Note: If viewing Michael Jackson Ultimate Archive on archive.org (Wayback Machine), please view the latest snapshot of this page for the most up-to-date information and media.

"Speed Demon"

Date range (Westlake Sessions for the “Bad” album) confirmed in Mike Smallcombe’s “Making Michael” (“In August 1986, after more than two years of on-off work, Michael was ready to join forces with the A-Team again, as he felt he had enough material to present to Quincy… In November 1986, Michael flew to New York to film a video for ‘Bad’. It was the first time he filmed a video while an album was still in production, keeping him out of the studio for many weeks… With the ‘Bad’ video complete and the Christmas break over, Michael and the A-Team resumed recording at Westlake in early January 1987… Final mixes were completed on July 9, and the next day Bruce Swedien took the tapes to Bernie Grundman’s for mastering.

Michael Jackson, Moonwalk

“Speed Demon” is a machine song.

Mike Smallcombe, author, Making Michael

‘Speed Demon’ was reportedly written by Michael after he once received a speeding ticket. Matt Forger confirmed the story is true. “It happens,” he said, smiling.’

...[Quincy] and Michael also fought about credits. “On the song ‘Speed Demon’, Jerry Hey definitely contributed an element of writing, in terms of the track itself… the music,” Larry Williams [(played MIDI Saxophone Solo for “Speed Demon”)] said. “So Quincy said to Michael, ‘Look, you have to credit Jerry for what he did on that song’. But Michael refused to credit Jerry, and instead he took extra money for his work.”

[Editor’s note: Context for the previous paragraph:

Michael actually did give credit to Jerry Hey for both horn arrangements and trumpets for “Speed Demon” in the album liner notes. I’m assuming Quincy wanted to give Jerry a co-writing credit.

Michael has said there was tension between Quincy and himself during the Bad sessions.

From Michael’s “Moonwalk”:

And we fight. During the Bad sessions we disagreed on some things. If we struggle at all, it’s about new stuff, the latest technology. I’ll say, “Quincy, you know, music changes all the time.”

From Randy Taborelli’s “The Magic and the Madness”:
[During “Dangerous”] Michael no longer wanted to work with Quincy because he felt that the producer had become too possessive of him and his work, and had taken too much credit for it. Michael was still miffed that Quincy gave him a tough time about ‘Smooth Criminal’ – Quincy didn’t want it on the Bad album.

Editor’s Note: Matt Forger and Bill Bottrell stand by Michael on the songs that he’s written..

From Mike Smallcombe’s “Making Michael”:

Matt Forger totally disagrees with this viewpoint of [musicians not receiving co-writer’s credit on songs Michael had written]. “These were situations where Michael worked with different people to help him realise his ideas; sometimes the people working with him contributed ideas as well,” he said. “It would have to be a case-by-case evaluation. I worked on many songs that Michael created from scratch. Others may have opinions of their own, but other people were not responsible for writing his hit songs. They may have played a part, but it was usually in support of him.”

Bill Bottrell is also in Michael’s corner. “Michael was better than most at knowing the difference between writing and everything else that goes on,” he said. “We split our compositions clearly and fairly.”]