It was influenced by a true story Jackson read about a young man who tried to escape poverty by attending private school but was killed upon returning home.

It reached number one in Ireland, Norway, Spain and the Netherlands, and the top ten in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several European countries.

The music video for "Bad" premiered in a TV special, Michael Jackson: The Magic Returns, on CBS during prime time on August 31, 1987.

It has been praised by critics as one of the most iconic videos of all time; Jackson's outfit has been recognized as an influence on fashion.

[5]In a 1988 interview with Ebony and Jet magazines, Jackson said he was inspired by a true story that he had read about in either Time or Newsweek.

[6] Jackson stated that the story was about a student who went to school in upstate New York, who was "from the ghetto", had tried to make something of his life and planned to leave all of his friends behind when he returned from Thanksgiving break.

[10] Davitt Sigerson wrote in Rolling Stone magazine, "When Jackson declares that 'the whole world has to answer right now,' he is not boasting but making a statement of fact regarding his extraordinary stardom.

If anything, he is scorning the self-coronation of lesser funk royals and inviting his fickle public to spurn him if it dare.

Davitt Sigerson, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine, commented that the track" needs no "defense" and he generally praised Jackson's vocal performance in the song.

[16] In separate review of the song, Erlewine commented that Jackson's vocals "sounded like [he was] the love child of James Brown and Mavis Staples" and added that "musically speaking, in this case, 'Bad' is very good".

[17] He also noted that the track's "authority and boasting helped to humanize" Jackson and "changed his image", remarking that it was "fun hearing him talking trash and being his own bigger booster".

[18] The full music video for "Bad" is an 18-minute short film written by novelist and screenwriter Richard Price, shot by Michael Chapman, and directed by Martin Scorsese.

In the video, Jackson portrays a teenager named Darryl, who has just completed a term at an expensive private school.

Darryl finds his home empty, but is later greeted by his old gang-friends, led by "Mini Max" (a then mostly unknown Wesley Snipes).

At first, relations are friendly but slightly awkward, as the gang starts to realize how much Darryl has changed and how uncomfortable he has become with their criminal activities.

With Darryl provoked, the video then cuts to him and a group of street youths dancing while he sings the song "Bad".

The full video was introduced in a TV special, Michael Jackson: The Magic Returns, on Primetime, a CBS television show on August 31, 1987.

[27][28] The video's choreographers Jackson, Jeffrey Daniel, and Gregg Burge were influenced by West Side Story when designing the dance routines but wanted to keep the scene more contemporary and incorporated the "moonwalk" into the movements.

[29] Assistant choreographer Jeffrey Daniel commented, "It's like a train coming across the screen ... and that's the effect I was looking for and it worked".

In 1987, UK actor and comedian Lenny Henry made a spoof of this song and gave it a title "Mad".

[31] "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of the song, titled "Fat", for his 1988 album Even Worse.

[33] In 1989, John Oswald released an expanded version of his original Plunderphonics album containing "Bad", cut up, layered, and rearranged as "Dab".

In 1990, notice was given to Oswald by the Canadian Recording Industry Association on behalf of several of their clients that all undistributed copies of Plunderphonics be destroyed under threat of legal action.

Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the remixes on Bad 25 were "terrible... and are an insult to MJ's memory not because they rework his music, but because they do it so ungracefully.

"[96] Evan Sawdey from PopMatters said "Afrojack has two remixes of 'Bad' here, obviously trying to make the song sound like it belongs on modern-day radio (one of them, with two guest verses from Pitbull, is just outright trash).