I read somewhere that MJ wanted to produce Bad on his own without Quincy Jones, and that it originally was supposed to be a triple album/33 tracks. There was some contract in place which prevented that, and the two were fighting a lot during production. Jones pared it down to a single LP.
The album art Jackson initially submitted was some wild looking transgressive stuff for the time, record company rejected it.
He also wanted to name the entire album Smooth Criminal but Quincy Jones vetoed that as well.
Sounded like if they would've left MJ to his devices the album would've been more sprawling than what was released. AKA what he did on Dangerous but at a younger age/better vocals. That time period MJ was peak vocals for sure.