The Official BAD 25 Thread

[mindseye]

More news: First Look: Spike Lee's Michael Jackson Documentary 'Bad 25'

 While he's still hoping to get his "Brooklyn Loves MJ" project off the ground, as he told us last week, Spike Lee's been able to scratch his Michael Jackson itch; hot on the heels of the release of "Red Hook Summer," he'll unveil "Bad 25," a new documentary about the creation of the pop star's seminal record, at the Venice Film Festival (where he'll also get a lifetime achievement award) in a few short weeks. And it was announced this week that Lee will also be bringing the film to the Toronto International Film Festival.

Given the high quality of Lee's documentary work so far (you can read our take on these projects in our retrospective of the director's work from last week), we're expecting this to be a cut above the usual music documentary, and some first-look images from the film, which reveal participants like Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker, Kanye West, Sheryl Crow, ?uestlove and Mariah Carey, suggests that this should shed some interesting light on the 25th anniversary of "Bad." We'll be bringing you our verdict on the film in a few weeks, but in the meantime, check out the images and an official synopsis below.

Spike Lee pays tribute to Michael Jackson's Bad on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the epochal album, offering behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson recording the album and interviews with confidants, musicians, choreographers, and such music-world superstars as Kanye West, Sheryl Crow, Cee Lo Green and Mariah Carey

Bad 25 features captivating behind-the-scenes footage of the recording sessions for several of Bad’s biggest songs ("The Way You Make Me Feel" being among the most memorable). There are also revealing interviews with a number of fellow artists who worked with Jackson — such as Sheryl Crow, with whom Jackson shared the duet "I Just Can’t Stop Loving You" on stage during the Bad world tour — and those who were inspired by him, including Kanye West, Cee Lo Green and Mariah Carey. Lee offers us a more intimate side of Jackson, one rarely glimpsed amidst the glitter and circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the notoriously private superstar, especially as his personal life (and appearance) became a scandal-rag mainstay in the years that followed Bad. As the landmark album takes shape before our eyes, we see Jackson’s dedication to his craft, his talent for inspired collaboration, and his sly sense of humour — as well as some hints of the toll that his relentless work ethic had on his psyche..

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[Sweetangel]

Hello everyone,

here is a new Speed Demon Remix supposed to be at the BAD25 Album.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9tpD9AqK04[/youtube]

Listen quickly, the orginal Source was asked by Sony to take it down and they did.

Here’s the Nero remix of Speed Demon by Michael Jackson from the forthcoming “Bad 25″ release. I have always really liked this song, as well as the fun music video from “Moonwalker”. This mix is not bad (no pun intended), but not something I would play at my club either. It’s about what I expected when I saw that Nero was remixing it. Hopefully some other remixes will follow.

Sorry guys, we were “asked” by Sony’s representative to take this preview down.

Here is the link: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Sometimes it feels like a Game, who is faster Me with posting the tracks or Youtube with deleting them. :icon_lol: Feels like "Somebody is watching me." At least I like this Remix more than the Afrojack Bad Remix.

Much Peace and Love to everyone.

[reveron1958]

Thank you for posting it.

I can't say I'd sit down and listen to that and to be honest Speed Demon is not a track I particularly like.  :icon_redface: Maybe more appealing to younger peeps.

[Sweetangel]

Thank you for posting it.

I can't say I'd sit down and listen to that and to be honest Speed Demon is not a track I particularly like.  :icon_redface: Maybe more appealing to younger peeps.

Yes, you are absolutley right, but remember Michael has Fans of all Ages. And it would be really boring
when they would only sell the old tracks. At least I wouldn't need them because I have them already and
why should I buy the same stuff twice?

Much Peace and Love to you.

[hesouttamylife]

I think it was performed due to it was the fav song of Lady Di, when Michael greeted Lady Di he told her I will not perform Dirty Diana in respect to you and Diana was quick to say: Oh no please it's my favorite song!

The Estate revealed that it was added at Diana’s request and it is on the dvd.  Whoopee  :woohoo2:

[MJonmind]

Seems to me there's less of MJ's vocals in it which is a downer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hr8XDax8pI[/youtube]

[voiceforthesilent]

That's a bummer about Speed Demon. I like the original song and so do my grandkids. We might be disappointed if the newer version has less MJ. But, sometimes a little change can be good too.

It kind of reminds me of when one of MJ's nephews was talking about the song Hold My Hand and he said that when MJ originally played it for him his only criticism was that he would have liked to hear more MJ and less Akon. I wonder, assuming MJ has some control over the songs, why he's doing that? Is he trying to let the newer artists "shine" as he says?

I will be buying the album in September out of support for MJ. I'll worry about what versions are on there later.

