Talk:Bad (album)

Orphaned references in Bad (album)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Bad (album)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "EW":

• From Bad 25: Ray Rahman (September 5, 2012). "Bad 25 - review - Michael Jackson". EW.com. Retrieved September 7, 2012.
• From Teenage Dream: Greenblatt, Leah (August 11, 2010). "Teenage Dream". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on August 15, 2010. Retrieved November 21, 2023.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 04:39, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Bad (album)

Template:Bad (album) has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. TenthAvenueFreezeOut (talk) 09:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the Sales Debate

The statement from the New York Times cites 19 Million outside the United States and 6 Million worldwide, 19 + 6 = 25 million. Now what do media outlets state in 1991? If they stated 25 million then logically we know that the NYT was correct in their report

Los Angeles Times (1991) - Bad sold 25 million [1]

New York Times (1991) - Bad sold 25 million [2]

Gainesville Sun (1991) - Bad sold 25 million [3]

The Telegraph (1991) - Bad sold 25 million [4]

Victoria Advocate (1991) - Bad sold 25 million [5]

By 1994, Dark Side of the Moon (45M claimed currently) was reported to have sold 25 million copies worldwide and 13 million outside the United States. This means it had sold Less than Bad and the same as Dangerous at the time. [6][7][8]. But this didn't stop the label from claiming 40 million copies sold by 2006 which is a jump of 15 million in a 12 year period. [9] (Billboard - Label sources for Pink Floyd report 20M worldwide). There's literally no way it managed to sell that much more than Bad or Dangerous.

Another issue is the RIAA restricts audits for sales beyond a 3 year period, Bad was last certified in the summer of 1987. It went without certification until 1993 where it was certified for 7M representing sales between 1990-1993, meaning all of the sales from the rest of 1987-1989 were forever lost. By 1994 it was up to 8 million copies (8xPL). Meaning it would have sold between 27 to 29 million copies around the time History released in 1995, however from 1995 to 2013 there were no audits or certifications for Bad in the United States. The next time they certified it was 2013 which only covers sales between 2010-2013, not even accounting for the sales in 2009 when he died. This is a huge discrepancy in terms of how much is missing in that 15 year period as we've seen with the Eagles who managed to get certified a additional 26 million units above their SoundScan figures based on audits for a single album.

By 2008 before Jackson died, Bad was reported to have sold more than 32 million copies worldwide, this is long before his estate recorded 35 million copies (pure sales) of his solo albums in a 12 month period after his death which does not include any of the posthumous albums outside of "This is It". By 2014, Jackson's pure sales were more than 50M copies of his albums after his death, meaning it would have been well above 60M by the 10th anniversary of his passing since he continued to sell millions in the US during that period. The reports of Bad selling 45 million came out several years after his death.

Therefore the claim is valid for Bad if we are going to claim the same figures as Dark Side of the Moon Never17 (talk) 03:04, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a "forever lost" sales period between certifications. Later certifications take into account all previous sales.

Boxes and boxes of Bad were stacked unsold for months in the back rooms of Tower Records locations all across the US, until the distributor was forced to pick them up again to be destroyed. Which means that Billboard's method of counting shipped units as sold was tricked into reporting higher numbers. That was the point of the excessive shipments, of course, so that the media would say Bad was the fastest-selling album to date. The label was gaming the system.

The higher sales figures have a basic problem with WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. It's not believable that the album would have made those numbers. Binksternet (talk) 04:04, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

6 Million in the US plus 19 million internationally literally adds up directly to 25 million albums sold. Which is what the LA Times, New York Times and Telegraph cites. It had sold more than 32 million by 2008 before he died. [10] This is a logical progression, claims after his death range widely from 35 million to 45 million however due to the fact he sold so many albums in such a short period following his death and millions more from album units it's unclear how much it actually sold. There's literally no way however that Dark Side of the Moon went from being outsold by Bad during the 1990s to somehow leapfrogging it by more than 10 million Never17 (talk) 04:31, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

The only direct source we have on the matter comes from the record label Sony Music Entertainment

Off the Wall - 20,000,000 copies (By June 2009) [11]

Dangerous - 32,000,000 copies (By August 2009) [12]

Bad - 33,000,000 copies (by August 2009) [13]

Thriller - 70,000,000+ copies by (August 2009) [14]

History - 22,000,000 copies by (August 2009) [15]

The link for Thriller explicitly states the album itself sold 70 million by 2009, with the 110 million figure you see from the media being a combination of album sales and single sales generated from the album.

The problem is none of these figures here were officially updated until after streaming became prevalent.

Off the Wall - 30,000,000 [16]

Bad - 45,000,000 [17]

Thriller - 100,000,000 [18]

In the press release for Bad in 2017 they said 45 million album equivalent units not strictly sales. However this is contradicted by the fact they were already claiming 45 million in 2012 before streaming existed but were using 35 million on the official website

This means we have no idea how much any of these albums have sold since Michael Jackson died, due to how unreported and under-certified they are around the world. It's easier to just leave these be until a major re-certification takes place Never17 (talk) 05:17, 11 March 2025 (UTC)