Bad

The downside to a success like Thriller is that it's nearly impossible to follow, but Michael Jackson approached Bad much the same way he approached Thriller - take the basic formula of the predecessor, expand it slightly, and move it outward.

This meant that he moved deeper into hard rock, deeper into schmaltzy adult contemporary, deeper into hard dance - essentially taking each portion of Thriller to an extreme, while increasing the quotient of immaculate studiocraft.