"Man in the Mirror" is a song recorded by Michael Jackson, with lyrics and music by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett, and produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones. It was released on February 6, 1988 as the fourth single from his seventh solo album, Bad (1987).[1] Arranged with a gospel choir, the song is played in the keys of G major and A♭ major at a tempo of 100 bpm. The vocal range is A♭3–C6.[4]
"Man in the Mirror" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, becoming Jackson's tenth number-one single on the chart, and was certified 3x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[5] It was nominated for Record of the Year at the 31st Grammy Awards. 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 2. The song was remixed for the soundtrack of Jackson's tribute tour Immortal.
The "Man in the Mirror" music video was directed, produced and edited by Don Wilson. Don and Michael Jackson developed the idea for the video. Larry Stessel who was Video Commissioner at Epic Records at the time was the Executive Producer. It features a montage of clips of children in Africa, Adolf Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan, Martin Luther King Jr., the Kent State shootings, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Lech Wałęsa, kids in Graduation, and other historical figures."Man in the Mirror" was the 4th consecutive number-one single for Jackson's Bad in the United States. The single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 48 on February 6, 1988, and reached number 1 by its 8th week on the chart, on March 26, 1988, where it remained for 2 weeks.
The song originally peaked at number 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 number 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 number 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 US and the UK.[14] It has sold 567,280 copies in the UK as of January 2016.[15