Justin Bieber, Will Vinton and Greg Phillinganes, to just scratch the surface — gets a moment just to bear witness. It is fascinating portrait of grief, a “where were you” collection of anecdotes like those that people trade about the Kennedy assassination or 9/11.

This is followed by an analysis of “Man in the Mirror,” bringing an enormous weight to the story of that important anthem’s birth. “Bad 25″ concludes with a live, complete performance of the song from Wembley Stadium that, I swear, was one of the more emotional moments I’ve had in a theater all year.

No one needs more hagiographic documentaries about famous people. “Bad 25″ isn’t that. It is one of the most energetic and sublime investigations into the creative process put to film. Non-fans will be enthralled. Actual fans will be ecstatic.

http://www.film.com/movies/bad-25-review-2012

But the most insightful of all is Joseph Vogel’s article which puts the Bad album in the history context and provides a good deal of reasons why Michael Jackson’s harassment campaign started as early as 1985. After reading it you will realize that the media waited only for a pretext  to bring Michael down.

I even wonder why the media waited for this “information event”  for full six years until 1993, if they could arrange it by their own ways and means much earlier (remember the Newt brothers promised by the media $150,000 for lying about Michael? If you don’t, please go here for details http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152708,00.html) . Evidently all the other candidates for the job of slandering Michael – except the Chandlers – turned out hopelessly honest and upright.

I also suddenly recalled that Victor Gutierrez, the author of a child pornography book about MJ (even banned in the US) and a grave suspect of the NAMBLA membership, admitted starting making rounds of parents of children who Michael Jackson was friends with at about the end of the 80s too. What’s crucial about those rounds is that he didn’t ask the parents about Michael – he actually told them something like “You don’t know who he really is? Then let me tell you…”  which is in fact malicious spreading lies about Jackson and definitely not searching for the truth about the man.

As a example of his “approach” here is a quote from Gutierrez’s book about the way he told flats lies about Jackson presenting them as if they were facts.  Wade Robson’s mother Joy never believed them, while Evan Chandler unfortunately did…

• “I introduced myself to the mother saying that I was a journalist and that I was writing a book about Jackson which concerned his relationship with minors, including his being a pedophile. When I finished speaking, Joy exclaimed “It’s not true!” I asked her to at least let me explain what I had found out up until now, and then ask her if there was anything that she wanted to add. If not, I would understand”.

I hope there will be another time to handle Victor Gutierrez in full seriousness, but now let us get back  to Joe Vogel’s article. It is long but  is well worth reading,  as it explains a lot about what happened to Michael and why:

How Michael Jackson Made ‘Bad’

SEP 10 2012, 3:41 PM ET 

The story of how the landmark album, which just turned 25 and will soon be re-released in a three-disc set, was forged by the “Wacko Jacko” backlash against the pop star

At the height of his fame, Michael Jackson disappeared.

In 1984, he seemed to be everywhere: on MTV and in Pepsi commercials, at the Grammys and the White House, on Rolling Stone and Time magazine, and all across the United States on the Victory Tour. The next year, however, besides a brief appearance in “We Are the World,” he was nowhere to be seen.

“The year 1985,” wrote Gerri Hirshey for Rolling Stone, “has been a black hole for Michael watchers, who witnessed the most spectacular disappearing act since Halley’s comet headed for the far side of the solar system in 1910.” It was a strategic move from a performer who understood the power of anticipation and mystique. 1986 was much the same. Jackson was said to be a recluse “in hiding” and made few public appearances.

The Gulliver, chained by Lilliputs

In his absence came a flood of fantastical stories about shrines, hyperbaric chambers, and Elephant Man’s bones. Most of these were harmless (and actually amused Jackson), but there was a darker side to the media backlash. Jackson had become the most powerful African American in the history of the entertainment industry. Not only had he built an empire through his own record-shattering albums, videos and performances, he had resurrected the fortunes of CBS/Epic Records, surged life into MTV, and set the bar for live entertainment. He also smartly retained full ownership of his master recordings and with the help of his attorney, John Branca, actively acquired publishing rights, including songs by Sly and the Family Stone, Ray Charles, and of course, the crown jewel of popular music: the ATV/Beatles catalog.

It is no coincidence that this was the precise moment when the tide began to shift. From industry heavyweights and media alike, there was now suspicion, resentment, and jealousy. It was clear Jackson was not merely a naive man-child (as he was often presented), or a song-and-dance man who knew and accepted his place as a static, submissive “entertainer.” He was outwitting some of the most powerful figures in the industry. He was growing artistically and financially. And he was beginning to learn how to wield his considerable power and cultural influence for more social and political ends.

