1. Michael JacksonBad
This is on my list because, apart from a Soul II Soul 12", this was the first record I wanted that I hadn’t heard via my dad. I was living in Peckham and we went to buy it from a guy selling tapes on the high street. He had a suitcase full of tapes in the street. They were obviously all copied and half the price of the actual record. So I bought a bootleg Bad tape, but the tape wasn’t long enough and ran out before the end of the album. It contained most of side one and only some of side two. My dad took the tape back and threatened to punch the guy on the nose if he didn’t give him a refund. We then went and bought the real album from Woolworths and it was just super exciting.
I used to dress up as Michael Jackson and try and do the ‘Bad’ dance from the video. Then later on I remember seeing Nightmare On Elm Street and realising that maybe my outfit was more Freddy Krueger than Michael Jackson, as I had the hat and a stripy jumper.
As for the record itself, it was the first album I appreciated from start to finish. It had so many hit singles. The only other album that I felt that way about was What’s The Story (Morning Glory)? by Oasis. Both albums have a crazy amount of big singles.
Bad was my Michael Jackson moment, because it was my first point of becoming a fan. I fell for the song ‘Bad’ – when I heard it, it wasn’t like anything else I knew. The video was brilliant, and the whole thing seemed really exciting. Then Dangerous came out and it all became a little bit weird.
