• AllMyVinyl #61
• Band: Michael Jackson
• Album Title: Thriller
• Release Date: 29 Nov 1982
• Date purchased: 16 Oct 2020
• Location purchased: Amazon
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

Want to say this up first. I didn’t plan on doing Thriller on 4 Nov. The original plan for today was Deguello by ZZ Top, because it was next up in my alphabetical list.  Then when I woke up this morning I found out that music legend Quincy Jones had passed.  That dude’s worked with seemingly everyone, but in particular is well known as the producer of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album.  So I decided to pivot and hit the Thriller album today instead.  I’m not going to spend a ton of time on QJ here, but he is an industry legend, and he is the catalyst for me doing this today – so my glass gets raised to Mr. Quincy Jones – he’ll be missed.

Thriller is an album that I’d say ANYONE reading this knows something from.  How can you not?  The album is known to be the #1 biggest selling of all time.  I mean NOTHING has sold more.  Depending on what source you use, it’s anywhere from 51.3 million copies (verified sales) all the way up to about 70 million copies (reported sales).  I mean it’s a BEAST of an album.  The Girl is Mine, Beat it, Billie Jean, Thriller – I mean every single person reading this post of mine will know at least one song from it.  I’d bet my paycheck on that.  Whether you LIKE it or not is not what I’m getting at – you KNOW the album.

When an album is THIS large, it’s hard to write about as I’ve already run into in my series.  This isn’t like Dark Side of the Moon where it all feels like one giant song, this has 9 distinct songs here with their own flavors, but has that MJ sound that runs through nearly all of them.  Now it’s not like it’s 9 #1 singles here, there’s a couple of album tracks, and one that I think probably belongs on an earlier MJ album than this one – but make no mistake.  The stuff on here smokes.  It really does.

I of course bought this way back when – and given it came out in late 1982, I would have likely bought it on vinyl, but when my brother rescued my old stuff, it wasn’t there, so if I had it on vinyl, it was gone.  I definitely bought it on cassette tape and on compact disc for sure – I still have the CD somewhere – not the tape though.  When I started in with vinyl again in 2020, this was on the list to re-buy.  I mean how could you not?  So between the four copies I’m pretty sure I’ve bought – that’s my contribution to the 70 million copies sold.  The 2020 copy I purchased was technically a 2015 re-pressing, and is the copy I played today.

When you think about Michael Jackson, two things come to mind.  The songs he wrote, and his personal life which was well… combustible.  I’ve always said about MJ – from when I first found about him in the 80’s through his remaining life and past his death..  He was a Grade A freak, but could write a song like nobody else.  Speaking of his songs…

Wanna Be Starting Something – I always thought the song title was a great one to open an album with. It has a guitar riff at times and it’s not just wall to wall R&B, which I liked. There is a beat that goes through the whole thing, but that’s a very common thing for an MJ song. This isn’t the best song on the album, but it’s a good opener. The Texas Rangers frequently use this in stadium when someone gets a rally started.

Baby Be Mine – One of the “album tracks”. It’s one of the ones I can’t say I ever remembered hearing on the radio. There wasn’t a video for it. It kind of flew under the radar despite being on one of the biggest selling albums of all time. It has a nice beat that I enjoyed tapping my feet to this morning.

The Girl is Mine – One of the three duo tracks MJ did with Paul McCartney. The most famous one I think is “Say Say Say”, which is technically on a McCartney album, but this one is here, and is a slow song. It’s not bad, but the talking part at the back end of the song always felt a little odd to me (mostly cuz MJ says “I’m a lover, not a fighter”). Probably cuz I could never see these two arguing over the same woman. :)

Thriller – The title track is one of the most well known tracks and videos out there. The lyrics, the beat, the visuals – it all works. It’s one of my favorite individual songs by anyone. I would play it ALL the time. When I worked at Apogee/3D Realms back in the day, the guys in the office would hate it when I’d put Thriller on, because the bass would pump loudly with the subwoofers in my office. More than once someone would knock on the walls when I’d start Thriller. I remember distinctly the furor around the release of the video back in the day. Directed by John Landis, it was at the time the most expensive music video ever produced with a budget around a million dollars. Even parts of the video extended past the life of the song – the “two hand dance gesture” the zombie backup dancers did is something my wife and I do to this day – much in the same way you air drum to Bohemian Rhapsody thanks to Wayne’s World. As I sit here writing this, the song is actually on (for real), and I can see the dancing in my head. But the cherry on the top of all this is Vincent Price. His voice at the end is so perfectly matched with what’s going on musically, it works. On an album that is considered perfection by a lot of people, this one song is the top of the heap – it’s perfection of perfection. If I could only ever listen to a single MJ song again for the rest of my life, this would be it.

“The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom”

The Michael Jackson “eating popcorn” meme comes from the Thriller video.  Fresh capture.  haha.  :)

Beat It – The big single from this album I would think. It had the widest appeal, as it had something different for MJ – a hard rock sound. That’s because the guitar parts were played by Eddie Van Halen. As memorable as the song is and how many parts of the video are seared into the brains of kids my age.. The one thing I never bought into was MJ as a street fighter. But the visual spectacle combined with the overall sound made for something you always stopped and watched when it came on MTV – which it did A LOT, as it lived in “heavy rotation” for a long time. Loved EVH’s solo. This song also really launched Weird Al’s career too as his “Eat It” came as a parody of this (which MJ approved of, which was cool). I always wished Van Halen played the song, but as far as I know they never did.

Billie Jean – Another one you can’t be my age and don’t know. That shot of MJ walking down a street and the squares lighting up is a visual that will always be with me. This is probably my second favorite song on the album – I love the music from front to back here. Another spectacular track. I’d say it’s probably the one most people know after the title track. Stupid popular when it was new. I would have thought it would be the first single, but when I looked it up it wasn’t.

Human Nature – This isn’t one I think of when I think of this album. It’s not bad, it’s’ actually pretty good, but it isn’t one of the AAA songs from the album. Which is an odd take as it was the fifth overall single from the album. It’s enjoyable when I listen to the album, but I can’t tell you the last time I sought out the song on its own like Thriller or Billie Jean.

PYT – That stands for “Pretty Young Thing” – I *LOVE* the chorus here. The beat definitely sounds like other things on the album (in a good way), but the chorus makes this song for me. It’s stupid catchy.

The Lady in My Life – The album closes with this track. It’s the slowest thing on the album for sure, a much quieter song overall. It reminds me a little in places of his earlier song Ben a a decade prior. Almost feels like it belongs on a different MJ album than Thriller honestly.

This album is an earworm for me.  When I do listen to it, it’s never just Track 1 – 9 and I’m done. I usually get stuck on Thriller (the song), and today was no different.  I watched the video, and probably listened to the song about 6-7 times.  Also repeated Billie Jean, PYT, & Billie Jean as well.  It’s an amazing as hell album.  This is usually in these things where I say “If you’ve never listened to it, you should check it out” – but you’ve already checked it out.  I’ll just ask you to go get your copy and play it for Quincy today.

“… For no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller.”