“He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables,” wrote James Baldwin in 1985, “for he damn sure grabbed the brass ring, and the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo has nothing on Michael. All that noise is about America, as the dishonest custodian of black life and wealth; the blacks, especially males, in America; and the burning, buried American guilt; and sex and sexual roles and sexual panic; money, success and despair…”

The backlash, then, was not merely about Jackson’s perceived eccentricities. It was also about power, money, and more subtle forms of institutional and cultural dominance. In the decades preceding Jackson, as James Brown put it, black recording artists were all-too-often “in the show, but not in show business.” Now Jackson was a financial force to be reckoned with. His status, however, also turned him into an enormous target.

Beginning in 1985, the media became increasingly vicious toward the artist. “They desire our blood, not our pain,” Jackson wrote in a note in 1987. Tabloids soon began disparaging him with the nickname “Wacko Jacko” (a term Jackson despised). It was a term first applied to the pop star by the British tabloid, The Sun, in 1985, but its etymology goes back further. “Jacko Macacco” was the name of a famous monkey used in monkey-baiting matches at the Westminster Pit in London in the early 1820s. Subsequently, the term “Jacco” or “Jacco Macacco” was Cockney slang to refer to monkeys in general. The term persisted into the 20th century as “Jacko Monkeys” became popular children’s toys in Great Britain in the 1950s. They remained common in British households into the 1980s (and can still be found on Ebay today).

The term “Jacko,” then, didn’t arise out of a vacuum, and certainly wasn’t meant as a term of endearment. In the ensuing years, it would be used by the tabloid and mainstream media alike with a contempt that left no doubt about its intent. Even for those with no knowledge of its racist roots and connotations, it was obviously used to “otherize,” humiliate and demean its target. Like Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” scene in Invisible Man, it was a process by which to reduce Michael Jackson the human being and artist, to “Jacko” the minstrelized spectacle for avaricious amusement. (It is significant to note that, while the term was used widely by the white media, it was rarely, if ever used by black journalists.)

This was the ominous undercurrent beginning to swirl around Jackson and it had an impact on both his own psyche and that of the public (particularly in the U.S.). The tension between control and liberation or escape percolates throughout the Bad album and its accompanying music videos.

In the short film for “Leave Me Alone,” for example, Jackson keenly conveys the carnivalesque reality of his life as an objectified entertainer. Inspired in part by Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, a larger-than-life Jackson is literally trapped in an amusement park attraction as dogs in corporate suits pound pegs in the ground to keep him in place. Later in the video he sings out of newspapers, dollar bills, and within reenactments of tabloid stories. It is a shrewdly self-aware (and socially aware) examination of entrapment, exploitation, and double consciousness in the postmodern age.

Part of Jackson’s “disappearance,” then, also had to do with the realities of his life. He could no longer walk freely anywhere in the world without being mobbed, scrutinized, and dissected.

His retreat was in his art. From 1985 to 1987, away from the public eye, he was writing and recording prolifically. The Bad sessions would ultimately generate more than 60 songs in various states of completion. At one point he considered releasing it as a triple-disc album.

Jackson called his home studio at Hayvenhurst “the Laboratory.” This is where the magic was created with a small group of musicians and engineers, including Matt Forger, John Barnes, Chris Currell, and Bill Bottrell (often referred to as the “B-Team”). It has now become the stuff of legend that Jackson wrote “100 million” on his bathroom mirror, the number of albums he expected Bad to sell. The figure was more than double the number of what Thriller had sold to that point. Such was the scope of Jackson’s ambition.

However, it wasn’t just commercial success he was after. Jackson wanted to innovate. He told collaborators he wanted to create sounds the ear had never heard. Exciting new synthesizers were coming on the scene at the time, including the Fairlight CMI and the Synclavier PSMT. “It really opened up another realm of creativity,” recalls recording engineer Matt Forger. “The Fairlight had this light pen that could draw a waveform on the screen and allow you to modify the shape of it. The Synclavier was just an extension of that. Very often we would end up combining two synthesizer elements together to create a unique character. You could do that within the Synclavier, but you also had the ability in a very fine increment to adjust the attack of each sound character. And by doing that you could really tailor the sound. We were doing a lot of sampling and creating new sound characters and then creating a combination of sample sounds mixed with FM synthesis.”

