Personally I want to say that its either Bad or Dangerous as MJ's best album, but I feel like Off The Wall might be his best work (in my opinion) with the aforementioned coming in behind. I just feel that although all the songs on OTW aren't MJ's biggest hits, that they're all good nonetheless. There's no bad song on the album, there are songs that arent top tier (girlfriend) but most of the songs are good. Whereas with Dangerous, I find myself skipping songs like She Drives me Wild, Gone too Soon, or Keep the Faith unless I'm in the mood for it; but with OTW, all the songs I don't skip (except DSTYGE bc it has to be one of the most overplayed MJ songs). Plus I feel that in the general public, aside from Thriller OTW is what people who aren't MJ fans might say is his best (I could be wrong though)
I know no one asked for this, but heres how I view Michael's albums (the adult ones from when he was alive) to hopefully help explain my point:
Off The Wall - Overall the best album, probably only one or two skippable songs max, but otherwise just about every song is a bop
Thriller - F * cking good album, but really we're all there for the big three (Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller), PYT and Baby be Mine are good, as well but the whole album is highly overrated by critics who compare everything else to this album as opposed to just letting them be different
BAD - If it weren't for Just Good Friends (APOM annoys the hell out of me sometimes tbh) this I'd say is his best IMO. People shouldn't compare it with thriller, they are vastly different albums. The number ones from this album are some of MJ's best songs for sure.
Dangerous- arguably the most unique MJ album, in the sense that he almost made a return to his original funk sound. Overall a great album and severely underrated, but the songs run a bit long and not a huge fan of She Drives me Wild among others.
HIStory - Hella over-hated album, some of MJ's best adult vocals, Come Together could have been replaced with another song TBH, gets a bit slow at times, but still a good album, not his best work, but still some high quality stuff, if it were released today I'm sure it would be a huge hit.
Blood on the Dance floor - I know its not really an album but BOTDF and Ghosts are good songs, I could do w/o Superfly Sister, I still like it though.
Invincible - I go in between on this album, I love songs like You Rock My World, Butterflies, Heartbreaker, and (don't kill me) 2000 Watts. But on the other hand songs like Unbreakable, You Are My Life, The Lost Children, Don't Walk Away feel like songs that could have easily been replaced with Xscape, I Like the Way You love me, or Another Day.
So ya, again I know no one asked haha, but those are my opinions, in my personal ranking I'd say: Bad, OTW, Dangerous, Thriller, HIStory, Invincible. the only thing I can for sure is that I feel OTW is his best work with Bad at a close second, the rest is too difficult to decide.