It’s May 16, 1983. The TV show _Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever_celebrates 25 years of Motown music. Marvin Gaye sings ‘What’s Going On’ andgives an impassioned speech about black music. The Temptations and The FourTops have a music battle and Diana Ross is back on stage with The Supremes.
The song that Michael Jackson (1958-2009) plays is certainly not a Motownclassic. He sings ‘Billie Jean’, a single from his latest long-playing record,released on November 30, 1982 Thriller about an obsessed woman who claims heis the father of her child. The video clip in which the singer dances onilluminated sidewalk tiles was already special. Live in front of some 47million television viewers, Jackson during the bridge of the song hasanother sophisticated treat in store. It takes four counts at the most, buthis buttery smooth, backward sliding dance steps to the irresistible beat(later: the moonwalk ) take everyone’s breath away.
Michael Jackson 40 Years of Thriller
When it appears memorial album Michael Jackson Thriller 40 attentionin NRC for the lasting influence of ‘Thriller’. For fans worldwide, November30 will be the documentary ‘Michael Jackson Thriller 40′ screened in theNetherlands in cinema Tuschinski Amsterdam (sold out).
Half a year later, he surprises again. Jackson brings the title track of thesame Thriller album like an almost 14-minute long horror movie. In a redleather jacket, the singer first becomes a werewolf, later he is a dancingzombie in an intriguing group choreography among living corpses. _“You know it’s thriller, thriller night. You’re fighting for your life inside a killer,thriller. Oh!”_he sings.
The high-quality video of the unorthodox pop hit ‘Thriller’, a theatrical funksong with sound effects such as footsteps, howling wind, a creaking door andeven a very sinister spoken part by Vincent Price, is a sensation. Musicchannel MTV sometimes plays the long song twice an hour.
Magical actually, how as a child of the eighties I still remember exactly howit felt when I received that record from the Sint. Michael Jackson lying onthe fold-out cover, cool-glorious look in white suit with black zippersweater. And oh yes, that tiger so casually on his knee. That horror in theaforementioned video clip by the way: terrifying.
Just one funky snap of the fingers Thriller suddenly four decades old.
A special double celebratory issue coming Friday will feature old forgottenJackson demos and previously unreleased songs like “Who Do You Know.” At theend of this month, various fan events, including Tuschinski in Amsterdam, willscreen a documentary by filmmaker and music historian Nelson George about theorigins of Thriller.
How Jackson revitalized pop music with this album in the early eighties hasoften been described. How the immense sales buoyed up a recession-distressedindustry. How Michael Jackson transformed from teen idol to biggest pop starof his time with this album. A modern performer, a role model for black popmusic.
The sliding __dance steps at ‘Billie Jean’, the moonwalk take everyone’s> breath away
After Thriller followed the album Bath (1987). Legion of hit singles madeJackson even more popular if possible. There was a dark side to that status:the singer, surrounded by gossip, became increasingly alienated and lived inisolation on his estate Neverland – the place where he could remain a child.There were still tours and hits, but revelations about the eccentric artistdominated: he had a pigment disease, underwent facial operations, his fatherhad loose hands, there was financial chaos, and there were wonderfulengagements.
Allegations of child sexual abuse by the pop star were increasingly emphatic.They were not silent after his sudden death, a cardiac arrest, in 2009. Thepenetrating documentary Leaving Neverland (2019) resulted in a brief boycottof his music. But the question of whether we can still listen to Jackson’smusic quickly evaporated.
The singer was a weirdo but he was never found guilty. So fans remained loyal,and old hits are uncancelled. See the exorbitantly high number of streams of’Billie Jean’: played more than 1 billion times on Spotify. And also see thecelebration of Thriller 40 years.
Michael Jackson receives a gold record for ‘Thriller’ in London in 1983 PhotoTerry Lott/Getty Images
8 reasons why ‘Thriller’ is still undisputedly top quality
1. Thriller is a ‘sonic statement’
Play Thriller and marvel at how the direct, transparent and accessible soundblasts from the speakers. Punchy mixing, a razor-sharp distinction between theinstruments. Jackson wanted to make a ‘sonic statement’, blowing listenersaway with extreme musicality. And that still works.
That didn’t happen right away, though. After a first listening session withthe record label, Jackson and his producer Quincy Jones are disappointed withthe still lukewarm enthusiasm. All songs are remixed and boiled down toperfect lengths with renowned technician Bruce Swedien. The final compositionof the album was also a point. At the last minute ‘Beat It’, ‘PYT’ and ‘HumanNature’ were added anyway.