Jackson was fascinated with these new technologies and constantly on the lookout for fresh sounds. The opening sound character for “Dirty Diana,” for example, was created by Denny Jaeger, a Synclavier expert and designer from the Bay Area. When Jackson heard about Jaeger and his library of new sound characters and soundscapes, he reached out and enlisted him for Bad. Jaeger’s sounds ultimately appeared on both “Dirty Diana” and “Smooth Criminal.” “Michael was always searching for something new,” Forger says. “How much stuff could we invent ourselves or research and find? There was a whole lot of that going on. That was what the Laboratory was about.”

What makes the Bad album so timeless, however, is the way Jackson was able to compliment this technological innovation with more organic, soulful qualities. In “The Way You Make Me Feel,” for example, the relentless steel-shuffling motion of the beat is juxtaposed with all kinds of natural, improvisational qualities that give the song its charm: the vocal ad libs, the finger snapping, the blues harmonies, the percussive grunts and gasps, the exclamations. Recording engineer Bruce Swedien speaks of how he left all of Jackson’s vocal habits in as part of the “overall sonic picture.” He didn’t want to make the song “antiseptically clean” because it would lose its visceral effect.

In so many ways, Bad was Jackson’s coming-of-age as an artist. Quincy Jones challenged him at the outset to write all the material and Jackson responded, writing nine of the 11 tracks that made the album and dozens more that were left off. “Study the greats,” he wrote in one note to himself, “and become greater.” He spoke of the “anatomy” of music, of dissecting its parts. He was also reading a great deal, including the work of Joseph Campbell. He wanted to understand what symbolism, myths, and motifs resonated over time and why.

By the time he brought demos to Westlake Studio to work on with Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien (the A-Team), most of the key elements of the songs were in place. Now it was a matter of details: small-brush coloring, polishing, augmenting, and to Jackson’s chagrin, paring down. Assistant engineer Russ Ragsdale estimates that more than 800 multi-track tapes were made to create Bad, an extraordinary number. Synth stacks filled the tracking room, where Jackson often worked with synth programer John Barnes. Vocals were rerecorded until Jackson felt satisfied. Jackson, Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien continued to tweak and debate decisions until the final minute before the deadline.

Just as much attention went into the short films. In his notes following the Bad video, Jackson indicated that he still wasn’t completely satisfied with the choreography. The moves had to be so internalized that there was no thinking whatsoever. He had to dissolve into the steps and the music until it became pure feeling.

Many people still don’t realize the input Jackson had on every detail of his work, from choreography to lighting to costumes to story. While rehearsing for the short film for “Smooth Criminal,” Jackson eloquently explained to director Colin Chivers and choreographer Vincent Paterson the tension and release he hoped to achieve in the bridge. “That’s why we build it to a mountain and we bring it back down,” he instructed. “Then at the top [mouths sounds effect] with the high strings. Something to just ride the emotion that we didn’t put into it [mouths sound effect]. Just a horn or something, you know… To ride the feeling of it… I want the music to represent the way we feel… It’s gotta dictate our emotion, our moods. We’re expressing the way everybody feels. It’s rebellion. You know what I mean? We’re letting out what we always wanted to say to the world.Passion and anger and fire!”

Twenty-five years later, the results speak for themselves. Videos like “Bad” and “Smooth Criminal” are among the finest the medium has to offer. Songs like “Man in the Mirror,” “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Dirty Diana,” and “Another Part of Me” remain staples in Jackson’s vast catalog. Hearing the remastered album, included in the three-CD Bad25 set out September 18, is a reminder of its singular personality and pleasure. Listen to the propulsive bass lines, the layers of rhythm, the vocal experimentation, the cinematic narratives, the signature exclamations and invented vocabulary, the sheer vitality and joy. This is pop at its most dynamic, and it stands, along with the best work of Prince, as one of the best albums of the 1980s.

Bad is a portrait of the artist in peak form—bold, creative and confident. Now as then, “the whole world has to answer.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/09/how-michael-jackson-made-bad/262162/2/?single_page=true

Michael  indeed did mammoth creative work on all his albums. As regards BAD he composed about 70 more songs for it in addition to those nine which went into the album.

