In 1987, La Toya Jackson was a free agent. Having just been released from her contract with Sony’s Private-I Records, she was living the high life: product endorsements were rolling in, magazine covers were plastered with her image and she was selling out shows all over the globe.

But despite the success, she was restless. Stifled under the management of her father, she felt the need to rebel. So, like her siblings Michael and Janet before her, La Toya fired her father and took on new management.

With four LPs under her belt, she was ready to get back in the studio and record her first album without any familial involvement. In the summer of 1987, La Toya was scouted by the German independent label Teldec Records. With an eye on the phenomenal sales not only of Michael’s Bad but also sister Janet’s Control, Teldec had high hopes of international success for La Toya, and to that end, the material she would record was deliberately transatlantic in flavor. La Toya traveled to the UK to cut tracks with hitmakers Stock, Aitken and Waterman, before venturing to New York to record further material with Full Force, best known for their work with Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. The resulting album was a marked departure from La Toya’s previous dancefloor-friendly funk-pop that generated headlines more for her new bad-girl image than the music contained within.

After stirring up controversy with a Playboy cover shoot in 1989, La Toya returned to the studio to record the follow-up to her first Teldec album. The resulting project took over a year to produce, due to restructuring within the label’s management. The Bad Girl album was finally released in Italy in 1990 to capitalize on her newfound success within the market, before finally seeing a wider release across Europe over the following years. Added to the collection of tracks produced by Tony Monn in 1989 were two one-off singles: Italo house track “Sexual Feeling” and her 1990 San Remo Song Festival entry, “You and Me”, both of which hit the Italian Top 40.