The downside to a success like
Thriller is that it's nearly impossible to follow, but
Michael Jackson approached
Bad much the same way he approached
Thriller -- take the basic formula of the predecessor, expand it slightly, and move it outward. This meant that he moved deeper into hard rock, deeper into schmaltzy adult contemporary, deeper into hard dance -- essentially taking each portion of
Thriller to an extreme, while increasing the quotient of immaculate studiocraft. He wound up with a sleeker, slicker
Thriller, which isn't a bad thing, but it's not a rousing success, either. For one thing, the material just isn't as good. Look at the singles: only three can stand alongside album tracks from its predecessor ("Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "I Just Can't Stop Loving You"), another is simply OK ("Smooth Criminal"), with the other two showcasing
Jackson at his worst (the saccharine "Man in the Mirror," the misogynistic "Dirty Diana"). Then, there are the album tracks themselves, something that virtually didn't exist on
Thriller but bog down
Bad not just because they're bad, but because they reveal that
Jackson's state of the art is not hip. And they constitute a near-fatal dead spot on the record -- songs three through six, from "Speed Demon" to "Another Part of Me," a sequence that's utterly faceless, lacking memorable hooks and melodies, even when
Stevie Wonder steps in for "Just Good Friends," relying on nothing but studiocraft. Part of the joy of
Off the Wall and
Thriller was that craft was enhanced with tremendous songs, performances, and fresh, vivacious beats. For this dreadful stretch, everything is mechanical, and while the album rebounds with songs that prove mechanical can be tolerable if delivered with hooks and panache, it still makes
Bad feel like an artifact of its time instead a piece of music that transcends it. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine