"Dirty Diana" is a fairly mean-spirited song

[Incandenza]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUi_S6YWjZw

I guess I never really listened to it before—I was too young to "get" it when it was popular and I haven't actively listened to much Michael Jackson as an adult. But, listening to Bad the other day, I was struck by what an angry, nasty song it is. Sure, Jackson has sprayed invective at other times—"Billie Jean," "They Don't Care About Us," etc.—but the die-you-awful-awful-cunt tone here is strange.

Related: Bad is p. good (pun unintended) outside of the miserable three-song stretch of "Speed Demon," "Liberian Girl," and "Just Good Friends."

 

[Incandenza]

Weeknd's cover feels just about right within the context of his work, however:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXT1oKrgq0o

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I think Bad is just a small, small step below Off The Wall and Thriller. I like every song on the album but the highs on the album aren't as high as on the other records.

And I think Robert Christgau had a decent-ish point when he theorized that "Dirty Diana" was MJ's weird attempt at cock rock.

The Weeknd's cover is one of the only good MJ covers I've heard.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Speed Demon rules. The lyrics are dumb but who cares? Michael all urgent and frantic is nice once in awhile. That's a cool motorcycle-sounding riff and it's a sweet beat.

 

[Incandenza]

I don't recall when I realized that the man in the mirror was the song's singer, Michael Jackson, but it wasn't right away.

 

[Incandenza]

Me and my friends used to amuse ourselves imitating MJ's hiccups in that song. It was probably in one of those hiccup sessions that it dawned on me the identity of the man in the mirror.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

...who else could be the man in the mirror but the guy looking into the mirror? WTH

 

[Incandenza]

Oh, like obvious things never went over your head when you were eight.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I can't hate on "Speed Demon". The segment of Moonwalker involving it/music video was a huge, huge part of my childhood and sparked a very brief fascination with claymation! It's my favorite "forgotten" Michael Jackson music video.

Speaking of music videos, the video for "Liberian Girl" (which I thought was called "Librarian Girl" up until two years or so ago which is astonishing considering I've listened to the album literally hundreds of times) is awesomely terrible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3V-7DEAgdc

"Just Good Friends" is a massive disappointment considering you had prime Michael Jackson and a still very capable Stevie Wonder. I don't think it's terrible like Inc does but it's probably the weakest track on the album. Unfortunately, the song that they did on a Stevie album during the same time period, "Get It" isn't any better. You'd think MJ+Stevie would make for a GOAT collaboration but there's a reason that the songs are mostly forgotten.

 

[Incandenza]

If I ever heard "Liberian Girl"—which, yes, I initially read as "Librarian Girl," too—before listening to Bad then I've forgotten it. I didn't know it was a single until I was reading the Wikipedia article.

 

[Incandenza]

And honestly, my biggest problem with the three songs I singled out isn't that they aren't very good—though that doesn't help—it's that they're sequenced all in a row in the first half of album. Had they not formed this massive hump between the awesome "The Way You Make Me Feel" and the also awesome "Another Part of Me" I doubt I'd have mentioned them here.

 

[Richard]

No song on Bad is as bad as "the Girl Is Mine".

As for the topic track, MJ was afraid of sex, deathly afraid of sex, especially with women.

 

[Incandenza]

Undoubtedly the attendant baggage of Jackson and sexuality is what makes this song mildly disturbing.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

"The Girl Is Mine" is one of the worst pre '90s MJ songs for certain. I also thought "The Lady in My Life" was kind of a limp ballad. I stil most of the weaker tracks on the trilogy of his awesome albums (Off The Wall through Bad) would have been some of the better tracks on his later albums.

I'll go to bat for Dangerous though (which was my third favorite MJ album for a long time) and even a lot of HIStory although both albums define the term "filler heavy".

Also to address Inc's point, the boneheadedness of songs like "Dirty Diana" sort of are the reason why I think MJ was (mostly) asexual.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Personally, I feel as though Lady in My Life aged pretty well. I didn't care for it when the album came out (of course, I was seven when the album came out, so I wasn't really trying to listen to ballads, anyway), and I didn't much care for it as a teenager, or in my twenties. But, since I've passed my mid-thirties, it's become one of my favorite tracks on the album. I really love the music, although that may also be influenced by my appreciation for Cool J's Hey Lover.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Never even heard that track till now, and I really liked the LL Cool J song. It's alright, Kamala not liking it is weird, I thought a song like that would be right up his alley.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Like you said, it's alright. It's not terrible but it just kind of sits there and is a weird way to end a dynamic album.

 

[Lei Tong]

Loved "Speed Demon" for the video as a kid, and still love the song for giving me and other thoroughly un-hip bassists an incredibly difficult bass run to attempt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ywaLsfvefWk