The Bad Cover

I came across this Billie Eilish cover of Michael Jackson’s ’Bad’ on some Australian show—Like A Version. She was sixteen, and she’d slowed the whole thing down into something almost unrecognizable.

The original is all swagger—those 80s synths, Michael’s voice at full confidence. She strips all of that away. It’s sparse and quiet, just her voice mostly, and what’s left is the melody without anything to hide behind.

She’d been floating around for a while by that point—Ocean Eyes, Bellyache, the usual trajectory for someone with talent. But this cover was different. It wasn’t about the musicianship. It was about hearing something in someone else’s perfect song and removing everything except that one thing.

Once you hear her version, the original never sounds the same. I still don’t know if that’s good or bad, just that it happened.