(Prince recorded a still-unreleased Camille album in 1986 some of the tracks later showed up on 1987’s Sign O’ The Times.) But “Camille” might’ve also been what Prince was calling Michael Jackson. It was a fascinating stalemate between two very powerful dudes.” Quincy Jones, who brokered the meeting, later said that Prince walked in with a big white box labelled “Camille.” On Prince’s own records, Camille was his feminine alter-ego - his voice, sped up to sound higher, singing in the background. They kind of sat there, checking each other out, but said very little. Shortly after the meeting, an unnamed source told SPIN that Jackson and Prince were “so competitive with each other that neither would give anything up.
Prince would not sing on “Bad,” but “Bad” was still a cultural event. If “Bad” had been a Michael/Prince duet, it would’ve been a massive cultural event, and that event would’ve happened entirely on Michael Jackson’s terms. Inviting Prince to sing on the song was a strategic move. Prince was one of the few people on the planet who could’ve threatened that supremacy. The song was a hard, tense, funky dance track, and it was Jackson’s reassertion of his pop-music supremacy. Jackson had written a new song called “Bad,” and he wanted Prince to sing it with him. One day in 1986, Michael Jackson and Prince sat down at the same table. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.