Bad Girl was Vibe On’s inaugural CD release in 2015 and was further celebrated a decade later with two stunning heavyweight vinyl pressings: Mi Piace Splatter and Bad Girl Blue. The original two-disc affair expanded the album with over twenty bonus tracks, including unreleased versions of fan favorite tracks “Playboy” and “He’s My Brother”. The vinyl release was supported by the first Blu-ray and US DVD release of La Toya’s 1989 pay-per-view concert film, A Sizzling Spectacular, recorded at Bally’s Casino in 1989.
Post-Bad Girl, La Toya ventured down other avenues: performing at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, posing for Playboy a second time and releasing a platinum-selling Celebrity Centerfold home video. In true Jackson fashion, however, she couldn’t stay away from the studio for long. Further album releases No Relations, From Nashville to You, and Stop In the Name of Love rounded out her 1990s catalog, all released before she took an extended break from the entertainment industry. She returned with a bang in 2003 with the Billboard chart hits “Just Wanna Dance” and “Free the World” and later entertained audiences on her eponymous reality show Life with La Toya.
In spring 2025, Vibe On pressed From Nashville to You and Stop In the Name of Love to vinyl for the first time, each on two gorgeous variants – Nashville’s Good Time Gold and Boot Scootin’ Silver, and Stop’s Tear Drop Blue and Sugar Pie Red – as well as expanded versions of both albums on CD.
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.