Blessings to you

[MaryK]

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Mystery About Unreleased Michael Jackson Songs from “Bad” Anniversary Album
08/27/12 9:49am Roger Friedman

EXCLUSIVE There are some mysteries about a couple of unreleased tracks including in the upcoming Michael Jackson “Bad25″ album. Two of the eight tracks– which are really wonderful–are unknown entirely to the engineers who worked on “Bad” in 1986. Those tracks are a lovely ballad called “I’m So Blue” and a slice of funk called “Song Groove (aka Abortion Papers).” Neither Bruce Swedien nor Bill Bottrell has any memory of them. I played the songs for each of them this weekend, and came up with no answers. “Michael must have gotten out and recorded with someone else,” Bottrell told me.
But don’t worry–they are completely by Michael Jackson. They’re the genuine article.
The anniversary boxed set of the huge-selling 1987 album contains quite a few surprises. Eight of them, actually. There are eight unreleased tracks that didn’t make it onto the “Bad” album. Surprisingly, they’ve remained in the vaults at Sony all this time. One of them, called “Don’t Be Messin’ Around,” was released earlier this summer as the “B” side of a re-released single on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” from Wal-Mart. I have no idea why Sony did that, since it seemed a squandered opportunity.
Now these eight tracks are coming as a separate CD inside “Bad25,” which contains four discs. The first disc is a remastered version of the original album. The second disc has these eight songs. The third disc is a live CD from a concert Michael performed on July 16, 1988 at Wembley Stadium in London. The fourth disc is a DVD of live performances from that time. Target customers get a disc of the original music videos from “Bad.” What’s unclear is what happens to  a Spike Lee documentary about the making of “Bad,” which should have footage from the recording sessions with Quincy Jones, engineer Bruce Swedien, and manager mastermind Frank DiLeo.
“Bad25″ will be released on September 18th.
But it’s the eight songs that are going to make fans very, very happy. A couple of them are known, like “Don’t Be Messin’ Around” and   . But the others are real surprises, especially a track called “Streetwalker.” It the vague feel of “The Way You Make Me Feel” in that it’s a Motown oriented shuffle. But it’s also a dynamite track. The version on “Bad25″ was mixed by Bottrell, but there are others by Swedien. Jackson was never satisfied with any of them. “Streetwalker” will be known to players of the video game “The Michael Jackson Experience.” But it’s also a hit. We’re going to be hearing ir on the radio– a lot. (“Streetwalker” and another track, “Fly Away,” were first included in the “Bad” re-release back in 2001.)
The others are all gems. “I’m So Blue” is beautiful ballad, with a vocal by Michael that recalls his best work. If Sony were smart, they’d release it as their first single from this set. It also has a harmonica solo that either is by Stevie Wonder or sounds just like him. The other tracks– “Al Capone,” “Free,” “Fly Away”– are also excellent.
There are reasons the songs didn’t make the final album.
“Price of Fame” is a mixture of a “Billie Jean” outtake, musically, combined with the Police’s “Spirits in the Material World.” Michael’s vocal on this track sometimes dips into his “real” voice–a lower register–than his stage falsetto and whisper that he perfected. “Free” is just another breezy ballad, and “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” was already on the album, and a hit. “Al Capone” is a different take on the hit, “Smooth Criminal.”
The strangest of the eight songs is titled “Song Groove (aka Abortion Papers).” Swedien doesn’t remember this track. Neither does Bottrell. It’s got a killer rhythm track and a very catchy hook and melody. But the lyrics–and I’m not sure whether Michael wrote them–are like the real flip side of “Billie Jean.” He sings “Those abortion papers/think about signing your name…”
I don’t know if Sony had producers fiddle with these tracks to make them sound more modern. They could very well have been augmented. But I hope the Jackson fans don’t try to destroy them the way they did the songs on the “Michael” album. Like those tracks, these are completely real, they’re Michael Jackson’s vocals, and they’re a wonderful reminder of the King of Pop at his zenith.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cUPpIPVT-E[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBv9me5amX4[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHZshqpB0BQ[/youtube]

[MaryK]

Michael Jackson: Exclusive Liner Notes from “Bad25″
08/27/12 6:45pmRoger Friedman

