| "Man in the Mirror" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Single by Michael Jackson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Bad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Released | January 9, 1988 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Format | CD single, 7" Single, 12" single, DVD | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | February—May 1987 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Genre | R&B, Pop, Gospel, new jack swing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Length | 5:18 (Album Version) 5:02 (Single and Video Version) |
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| Label | Epic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Siedah Garrett Glen Ballard |
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| Producer | Quincy Jones Michael Jackson (co-producer) |
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| Michael Jackson singles chronology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Man in the Mirror" is a song recorded by Michael Jackson and written and composed by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. It peaked at number one in the United States when released as a single in January 1988 off his seventh solo album, Bad. It is one of Jackson's most critically acclaimed songs and it was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks. The song peaked at number 21 in the UK Singles Charts in 1988, but in 2009, following the news of Jackson's death, the song peaked at number two, behind Cascada's "Evacuate the Dancefloor," having re-entered the chart at 11 the previous week as his top song on the singles chart.[1] It also became the No. 1 single in iTunes downloads in the U.S. and the U.K.[2]
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Jackson performed a live, extended version of the song at the 1988 Grammy Awards. He also performed the song as the ending of the concert during the Bad World Tour's second leg, and regularly during the Dangerous World Tour. On July 16, 1996, Jackson also performed "Man in the Mirror" at the Royal Concert Brunei for the last time prior to the United We Stand benefit concert. The instrumental introduction to the song was played at the end of Jackson's memorial service, while his casket was being carried out; followed by the appearance of a spotlight shining on a microphone on an empty stage. After a closing prayer that incorporated themes from the song, the spotlight remained shining on the lone microphone.[3] The song is also featured as the final number in Michael Jackson's This Is It. The song was quoted by Jermaine Jackson during Celebrity Big Brother 2007, while confronting several housemates who had been bullying an Indian housemate, the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. The song was played into the house the following morning as an alarm.
One of the videos is a notable departure from Jackson's other videos mainly because Jackson himself does not appear in the video (aside from a brief clip toward the end of the video in which he can be seen donning a red jacket and standing in a large crowd). Instead, it featured a montage of footage from various major news events such as a nuclear explosion of Operation Crossroads, the John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy assassinations, the Iranian hostage crisis, Live Aid, Farm Aid, and notable people including Martin Luther King, Lech Wałęsa, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Mahatma Gandhi, Anwar El Sadat, Menachem Begin, Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Rosa Parks, Ronald Reagan, Pieter Willem Botha, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and Adolf Hitler.[4] An alternate video was included at the beginning of his film Moonwalker with footage of several live performances of the song during the Bad World Tour.
The PCM Stereo music video version of this song was included on Number Ones and Michael Jackson's Vision.
The song was written and composed by Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard. Jackson added background vocals from Garrett, The Winans and the Andrae Crouch Choir, which gave the song its distinctive sound. The song is said to be one of his favorite songs.[5] Arranged with a Gospel choir, a year after David Bowie used the same device for "Underground", from the fantasy film Labyrinth, other popular artists at the time who had tracks featuring Gospel choirs including Debbie Gibson and Guns N' Roses. Jackson would use a Gospel choir again several years later on his hit "Will You Be There". Siedah Garrett also sang Jackson's duet "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" in summer 1987. The song is played in the key of G Major at a tempo of 100bpm. The vocal range is Ab3-C6.[6]
"Man In The Mirror" was the fourth consecutive number-one single for Jackson's Bad in the United States. The single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at #48 on February 6, 1988, and reached #1 by its eighth week on the chart, on March 26, 1988, where it remained for two weeks. It originally peaked at #21 in the United Kingdom in 1988. However, following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, "Man in the Mirror" re-entered the UK Singles Chart at number 11, and the following week the song peaked at #2, held off by Cascada's "Evacuate the Dancefloor". The chart had also contained over 12 Michael Jackson songs in the Top 40. This song had been at top 100 for 15 consecutive weeks in this chart. In Australia the song originally charted at 39. After the singer's death the song re-entered the chart and peaked at number 8, much higher than its original release. It was also the top single in iTunes downloads in the U.S. and the U.K.[2]
| Chart (1988) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Singles Chart | 39 |
| Austrian Singles Chart | 10 |
| Canadian Singles Chart | 3 |
| German Singles Chart | 23 |
| Netherlands Singles Chart | 13 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 3 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 4[7] |
| UK Singles Chart | 21 |
| US Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| Chart (2009) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 8 |
| Austrian Singles Chart | 17 |
| Danish Singles Chart | 12 |
| European Hot 100 Singles[8] | 7 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 3 |
| Japan Singles Top 100 Chart[9] | 65 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 9 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart | 15 |
| Spanish Singles Chart | 50 |
| Swedish Singles Chart | 19[10] |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 22[11] |
| UK Singles Chart | 2 |
| UK R&B Chart | 1 |
| US Billboard Hot Digital Songs[12] | 2 |
1980s
2000s
2010s
| Preceded by "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single March 26, 1988–April 2, 1988 |
Succeeded by "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" by Billy Ocean |
| Preceded by "Fishnet" by Morris Day |
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs number one single March 26, 1988 |
Succeeded by "Wishing Well" by Terence Trent D'Arby |
| Preceded by "Boom Boom Pow" by The Black Eyed Peas |
UK R&B Chart number-one single July 5, 2009 - July 19, 2009 |
Succeeded by "Beat Again" by JLS |