Grisly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom
Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...
...an album that I expect some of you might have heard at some point in the past. I remembered it as being great, but was worried that I might be disappointed coming back to it.
#12 : Thriller - Michael Jackson (1982)
Michael Jackson towered over the Eighties the way no superstar before or since has dominated an era — not even Elvis or the Beatles. And Thriller is the reason why. Still in his early twenties, the R&B child star of the 1970s had ripened into a Technicolor soul man: a singer, dancer, and songwriter with incomparable crossover instincts.
He and producer Quincy Jones established the something-for-everyone template of Thriller on 1979’s Off the Wall [see No. 36], on which Jackson captures the rare mania of his life — the applause and paranoia, the need for love and the fear of commitment — in a crisp fusion of pop hooks and dance beats. On Thriller, the pair heighten the sheen (the jaunty gloss of “The Girl Is Mine,” with a guest vocal by Paul McCartney), pump up the theater (the horror-movie spectacular “Thriller”), and deepen the funk. With its locomotive cadence and an acrobatic metal-guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen, “Beat It” was arguably the first industrial-disco Number One.
It is hard now to separate Thriller from its commercial stature (Number One for 37 weeks, 33 million copies sold), the nightmarish tabloid celebrity that led to Jackson’s death, and the horrific revelations about him that have surfaced in recent years. But there was a time when we only knew Jackson as the King of Pop. This is it.
I seem to recall it took me a long time to listen to this album - at the start, I suspect I didn't really think I was a fan of his (and I wouldn't have heard Off The Wall at this time either). Then, by the time all the good singles had been released, I'd heard all pretty much all of the album anyway, so it didn't feel like it was worth trying to track it down. And certainly not worth buying since it was impossible to avoid it - why would you pay money in order to be able to experience it in the 5 minutes of the day you weren't forced to listen to it anyway? So I seem to recall my opinion on finally listening to the album was "I've heard all of this before" because it's certainly not an album I've revisited often. So, after all that, let's see how much of it I actually remembered with one of my now famous track-by-track breakdowns.
1. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
A fine opener which suggests we're in for more of what we got on Off The Wall - it would feel equally at home on that album, but it doesn't give us any indication of what is to come. I'm still not convinced what all the "You're a vegetable" bit is on about, but you'd have to say the "mama say, mama sah" bit works far better than it has any right to do so.
2. Baby Be Mine
Not one of the more memorable tracks on the album (it was one of the few that wasn't a single, after all) - it's a fine funky-disco number but it could have been done anyone else in the previous 10 years (Shalamar would have been prime contenders) and completely ignored.
3. The Girl Is Mine
This is pure 80s cheese, isn't it? Top grade Stilton admittedly - but I don't imagine too many people revisit the album purely to listen to this. Macca's voice works well with MJs - although their chat at the end of the track is really not great. But that obviously doesn't stop me saying "I'm a lover not a fighter" in a high-pitched voice at every possible opportunity.
4. Thriller
Yeah, this is OK, I guess. It's so of its time, but only because it made that time its own - just genius. Perfectly topped off by Vincent at the end (and we'll come back to that later, I suspect). Yes, there is a good argument it's over the top - but it's not like it's the first over the top track we've seen on this list.
5. Beat It
But, however good Thriller is, Beat It does exactly what it says on the tin. A great start, a great song and a great solo - just pretty great all round.
6. Billie Jean
Well, this really isn't a shabby run of tracks is it? It's just a great track and yes, the video is bobbins, but it's very well done bobbins and exactly what people were going mad for back then.
7. Human Nature
I'm not a massive fan of his slower tracks, but even I like this one.
8. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)
This feels like it should be pretty average and is filled with cliche moments, but somehow hangs together pretty well.
9. The Lady In My Life
Another instantly forgettable track that could easily be by Shalamar - and he doesn't half drag it out.
What? Only 9 tracks? I seemed to remember a few more than that - but it turns out I was wrong (these things do happen after all) - it's a very tight 42 minutes. So the final track count is 3 genius, 3 good, 2 "fine I guess" and 1 super-cheese track - seems a reasonable hit-rate. I'd also say that there is a good amount of variety in there - certainly more so than Off The Wall (and possibly Bad, but I'm not going back to revisit it to find out). And history suggests there was enough variety in there to keep people happy, as no doubt Wikipedia will tell us.
Ah yes, it does mention it in passing but I'm not sure I need to bother you with the details when there are far more interesting facts on display. Like this - sales of the album were greatly increased after his appearance on a 25 years of Motown TV special where he debuted his moonwalk dance. And who invented the moonwalk? Why, it was Jeffrey Daniel from - yes, Shalamar! It's well worth watching this from about 2 minutes in for some very funky moves indeed.
Sales from the album were also increased by the Thriller video - I don't know if you remember that? What I didn't remember was that this was the last single off the album - a full year after it had been released (apparently Michael was worried sales were dropping so wanted something special to push them back up). It's often forgotten that the song was written by Rod Temperton, a white guy born in Cleethorpes who possibly wasn't the coolest guy ever - I'm not saying he did well out of the song but Wikipedia tells us he owned "homes in Los Angeles, the south of France, Fiji, Switzerland, and Kent" and things don't get much more rock and roll than Kent, I can tell you. The Wikipedia entry for the song is quite interesting - apparently they hired special doors to record the creaking hinges sound and Vincent Price recorded his contribution in two takes. Apparently he was given the choice between a flat fee of $20k or a percentage of the album profits - and the silly boy took the $20k.
OK, OK - we should probably mention the album sales as well, I guess. 66 million globally making it the best selling record of all time - but only the second best selling album in the US with a mere 33 million (some 5 million short of Eagles Greatest Hits).
I could pretty much stay here all day pulling random facts out about the album, but I suspect you've either had enough or will go and read the entry yourself. One last thing that I'd completely forgotten about - Thriller 25 - and if you haven't experienced this album (which sold another 3 million copies globally), then can I suggest you keep it that way?
It's hard to know what to do with his Wikipedia entry - there's so much in there and it's a real rollercoaster of high highs, low lows and the just plain bizarre. It's probably best if I just say "only read it if you can cope with 30 minutes of raising your eyebrows". We can at least be thankful that his kids (I'd completely forgotten about the whole "marrying his dermatology assistant" episode) seem be managing to live relatively normal lives and hopefully this will continue. I've previously fudged the question as to whether you can separate the man from the music so I'm certainly not going to attempt to answer it here, but I do think that plenty of people manage to do so for Michael Jackson where they might well choose not to do so for others - whether this is due to the man or the music, I wouldn't care to speculate. "Customers also listened to" - ah good, we're back to the random 80s cross-genre mix. Settle in, you're going to like this set if you're of a particular age - Prince, A-ha, Wham!, The Eurythmics, Survivor, Rick Astley and Madonna. Random or what?!?
So, the final appearance by Mr Jackson on the list and I was pleased I enjoyed it (and I'd forgotten quite how good Beat It is) and I think it easily justifies its position on the list. It's easily his best album and whilst I was rude about Bad, three entries on the list for the lad feels right given how he ruled the 80s and paved the way for a lot of other artists - and at least they didn't include Dangerous.
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