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Exclusive: Here’s some more info from the boxed set of Michael Jackson’s “Bad 25″ anniversary project coming on September 18th. Jackson fans should be ears up on this since we get some explanations for how the estate put the project together after Frank DiLeo unexpectedly and tragically passed away. Here’ an excerpt, plus a description of some of the unreleased songs I wrote about this morning. I’m telling you, “I’m So Blue” is one I cannot get out of my head. Very annoying, in a good way.
Excerpt: “A lot of time was spent listening to all of the recordings in the archives from the BAD era… Some tracks we found were very early recordings. They had no lyrics except possibly the chorus but more complete music tracks. Some were actually so complete that any other artist but Michael Jackson – who worked tirelessly to make sure his songs reflected his vision – might consider them finished tracks… As such, we have given a little information for each recording. As Michael wrote in a note at the time, he was determined to get exactly what he wanted on the recordings of his songs… In addition to the demo recordings, also on the “bonus” disc are the three recordings that were included in the 2001 re-release of the BAD album – “Fly Away,” “Streetwalker” and the Spanish version of “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” In addition, a French version of “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” is included along with the earlier mentioned remixes.”
DON’T BE MESSIN’ ROUND
It is well-known that Michael might start a song for one album, and then choose not to use it. The song would later be pulled from his vaults for possible use on a subsequent album project. “Don’t Be Messin’ Round” is an example of one such song, and how it took shape at the time of BAD. Indeed, Bruce Swedien has called it one of his favorites.
I’M SO BLUE
For Michael, creating a demo is how he let someone (in this case Quincy and Bruce) know what he wanted to hear in the finished recording. It also was a vehicle for writing both the lyrics and the music (since he didn’t actually write leadsheets). And because he was such a perfectionist, this really meant giving them a demo that, to most people, would be considered a finished “record” and not a demo at all as Bruce Swedien, among others, have noted. This is an example of one of those “demos.”
SONG GROOVE (A/K/A ABORTION PAPERS)
As noted earlier, this is a song that Michael knew could be controversial and, as a result, he spent a lot of time thinking about the story for the song and the voice through which the song should be told. The song is
about a girl whose father is a priest; she was raised in the Church and on the Bible. She gets married in the Church but decides, against the Bible, to have an abortion and she wants “Abortion Papers.” As Michael indicated in his notes, “I have to do it in a way so I don’t offend girls who have gotten abortions or bring back guilt trips so it has to be done carefully… I have to really think about it.“ This is an early example of a song with a controversial subject.
FREE
Generally, Michael’s process for creating a song would start with the chorus and harmonies first and it would build from there to include melodies and the lyrics for the verses. This piece shows a song that is clearly still a “work in progress” but with a full, finished chorus and harmonies.
PRICE OF FAME
Sometimes a song is written with a story in mind. In Michael’s work notes we found the story for this song – blind obsession. He described the story as “the girls who are over-obsessed with me, who follow me, who almost make me kill myself in my car, who just give their lives to do anything with me, to see me – they’ll do anything and it’s breaking my heart. It’s running me crazy. It’s breaking up my relationship with my girl, with my family. That’s the ‘Price of Fame’.”
AL CAPONE
When you listen to some early demos of songs, you can tell instantly what song it is. This is NOT one of those songs. It is an example of how different a song can be during its early stages of development from its later, finished polished version. If it were not a well known fact that “Smooth Criminal” was developed out of “Al Capone,” it would be hard to know that it had its roots in the material based on listening to this early recording.

[hesouttamylife]

I’ve heard everything except the I’m Blue song.  Someone on twitter leaked a slew of MJ unreleased songs.  And there was a boxed set (unofficial) that was being sold in 2009 with 32 dvds and 1 cd with nearly 100 songs on it that had most of these songson it also.

[marumjj]

Maryk Thanks, hope you can access the album, yeah I want it now  :woohoo2:

[reveron1958]

Thank you for posting it.

I can't say I'd sit down and listen to that and to be honest Speed Demon is not a track I particularly like.  :icon_redface: Maybe more appealing to younger peeps.

Yes, you are absolutley right, but remember Michael has Fans of all Ages. And it would be really boring
when they would only sell the old tracks. At least I wouldn't need them because I have them already and
why should I buy the same stuff twice?

Much Peace and Love to you.

Of course! I am not suggesting they only release tracks that might appeal to me personally!  :LolLolLolLol:

It was just a quick personal opinion on the track. Hope I haven't offended. I can't like everything!

[diggyon]

Thank you for posting it.

I can't say I'd sit down and listen to that and to be honest Speed Demon is not a track I particularly like.  :icon_redface: Maybe more appealing to younger peeps.

Yes, you are absolutley right, but remember Michael has Fans of all Ages. And it would be really boring
when they would only sell the old tracks. At least I wouldn't need them because I have them already and
why should I buy the same stuff twice?

Much Peace and Love to you.

Of course! I am not suggesting they only release tracks that might appeal to me personally!  :LolLolLolLol:

It was just a quick personal opinion on the track. Hope I haven't offended. I can't like everything!

I don't think you have offended anyone, reveron. People have different tastes and that's normal. The tracks I like are not necessarily the tracks you like and I'm sure Michael is aware of this fact.

[2good2btrue]

Of course there is going to controversy surrounding this new box set...Well I guess the executors of the estate still have a huge loan to pay off...more specifically, the loan taken out from Bank of America, using MJ's catalog as a security assest....HMMMMM

[Adi]

The Spike Lee doco on BAD25 is about to be premiered at the 69th Venice International Film Festival in a few hours time (9am Venice time) firstly for press and industry: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

I was just checking out the above pdf and noticed that the length of the doco is 123 (minutes)...which kind of reminded me of Sign #1 and the discussion about the 1 chromosome + 23 chromosomes

With the blood that Ron Wyatt found on the mercy seat of the true ark, the identity is impossible to counterfeit. Normal humans have 46 chromosomes (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login). However, the blood of Jesus from the ark has only 24 chromosomes (23 “X” from Mary, and 1 “Y” from God). This is very strong scientific evidence of the virgin birth (see Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; 3:23).

I love how it's being released on a 'blue moon" at the 69th Venice Film Festival and exactly on the anniversary of when the BAD album was released (31st August 1987).

I hope we get some "hoaxy" tidbits to pick apart from back when the hoax must have all been in the planning stages  :icon_mrgreen: