Happy 40th BDay to the GOAT album: Thriller

[Northside7]

Beat it

The lady in my life.

 

[Elzo69Renaissance]

All together Thriller was his 19th album

 

[Juttythe4th]

Not even a CB fan, but this would have been cold

 

[grYmes]

I listened to the 40th anniversary edition yesterday. A lot of remixes and unreleased cuts. It’s pretty good collection of extra tracks.

 

[5 Grand]

The album itself was a great album.

But you have to remember, he had been in the industry for a good 10+ years prior to Thriller, so he knew the ins and outs of the industry, what to do, what not to do, etc.

He utilized music videos; When everybody else was doing cheap, low budget videos MJ was doing big budget videos with choreography and special effects. MJs videos stand the test of time whereas many of the videos from 1982/83 wouldn't be taken seriously if they came out in 2022.

For example, look at this Rick James video from the same era



Then look at this Prince video



Then look at this Grandmaster Flash video




Last but not least, look at this video for Billie Jean




As you can see, MJs videos were head and shoulders better than everybody else's.

 

[Marc123]

The lady in my life.

 

[757'sFinest]

Fun fact the album title would've been "start light" or "midnight man" but rod temperton stuck with thriller

 

[rip.dilla]

My old man told me MFs were queuing overnight in the UK to buy that album... I think I remember him saying at its peak it was selling 200, 000 a week... In a foreign country!


Also reading one of many Mike Jack bios... It was stated in 1982 - 83 that the album was a staple in most American homes like a grocery item...

 

[rip.dilla]

Mike was disappointed with the sales of Off The Wall.. and vowed to up the ante on Thriller...


He spent $1 million of his personal money to produce the video to Thriller and the video was actually what propelled sales of the album to skyrocket... One of the very (if not the) first music videos to be shot as a short film (alongside it's making)






Personally I think the overwhelming critical and commercial success of Thriller culminated in personal problems that led to his eventual demise...

 

[OGDirtyD]

First cassette I ever owned. Life time of memories.

 

[Iceberg_Taylor]

Classic doesn’t nearly define this album. 1 of 1

 

[south4life]

The Lady In My Life is my chill out joint
Baby Be Mine is my ride out joint

The whole album gets played with no skip but, those two songs are my personal favorites.

 

[shutupGabi]

Lady in my Life

 

[5th Letter]

Human Nature

 

[Water Ur Seeds]

A GOAT album... If anyones interested, they are releasing it on SACD (super audio) format too, so it should sound amazing...

 

[King of GA]

As it was the last song picked for the album, Human Nature almost didn’t make the album it came down to Human Nature or this



they made the right choice

That sounds like a song that would have fit in very well on Music and Me or Forever, Michael.

 

[King of GA]

Fun fact the album title would've been "start light" or "midnight man" but rod temperton stuck with thriller

You know some of the tracks on this album and Off The Wall were originally written for Heatwave, which was Rod's old group. Thriller is one of the songs. If you are familiar with Heatwave's music, you can hear the similar sound on several tracks from both albums.

 

[King of GA]

Part of what makes this album so great was that they threw cohesion to the wind. I forget how many tracks were recorded, but they were like "let's pick the best 9 whether they go together or not."

Then, 7 of the 9 were released as singles with Thriller being the last single from that album.

 

[Mr.LV]

 

[IP360]

Watch the Thriller short film scared me as a child. That shyt was awesome tho. Especially watching "The Making of Thiller".