Bad is the seventh album by Michael Jackson. It was released on August 31, 1987 by Epic/CBS Records. The record was released nearly five years after his last studio album Thriller. 20 years after its release, the album has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, and shipped 8 million units in the United States. Bad is the first, and currently only album ever to feature five Billboard Hot 100 #1 singles.

Jackson began recording demos for the anticipated follow-up to Thriller a few months after his last performance with The Jacksons after their successful Victory Tour. Recording took place between November 1986 and July 9, 1987 (except for “Another Part of Me” which was recorded for Captain EO in 1986). Jackson wrote a reported sixty songs for the new album and recorded thirty, wanting to use them all on a three-disc set. Instead his longtime producer Quincy Jones cut it down to ten tracks and a bonus song making it a single LP. The CD release contained the bonus track, “Leave Me Alone”. Jackson wrote nine of the eleven tracks himself while Terry Britten (writer of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It”) and Graham Lyle wrote “Just Good Friends” and Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard wrote “Man in the Mirror”. Contributions from other musicians included Stevie Wonder who sung a duet with Jackson on “Just Good Friends” while Steve Stevens contributed a guitar solo for “Dirty Diana”.