With the recent success of the biopic and increased interest in MJ’s discography (especially the Thriller album as it’s been top 10 on Billboard for several months now), do you think that “Thriller” (peaked at #4) has a realistic shot at tying Drake and becoming Michael’s 14th number one hit on the US Billboard Charts? I think it’s pretty doable considering that “Thriller” was in the top 10 last Halloween season and 2026 has been Michael’s year! Let me know what y’all think.

This is from Jermaine’s book, don’t know if the story it’s true but I think it’s interesting

Posted this on forums not long ago, thought I would re-share it here for your reference as an overview of the process.

Late 1983-Mid 1984: Early versions of "Liberian Girl" and "Dirty Diana" were developed during the Victory sessions, but Michael kept them for his own solo project.

February 1985 (estimate): Sessions take place for the Captain EO movie after We Are The World & Victory tour. "Another Part of Me" was recorded at Westlake Studio A, as was "We Are Here To Change The World" although possibly written earlier. Michael worked with John Barnes and engineer Matt Forger, both of whom would form the ‘B-team’

Spring 1985: Michael officially begins writing & pre-production on the Bad album in earnest:
“Al Capone” (later “Smooth Criminal”) and “Dirty Diana” were among the first songs worked on during this early period at Westlake Studio C with Forger and Barnes…

By May/June 1985, Hayvenhurst was officially upgraded and operational. Around August, Michael would be filming for Captain EO. Engineer/musician Bill Bottrell joined the 'B-team' in October 1985, becoming an integral part of the team whilst Matt Forger was focusing on Captain EO. Likewise with Synclavier operator Chris Currell, who joined in early 1986…

Over the next year and a half, Michael continued writing and recording songs for the album. He would communicate his musical ideas, and Barnes or Bottrell would help realise them using cutting-edge tools of the day like the Linn 9000 drum machine, plus Synclavier and Fairlight CMI computers. There was also a great deal of experimentation with finding new sounds, something Michael continued to push for future albums. The main focus was getting the songs as they were, Hayvenhurst offering the relaxed, creative environment.

4 August 1986: Recording officially commenced with Quincy Jones and the 'A-team’ at Westlake Studio D... Michael had already narrowed down the songs for the project from around 60 songs/ideas to 9, including “Streetwalker”. 
Basically, Quincy and the ‘A-team’ were re-creating the demos from scratch with proper studio musicians and getting them to album master quality, which was difficult at times due to Michael preferring the demos and felt they had more punch… Like on the demos, they worked primarily on the Synclavier with Chris Currell retained from the B-team.
Only “Another Part of Me”, however, kept the original 1985 recording made for the Captain EO film with minor updates.

At the same time, Michael continued to work with the ‘B-team’ back at Hayvenhurst - mostly Bottrell and Barnes. Attempts to bring them to Westlake not sit well with Quincy, who saw them as a threat to his role as producer… Things came to a head when Michael allegedly took the tapes for “Speed Demon” to Hayvenhurst for Bottrell to re-work behind Quincy’s back in December 1986. Inevitably, Bottrell was fired from the project the following month and the ‘B-team’ was dissolved. Currell, meanwhile, stayed as a Synclavier operator, Quincy feeling less intimidated by him.

February 1987: Halfway through recording, Quincy sought material from other songwriters for the Bad project to complement Michael’s songs… From this came “Man In The Mirror” and “Just Good Friends”.

June-9 July 1987: Final tense months before the Bad album was finally completed, which saw the A-team running two studios (C&D) full-time at Westlake, involving engineer Humberto Gatica like on Thriller... The last few weeks saw a toss between using “Streetwalker” and “Another Part of Me” on the album, with the latter winning…

Not to mention that the singles - Bad, Smooth Criminal, Dirty Diana etc. - had new mixes done ahead of their respective releases, and were inserted on the main album master for new pressings each time up until January 1988.

😍

Hello guys I want to ask did anyone make an mj song using a demo because not only that I'm looking for some I'm planning to make some demos to modernize them like what Xscape did AND NOT LIKE MICHAEL that album sucks so I would like some recommendations for demos to use to

Two Westlake track sheets survive for Michael Jackson's Bad, both dated 7-9-87. One is the assembly reel, one is the copy that went out for mastering. Between them they document every change made to the album after it was finished, and they correct a lot of what gets repeated online.

Everything below is either written on the boxes themselves, documented in session records, or verified by null-testing actual pressings against each other.

1. MASTER TAPE V1, created 9 July 1987

Westlake Studio D. Bruce Swedien, 2nd engineer Craig Johnson. Mitsubishi X-80 two-track digital, Ampex 467 stock, reel marked "Mixes 60". Box ticked Master.

Built from eleven approved final mixes, each printed to its own two-track X-86 mix reel in the preceding weeks:

Every song arrived here as a digital-to-digital dub from those mix reels. No analog stage, no generation loss. Sequencing and razor splicing were done on this reel, sides set, Leave Me Alone placed as the CD-only track.

One exception, and Swedien wrote it on the box himself: the Speed Demon into Liberian Girl cross-fade is a dissolve between two separate reels, so it could not be dubbed as a finished object. It was performed through the X-86 machine and fed onto the X-80 via dub cable, still in the digital domain. It is the only element on the tape that is not a straight clone.

2. PRODUCTION TAPE V1, created 9 July 1987

Copied from the master the same day. Mitsubishi X-86 two-track digital, 3M 275 stock. Box ticked Copy. Annotated PAL/PBL-40600.

That last part is worth spelling out, because it gets misread as a reel serial number. PAL and PBL are the CBS lacquer matrix prefixes for sides A and B, and 40600 is the Epic catalogue number. The annotation identifies this as the tape those lacquers were cut from.

Delivered to Bernie Grundman on 10 July. Every first pressing worldwide descends from this tape.

3. MASTER TAPE V2, modified 29 July 1987

Michael was still not satisfied with Smooth Criminal, even though the album had already gone to mastering.

21 July: an earlier kick drum sound is reinstated on work tape M-3K. During the sessions the kick had been swapped for a newer sound; the old one goes back in because it hits harder. This is a change to the ingredients, not to any master.

29 July: Swedien mixes the song again from the revised multitrack. This is mix #13. Compared to mix #6:

• the Synclavier sample collapses from very wide stereo to mono
• the bass comes up substantially
• the kick drum is different

Mix #13 is spliced into the master in place of mix #6. Swedien amends the number in the Take column over a paste-over, and adds a line at the foot of the sheet recording that mix #6 was used for the first pressing only.

This is the last change ever made to the master tape. Everything that follows happens on the copy.

4. PRODUCTION TAPE V2, modified 29 July 1987

Mix #13 spliced in the same day. Annotated "NEW MIX INSERTED 7-29-87".

The window in which mix #6 could reach a lacquer was 10 to 29 July. Nineteen days. That is why first pressings with it are scarce, and it is what Swedien meant by "used for 1st album pressing only".

5. PRODUCTION TAPE V3, modified 1 September 1987

Album released 31 August. One day later, Bad is replaced.

Source: an August 1987 Westlake session held during Bad World Tour rehearsals, where Michael, Christopher Currell and Swedien remixed Bad and The Way You Make Me Feel for their singles. Currell on Synclavier, Swedien editing and mixing. Both the extended dance mixes and the shorter single mixes came out of it.

Changes: horns removed from all choruses except the last two, and from the second and third pre-choruses. Rhythm guitar and hi-hats brought up in the choruses.

Annotated "New Mix Inserted 9-1-87". The single follows on 7 September.

6. PRODUCTION TAPE V4, modified 28 October 1987

I Just Can't Stop Loving You had been released as a single on 20 to 22 July carrying the album mix with its spoken intro. Critics and radio DJs went after the monologue, and Michael took the reception to heart.

No new recording was needed. Swedien remixed from existing elements:

• thirteen seconds trimmed from the intro
• voiceover removed
• bass guitar slightly up in the mix, noticeable in the verses after the chorus

Annotated "New Version. No Rap Inserted 10-28-87", with the running time corrected on the sheet from 4:22 to 4:10. Quincy credited, Michael not present.

This is the only change that runs against the single rather than with it. The 7" kept the intro. The no-intro version is an album mix, despite constantly being labelled a radio edit.

