Bad (album) - Legacy

Legacy

Bad made history as being the first album to have five of its singles peak at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 consecutively; "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror" and "Dirty Diana" all charted at number one on the music chart. Jayson Rodriguez of MTV, noted that "following the twin cannons that were Off the Wall and Thriller wouldn't be an easy task for most, but Jackson's follow-up, 1987's Bad, was formidable by all accounts." Rodriguez commented that the album was "wrongfully dismissed by critics because it wasn't the sales blockbuster that Thriller was" and that during the Bad era, Jackson's vocal hiccups and stammered "shamone" would become staples in his music that were "heightening and highlighting the emotion of his lyrics." Rolling Stone commented that "the best way to view" Bad was not as "the sequel to Thriller. In 2009, VH1 said of the album,

Understandably, the expectations for the album were ridiculously high, and grew even higher after Jackson planned duets with the likes of Prince (on the title track) and Whitney Houston (and Aretha Franklin and Barbra Streisand). None of those collaborations ended up happening, but they only increased the hype for the album. Bad was a deeply personal project for Jackson – he wrote nine of the 11 songs – one that saw him gain further independence and debut a harder-edged look and sound.

Jim Farber of The New York Daily News felt that Bad "streamlined the quirks" of Jackson's two previous albums to "create his most smooth work of pop to date." A writer for The Daily Telegraph commented that while Bad was another worldwide commercial success, the album "inevitably failed to match the success of Thriller despite Jackson's massive and grueling world tour". In 2009, a writer for The Miami Herald reflected on the anticipation for Bad, describing the album's release as being the "most hotly anticipated album in history". Stephen M. Silverman, a writer for People magazine, viewed Bad as being "when some slippage" in Jackson's "popularity began to show".

In February 2012, it was announced by The Official UK Charts Company that Bad was the ninth best-selling album in British history with sales of 3.96 million units; Bad charted behind Jackson's Thriller. Bad, along with other studio albums released by Jackson, are among the best-selling albums of all-time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 202 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The album is included in the book entitled 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2009, VH1 listed the album at number 43 on their list of "100 Greatest Albums of All Time of the MTV Generation", in 2009. In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 48 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".

The album's songs have been covered and parodied by multiple recording artists since its release in the late 1980s. Notable cover versions include Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal" and Shakaya's cover of "The Way You Make Me Feel". Notable parody versions include "Weird Al" Yankovic, who had previously recorded a parody of Jackson's song "Beat It". Yankovic parodied "Bad", entitling his version "Fat" in 1988; the song won a Grammy Award the same year for Best Concept Music Video.