Here is the proof of it – it is an excerpt from Michael Jackson’s deposition in 1994 made in connection with some ridiculous claim concerning his “Dangerous” song. Michael testifies here that he started composing  music at the age of seven, wrote his first song at the age of fifteen, wrote altogether a “couple of hundred songs” by the year 1994 and composed some 70 songs in addition to the nine released for Bad:

“Dangerous” deposition

Interview year: 1994

Clerk of the Board: Do you solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the testimony you shall give in this matter now before the court shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and this you do under the pains and penalties of perjury?

Michael Jackson: Yes, I do.

Clerk: Please, be seated.

Clerk: State your name for the record? Please spell your last name.

MJ: Michael Joseph Jackson. J-A-C-K-S-O-N.

Lawyer (Daniel S. Hoffman): Mr. Jackson, would you tell us the nature of your occupation?

MJ: Performer, song writer…

L: Would you tell us when you started composing music?

MJ: Probably since the age of seven.

L: Would you tell us, how old you were when you had your first song published?

MJ: That I wrote myself?

L: Yes, sir.

MJ: Fifteen.

L: Could you tell us approximately Mr. Jackson, how many songs you’ve written to date?

MJ: In general couple hundred

L: And approximately, how many of those songs had been released to the public?

MJ: About fifty, sixty.

L: How many songs Mr. Jackson were on the “Bad” album?

MJ: I think nine.

L: And how many songs did you write for the “Bad” album that were not published?

A: Objection, your honor. Irrelevant.

Judge: Overruled.

MJ: I wrote probably sixty or seventy songs for “Bad” album that weren’t published.

http://mjtranslate.com/pl/interviews/1228

Can you imagine the measure of Michael’s perfectionism if he wrote about seventy more songs for the Bad album alone? In addition to those nine? And can you imagine the thrill of discovering these new  songs and reliving the past together with Michael Jackson now? How many more treasures can that vault of his have?

Before we listen to one of them there is one more article to cite which is a necessity for reasons of its own.

Spike Lee Revisits Michael Jackson’s Career for ‘BAD 25’ Documentary

Rolling Stone 

At the outset of BAD 25 – the documentary film celebrating the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Bad album – director Spike Lee quickly dispenses with talk of the pop superstar’s personal struggles, diving right into the artistic perfectionism that drove him to achieve his career milestones.

“Hopefully, that’s what this documentary is about – it’s gonna have people return to focusing on the music, his art, which I feel is his legacy, in addition to his children,” Lee, dressed in a white BAD 25 T-shirt, told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie had its North American premiere over the weekend, after debuting in Venice 25 years to the day since Bad’s release.

To piece together the making of Jackson’s landmark LP, Lee unearthed archival footage from studio sessions and music video shoots and conducted interviews with Jackson’s many collaborators, including Quincy Jones, Martin Scorsese, Stevie Wonder and Sheryl Crow, and stars who were inspired by his music, from Kanye West and Mariah Carey to Questlove and Justin Bieber.

The film, which will get a television premiere on ABC on November 22nd, follows the making of Badtrack by track; though it can feel clinical at times, it also revels in cool details,  like the origin of Jackson’s gravity-defying lean in “Smooth Criminal” and his famous expression, “Shamon!” Then, abruptly, Lee shifts to Jackson’s death in the summer of 2009, collecting reactions from his interview subjects, many of whom choke back tears and break down. “Those were all real, raw emotions that were displayed,” said Lee.

One of the most impactful statements in the documentary comes from music journalist Danyel Smith. “We should all be ashamed,” she says. “The way that I interpret that,” said Lee, “is that Michael should be with us. He should be here.”

… “Listen to the song ‘Price of Fame,’ which he wrote specifically about the situation,” said Lee, holding a copy of the release. “How can you get privacy when you’re the most recognizable person on the planet?”

“Did you see the disguises he had?” Lee added with a laugh, referring to a moment in the film that shows photographs of Jackson wearing intricate facial disguises.

“He had to do that. He couldn’t go anywhere in the world without there being a riot. Man, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. He became a prisoner of his fame. I mean, I’m not rewriting Michael’s titles, but [the song] could’ve been [called] ‘Prisoner of Fame,’ instead of ‘Price of Fame.'”

http://news.yahoo.com/spike-lee-revisits-michael-jacksons-career-bad25-documentary-221540437.html

 The photo accompanying this article is of special value to us.

In an uncharacteristic move for the media people Max Rossi of Reuters noticed a crucifix over the image of Michael Jackson on Spike Lee’s t-shirt (as he poses during the photocall of the movie “Bad 25” at the 69th Film Festival in Venice August 31, 2012). And not only did he notice it but he pointed it out to the public and newspapers reprinted it.

