Part of the joy of Off the Wall and Thriller was that craft was enhanced with tremendous songs, performances, and fresh, vivacious beats. 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') relies on nothing but studio craft.

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.

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'). For one thing, the material just isn't as good. He wound up with a sleeker, slicker Thriller, which isn't a bad thing, but it's not a rousing success, either. 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 studio craft. 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.

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