Michael Jackson - Bad

Bad is the seventh solo studio album by Michael Jackson, released on August 31, 1987, nearly five years after Thriller and marking the third and final collaboration between Jackson and producer Quincy Jones. Jackson reportedly wrote around sixty songs during the sessions at Westlake Studios and recorded thirty-three of them, initially hoping to release a sprawling three-disc set before Jones convinced him to narrow the album down to eleven tightly focused tracks.

That editing paid off in historic fashion. Bad produced a record-setting five consecutive number-one singles 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," while "Smooth Criminal" reached the Top 10 and a seventh single cracked the Top 20. Lyrically, Jackson pushed into more direct territory than Thriller had, touching on media bias, paranoia, racial profiling, and self-improvement alongside the romantic material that had always been his bread and butter, giving the album real thematic weight beneath its massive commercial success.

Bad topped the charts in thirteen countries and shipped an estimated 45 million copies worldwide, cementing Jackson's status as one of the most successful artists of the entire decade and proving that following up a phenomenon like Thriller wasn't just possible, it could produce one of the best records of his career.

This limited vinyl repressing comes in a gatefold jacket, a great way to own one of pop music's most dominant commercial statements.