Thirty-nine years ago this month, “Bad” went all the way to No. 1.
The song came out on September 7, 1987, and reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 on October 24, 1987. It held the No. 1 spot for two weeks. By then the whole country knew the snap of that beat and the swagger in Michael Jackson’s voice.
Making the album behind it was a bigger job than most people realize.
Michael wrote a mountain of songs for this one. About 60 of them. He recorded 33. That’s not a typo. He went into the studio and cut more than 30 finished tracks, far more than any single album could hold.
So what did he want to do with all of them?
The song that topped the charts 39 years ago this month
Give it a watch and soak in that short-film feel, the leather, the attitude, the dancing. This is the title track that started it all, the one that hit No. 1 all those Octobers ago.
Here was Michael’s big idea. He didn’t want to pick just a handful of those songs. He wanted to put them out as a three-disc set, a giant release packed with music.
He was aiming high in every way. He’d told people he wanted this album to sell 100 million copies. A three-disc monster felt like the way to swing for it.
One man stepped in and changed his mind.
Quincy Jones, the producer who’d guided Michael through “Off the Wall” and “Thriller,” thought the three-disc plan was too much. He talked Michael down. In the end “Bad” came out as a single disc with 11 songs, the version sitting in record collections all over the world today.
It’s strange to think about. All those finished tracks, a whole sprawling triple album imagined and nearly made, trimmed down to the tight 11 we know.
So the next time you play “Bad,” remember there was a far bigger version living in Michael’s head. Then press play above and enjoy the one that actually won the day.