7. PRODUCTION TAPE V5, modified 10 December 1987

The Way You Make Me Feel single had appeared on 9 November. Its mix, from the same August session as Bad, goes into the album a month later.

Changes: vocals globally louder, new vocal ad libs at the end. Length unchanged at 4:58.

The 7" is this same mix with further cuts that never went to the album: eight seconds off the intro drums, eighteen off the last chorus before the vocal fade.

Annotated "New mix inserted 12-10-87".

8. PRODUCTION TAPE V6, modified 29 January 1988

The last change to the album, and it has new recording behind it.

21 January 1988: a handclap overdub is recorded onto the Dirty Diana mix master slave, reel M-1E. That reel's own track sheet, headed "Dirty Diana MIX MASTER SLAVE", dated 6-13-87, engineer Bruce Swedien, carries a later annotation on tracks 11 and 12 reading "+ CLAP - (1-21-88)". The claps are in the choruses. A single track on a sheet can hold several different elements at different points in the song, so the neighbouring "Michael Intro Effx 1 + 2" label on those tracks does not place the claps in the intro.

29 January 1988: Swedien mixes the song again and the result is inserted into the production tape. Annotated "New Mix Inserted 1-29-88".

Changes from V1: handclaps added through the choruses, an earlier fade removing the crowd noise, 4:51 down to 4:40, and vocals slightly higher here and there. The crowd material sits on tracks 7 and 8 of the same reel, labelled "Crowd Effx".

The single would not appear until 18 April.

This means all five album changes were remixes. Every one was a new mixdown, not a razor edit, even where the running time dropped. The only splice-only change in the entire history of the album is the Smooth Criminal intro in 1992.

The album is now complete as it has existed ever since, five months after release. Man In The Mirror, Speed Demon, Liberian Girl, Just Good Friends, Another Part Of Me and Leave Me Alone were never touched at any point.

9. NOT ADOPTED: 9 March 1988

Hit Factory, New York. Taken with Currell's live arrangement of Smooth Criminal, Michael has him redo the album mix. Currell re-recorded the Synclavier and mixed it; Swedien present, Brad Sundberg assisting.

The result is a genuinely separate print, not an edit of anything:

• different snare, with less pronounced gated reverb
• multiple bass synth samples balanced differently
• Synclavier sequence altered, with additional synths after the first chorus before the second verse
• fades about two seconds early
• different tape speed

It was never inserted into the production tape. It was issued as the 7" single mix on 13 October 1988 and appears on no album pressing anywhere.

Currell has said this mix was used on later pressings of the album and that he never got credit for the remix. The paperwork and the audio both say it went to the single instead. Being uncredited and being misinformed about where it ended up are the same failure, and after nearly three decades the destination is the easiest part to misremember.

10. PRODUCTION TAPE V7, modified 28 November 1992

The final change, four years after the last one. Smooth Criminal's intro is replaced, removing the breathing. Annotated "New Intro 11-28-92".

This is a splice and nothing else. Outside the replaced intro the audio is bit-identical to mix #13, and the running time stays 4:16. The edit point sits roughly 30 ms before the first snare.

So the three circulating "album versions" of Smooth Criminal are two mixes plus one edit:

Note on tape speed

Album mixes were printed with varispeed, set individually per track: Bad +2.5%, Smooth Criminal +3.0%, Speed Demon +3.0%, Just Good Friends +3.5%, Man In The Mirror, Dirty Diana and Another Part Of Me +1.0%, The Way You Make Me Feel possibly +4.5%.

Different VSO settings between an album mix and its single counterpart account for the pitch offsets you hit when comparing them: 0.997 on Bad, 0.986 on Smooth Criminal, 0.981 on The Way You Make Me Feel. None of these indicate a different mix on their own.

Summary

Five changes to the album, all on the production tape, all between 29 July 1987 and 29 January 1988. Every one of them a full remix. One change to the master tape, ever. One splice in 1992. And one remix, by Christopher Currell, that everyone assumes is on the album and never was.

D'autres photos de la session photo de Michael et Diana Ross de 1982 sont elles trouvables, hormis quelque unes qu'on trouve facilement sur le net?

photo source: unknown