Michael Jackson在Thriller之后，趁热打铁，推出了这张商业上非常成功的专辑，不但风靡全美，还成功反攻英伦，成为英国音乐史上总销量第二的唱片，仅次于 Beatles的Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band。专辑共11首歌（MJ当年本来是打算发行双LP，共30首歌的专辑，但Qunincy Jones砍到了11首，CD版甚至只有十首歌），有9首都是英美热门打榜单曲，其中I Just Can't Stop Loving You等5首歌曲都先后成为英美冠军单曲，实在是强悍。 然而，尽管单曲都很成功，这张专辑却没有取得Thriller那样好的销量（在美国“只”卖了600万张），有批评者认为，从这张专辑开始，MJ的冲击力和感染力已经开始减弱了，这也是制作人Quincy Jones为MJ制作的最后一张专辑。 本专辑在滚石杂志评出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第202位。 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. And if that wasn't evident proof that Jackson was losing touch, consider this -- the best song on the album is Leave Me Alone (why are all of his best songs paranoid anthems?), a tune tacked on to the end of the CD and never released as a single, apart from a weirdly claustrophobic video that, not coincidentally, was the best video from the album.