"Bad" by Michael Jackson - A dorian or Bb dorian?

I’m not quite sure what the key to “Bad” by Michael Jackson is. My gut tells me A dorian, but the tuning is kinda wonky and in between. I’ve seen other editors on the TheoryTab change it to Bb dorian. What do y’all think?

If you look at the bass frequencies in a DAW, it pretty much averages out right in the middle. Some notes are a bit closer to A, some notes are a bit closer to Bb.

I can’t find any trustworthy info on what key it was written in, but as you said, the live version is clearly in A, so I think it’s within reason to assume that it was recorded in A and then sped up a smidge to make it sound a bit more crisp.

2 Likes

Chorus is A, by my ear