The photo is circulating on the net in its own capacity now.  The crucifix and Michael Jackson coming together do not surprise me in the least as crucifixion is indeed what was done to him.

What surprises me though is that it was the media which noticed it at last. Something special must indeed be going on if even they see it now.

*  *  *

As a true messenger Michael Jackson is sending us a message even from behind the closed door. It is a new hit from the Bad 25 album called “Abortion papers”. The beat and power of it are amazing. But what amazes me most is that Michael Jackson keeps talking to us even from beyond the grave. About life, children and God again.

Sister don’t read, she’ll never know
What about love, living a Christian soul
What do we get, she runs away
What about love, what about all I pray

Don’t know the worst, she knows a priest
What about God, living is all I see
What do you get, things she would say
What about love, that’s all I pray

Those abortion papers
Signed in your name against the words of God
Those abortion papers
Think about life, I’d like to have my child

Sister’s confused, she went alone
What about love, what about all I saw
Biding a life, reading the words
Singing a song, citing a Bible verse

Father’s confused, mother despair
Brother’s in curse, what about all I’ve seen
You know the lie, you keep it low
What about heart, that’s all I’ve known

Those abortion papers
Signed in your name against the words of God
Those abortion papers
Think about life, I’d like to have my child

Those abortion papers (whoo)
Signed in your name against the words of God
Those abortion papers
Think about life, I’d like to have my child

Look at my words, what do they say
Look at my heart, burning is all heartbreak
What do you get, what do you say
What about love, I feel my sin

Those abortion papers
Signed in your name against the words of God
Those abortion papers
Think about life, I’d like to have my child

Those abortion papers (whoo)
Think about life, I’d like to have my child (whoo)

Who have the grateful, where will she go
What will she do to see the world

Sister don’t know, where would she go
What about love, what about all I saw
What would you get, don’t get so confuse
Love all the things, it’s just the things I do

Those abortion papers
Signed in your name against the words of God
Those abortion papers
Think about life, I’d like to have my child

Those abortion papers
Those abortion papers
I’d like to have my child

Those abortion papers
Those abortion papers
I’d like to have my child
Those abortion papers….

*  *  *

Updated October 15, 2012

OVERWHELMING PRAISE FOR BAD25

September 20, 2012

Critics lauded “Bad25” when it debuted on September 18 commemorating the 25th anniversary of Michael’s album that changed pop music history.

Entertainment Weekly gave Bad25 an “A,” saying it is “a potent reminder of just how much “Bad’s pulsing pop holds up.” The Houston Chronicle called Bad25 “a layered, loving tribute” while the Seattle Post Intelligencer called Bad25 “a positively electrifying celebration of this often underrated album.”

Of the DVD of Michael’s 1988 Wembley concert from the landmark “Bad” tour included in the deluxe package, the Huffington Post compared it to “the equivalent of the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965” but added, “make no mistake: , Jackson’s performance here eclipses even his most talented predecessors.”

Read what critics are saying about Bad25…

Entertainment Weekly

“A… The three discs and one DVD of live, remixed, and premastered material here are a potent reminder of just how much Bad’s pulsing pop holds up. ”

Read the full review.

Vibe

“It’s all about the songs, which includes five no. 1 singles. “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Man In The Mirror,” “Liberian Girl”…this is greatness, y’all.”

Read the full review.

Seattle Post Intelligencer

“Marking the quarter century mark since the release of Michael Jackson’s work of pop genius, Bad 25 is a positively electrifying celebration of this often underrated album. ”

Read the full review.

Houston Chronicle

“This is a layered, loving tribute whose power ultimately resides in the genius of the original album.”

Read the full review.

NBC News’ The Grio

“Bad25: A Michael Jackson masterpiece gets its due.”

Read the full review.

Huffington Post

“The Wembley shows are the equivalent of the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965. But make no mistake: Jackson’s performance here eclipses even his most talented predecessors.”

Read the full review.

Showbiz411.com

“Fans will love all the versions of “Bad25,” believe me.”

Read the full review.

BBC

“An awesome, evergreen and essential pop masterpiece.”

Read the full review.

Blog Critics

“… Bad is a treasure chest of indelible pop hooks, tasteful arrangements, devastating dance grooves, and some impeccable vocal performances.”

Read the full review.