Songoftheday 11/20/15 - I'm gonna make a change for once in my life, it's gonna feel real good gonna make a difference gonna make it right...

"Man In The Mirror" - Michael Jackson
from the album Bad (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13 

Today's song of the day is from Michael Jackson, whose 1987 album Bad had already spun off a trio of #1 pop hits in America with "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "The Way You Make Me Feel", and the title track. The fourth single release from the record was the one that would end up its most timeless, "Man In The Mirror". Written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett (the latter who sang on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You"), and produced by Michael with Quincy Jones, the self-help mantra of a song seemed more of a hymn than a pop hit, and by the gospel ending (provided by Andre Crouch's choir) back in the day it felt like more of a religious experience....

"Man In The Mirror" became the fourth song from Bad to top the Hot 100 in March of 1988. The single also topped the R&B chart in Billboard for a week, while spending a week at #2 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart. Internationally, the record climbed to #1 in Italy, Ireland, and Belgium, as it peaked at #3 in Canada. Surprisingly, it stopped at #21 in England and #39 in Australia, but after Jackson's death in 2009, "Man" shot up to #2 in the UK and #8 Down Under.

But when all is said and done, this is the song that will be the first in Jackson's musical legacy. It's message of introspection and determination is a lesson to everyone that you see in pop music very, very rarely.

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Here's Michael performing the song at the Grammy Awards in 1988; it was nominated for Record of the Year the year after (but lost out criminally to Bobby McFerrin's more twee "Don't Worry, Be Happy")...

...and on his Bad tour that same year...

Vocal pop icon Dionne Warwick performed the song on the Soul Train awards a year later...

In 2011, the winner of the first season of The Voice, Javier Colon, along with his "coach" Adam Levine from Maroon 5, covered the song on the show, and the 'single' studio version of the track went to #45 on the Hot 100...

The musical comedy Glee included "Man In The Mirror" in its 2011 episode Hold On To Sixteen, and the track peaked at #76 in America and #84 in Canada...

 Finally, here's Michael in concert in 1992...

Up tomorrow: A musical family uses the space program.