2. Thriller is a melting pot
It is still one of the most striking elements of Thriller : the mixing ofmusical styles. Jackson, with the help of producer, composer and arrangerQuincy Jones, blurred all lines and extended R&B and soul to rock, stretcheddisco funk to pop. In two ballads and quite a few dance hits, the eightiessound from an arsenal of synthesizers dominates. It is now fully embracedagain. And no Jones production without brass instruments: the sharp dots onthe i.
3. Thriller is of a creepy perfection
With the illustrious words “Okay guys, we’re here to save the record industryfrom destruction”, Quincy Jones started the recordings. It was quite apromise. The producer and arranger, who since musicalfilm The Wizz andMichael Jackson’s solo debut Off The Wall had a fatherly bond with Jacksonin 1979 (he called him “Smelly”), pushed the young singer to extremes in eightweeks. Beautiful, Jones could say after every take. But do you have any moreat home?
Listen back to the vocals – online they can be found ‘isolated’ frominstruments. You can hear the singer’s effort, the bendy voice, the vocalpower, all those shrieks. Jackson, Jones and engineer Swedien re-recorded songafter song over and over, well into the night. Jones would then pick out the’good’ parts – a phrase, a cry – which he welded together to almost clinicalperfection.
4. Thriller has ‘killer songs’
Of the nine songs, ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Beat It’, ‘Wanna Be Startin Somethin’ andthe title track ‘Thriller’ became instant classics. But also a disco song like’PYT (Pretty Young Thing)’ forces you to dance. Although there is no clip ofit. (By the way, PYT was perhaps the first ‘afko’ I ever learned myself).
These are songs, each with its own unique look, which was further enhancedwith imaginative, narrative video clips. Like the clip for ‘Beat It’, an R&Bsong with heavy hard rock elements that calls for violence to be avoided:rival gangs come together for a duel.
Striking: the very first single ‘The Girl Is Mine’ is the weakest song on thealbum. Called up on a whim, Jackson’s duet with ex-Beatle Paul McCartneyseemed on paper to be an incredibly beautiful collaboration between two bignames. ‘The Girl Is Mine’, however, turned into a sickly sweet duel for a girl( ” I am a lover, not a fighter”). Unbelievable.
British songwriter Rod Temperton also provided a smoother and sweeter workwith the interchangeable ‘The Lady Of My Life’ and the nice swinging ‘Baby BeMine’. But of course it was his ‘Thriller’, initially called ‘Starlight’, thatstood out. Funny: the title ‘Starlight’ was dropped because it had to be more’mysterious’, fitting Jackson’s new tough star persona.
Michael Jackson Photo Ron Galella/Getty Images
5. Thriller is a mountain of records
The story of Thriller , made for $750,000, is superlative upon superlative.You can’t escape the records. Eight Grammys. Platinum in sixteen countries.One of the best-selling albums of all time. According to record label Epic,now Sony-BMG, it was 104 million copies. The Guinness Book of World Recordsputs it at 67 million.
6. Thriller was the starting point of the music video market
The music video was a new phenomenon in the early 1980s and Jackson understoodhow it worked. Refined, advanced videos all emphasized his idiosyncratic,decisive dance art. They became promotional vehicles for his singles. Theslick group choreographies were later often seen with artists.
7. Thriller is overflowing with musical inventions
During the recordings, between April and November in 1982 at the WestlakeRecording Studios in Los Angeles, everything was done for unique sounds. Forexample, the signature beginning of ‘Thriller’ itself is the sound of a’shooting star’ – a falling back pitch in the synthesizer. And the echo phrasearose “don ‘t think twice” in “Billie Jean” due to Jackson singing through acardboard pipe in the bathroom.
Another recognizable sound: the isolated bass drum. With literally a woolcover on the drum with a microphone in it, the very dry drum beat of ‘BillieJean’ was created.
The best anecdote is of course Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo. Play what youwant was the request for ‘Beat It. And he did – as a favor, of all things.Studio legend wants his solo to be so loud it blew up the monitor. The flamesburst out. If you listen carefully, you will hear an accidentally recordeddoor knock from Van Halen just before the solo. According to producer QuincyJones, it was “exactly what was missing”.
8. Thriller relies on big names
In addition to rock god Eddie Van Halen, almost the entire band Toto alsoplayed on this album, including guitarist Steve Lukather. The fact that cultactor Vincent Price lent his low voice to the spoken ‘Thriller’ intro -(“Darkness falls across the land…”) made the song even more ominous.
The ‘Human Nature’, which was later also widely covered in jazz (Miles Davis),was written by Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro. It was a comfort song for hisdaughter that accidentally ended up on a demo. Jackson said it was the “mostbeautiful melody he had ever heard.”