Thriller
is a… Thriller
On 1 December 1982,
Thriller
was released to a market of seasonal shoppers. It seems ironic, considering the impact
Thriller
would have on the record industry, that when CBS released the album's first single (in October, a little over a month before the issuance of the album) many observers thought
Thriller
would be a disappointment. The auspicious pairing of Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney for the mid-tempo ‘The Girl is Mine’ (which the singers co-wrote while watching cartoons) appeared to be of greater interest than the song itself which, while cute, was lacking in substance. Many in both the black and white music communities felt that Michael and Quincy Jones had gone too far in consciously tailoring a record for a white, pop audience. If this first single was an indication of what else would be found on
Thriller,
Michael seemed to be in big trouble.
And then came ‘Billie Jean’.
Dark and sparse by Quincy Jones production standards, ‘Billie Jean’ prowled in rhythm like a predatory animal. It's a disturbing song Michael wrote about a girl accusing him of fathering her child. Joseph Jackson's extramarital affairs and his daughter, Joh'Vonnie, must have come to mind when Michael wrote the lyrics. However, there was another experience Michael had, which was the catalyst for ‘Billie Jean’.
In 1981 a female fan wrote Michael a letter to inform him that he was the father of her baby. She enclosed photographs of herself- a young, attractive, black woman in her late teens whom he had never met – and of the infant. Michael, who often received letters of this nature, ignored it as he does the others. This teenager, however, was more persistent than the rest. She loved Michael, she claimed, and longed to be with him. She wrote that she could not stop thinking about him, and about how happy they would be as they raised their child, together. She was obviously disturbed.
In months to come, Michael would receive dozens more letters from this woman. In one, she claimed that the baby and Michael had similar eyes and wondered how he could ignore his flesh and blood. It wasn't long before Michael began having nightmares about the situation. He fixated on her, wondering where she was, when she would show up at his front gate, and what he would do then. It seemed to some in the family that he had become as obsessed with her as she was with him.
One day, Michael received a package from her. When he opened it, he discovered another photograph: her high school graduation picture. In it, she smiled with girlish innocence. Also in the box was a gun. In a note, the fan asked that Michael kill himself on a certain day, at a certain time. She wrote that she would do the same – right after she killed the baby. She had decided, she wrote, that if the three of them could not be together in this life, perhaps they could in the next. Michael was horrified. He took the photograph, had it framed, and displayed it in the dining room on a coffee table, much to Katherine's dismay. ‘God, what if she shows up?’ he fretted. ‘What will I do? I have to remember this face. Just in case. I must never forget this face.’
She never showed up at Michael's gate. In fact, he later learned that the poor young woman ended up in an insane asylum.
After ‘Billie Jean’ came out, Michael said that he wrote the song with his obsessed fan in mind. Ironically, Quincy Jones did not want to include it on the
Thriller
album; he did not think it was a strong enough song to be a part of the collection. Michael so believed in the song, he and Quincy had strong disagreements about its merit. When Michael came up with the title of the song, he asked LaToya, ‘You don't think people will believe I'm talking about that tennis player, do you?’ He was referring to Billie Jean King; LaToya didn't think so. Quincy Jones did, however, and wanted to change the title of the song to ‘Not My Lover’. Of course, Michael vetoed that.
In truth, the relationship between Michael and Quincy rapidly deteriorated during the recording of
Thriller,
especially when Quincy would not give Michael a co-producing credit on ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Beat It’. The demonstration tapes Michael had recorded of both songs – before Quincy worked on them – sounded almost exactly like the final product. Michael felt it was only fair that he be given co-producing credit, and additional royalties as well. Quincy disagreed, much to Michael's chagrin.
Closer inspection of
Thriller
as a whole revealed an ambitiously crafted work that moved in a number of directions. The suburban, middle-of-the-road calm of ‘The Girl is Mine’ was the antithesis of the rambunctious ‘Beat It’, another highly charged Jackson composition in which Michael augmented his crossover rhythm-and-blues style by employing a harder-edged rock-and-roll sound. Some reviewers felt ‘Beat It’ was a shameless quest to attract hard-rock fans; the track featured Eddie Van Halen, whose band Van Halen was a preeminent rock group, on searing guitar bridges. While the tune was more of a marketing concoction – in the past, Michael had never shown any particular fondness for straight-out rock and roll – ‘Beat It’ would still find acceptance among rock fans.
On the other hand, if the funky ‘Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'’ sounds like a distant relative of
Off the Wall
's songs ‘Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough’ and ‘Working Day and Night’, the similarity occurred because Michael wrote them all during the same period. In ‘Startin' Somethin'’, Michael pointedly revealed his feelings on gossips and unwanted babies, and all to a bulleting bass and shuffling percussion. The tune's centrepiece, a climaxing Swahili-like chant, gave the song an international flavour. It was difficult to listen to Michael as he spat out angry lyrics about hate and feeling like a vegetable and not wonder about his state of mind at the time.
There were other stand-outs: the moody and introspective ‘Human Nature’, written by Steve Porcarro and John Bettis, was an expansive pop ballad whose sheer musicality kept it from being mushy. The funky ‘PYT’ (standing for ‘Pretty Young Thing’), credited to James Ingram and Quincy Jones, and the sultry ballad ‘Lady in My Life’, by Rod Temperton, were both efforts to beef up
Thriller
's R&B direction. ‘Lady in My Life’ was, by the same token, as close as Michael had come to crooning a sexy, soulful ballad since his Motown years. Perhaps that was why it required so many takes before the lead vocal was to Quincy Jones's liking.
The title track, ‘Thriller’, was its own animal. The song said much about Michael's fascination with the supernatural and the lurid. ‘Thriller’ is a typical Rod Temperton song – melodic, with a fluid bass line and big, mind-imprinting hook. The lyrics had excitement and intrigue, and the song concluded with a stately rap by the master of the macabre, Vincent Price. ‘Thriller’ would have been even more compelling as the title track of a concept album, but
Thriller,
the album, had no actual focus. It was just a bunch of great songs. Even the album's cover art, a photograph of a casually posed Michael uncharacteristically dressed in white jacket and pants, seemed incongruous. However, it's the picture many people refer to when discussing his plastic surgery, saying, ‘If he had just stopped there, he would have been fine!’
With
Thriller,
Michael and Quincy had successfully engineered glossy, authentic versions of pop, soul and funk that appealed to just about everyone. However, no one in the music business expected the public to take that appeal so literally. At some point,
Thriller
stopped selling like a leisure item – like a magazine, a toy, tickets to a hit movie – and started selling like a household staple. At its sales peak, CBS would report that the album was selling an astounding 500,000 copies a week.
To the press, Quincy acted as if he knew
Thriller
was going to be huge. ‘I knew from the first timeI heard it in the studio, because the hair stood straight up on my arms,’ he said. ‘That's a sure sign, and it's never once been wrong. All the brilliance that had been building inside Michael for twenty-four years just erupted. I was electrified, and so was everyone else involved in the project. That energy was contagious, and we had it cranked so high one night that the speakers in the studio actually overloaded and burst into flames. First timeI ever saw anything like that in forty years in the business.’ What in the world was he talking about, speakers bursting into flames? Quincy is nothing if not a good showman. In truth, of course, he had predicted two million in sales, a moderate hit, for Michael, and much to Michael's dismay.
‘What did I tell you?’ Michael crowed to John Branca when it was clear that
Thriller
had taken off in an astronomical way. ‘I
knew
it. I just knew it.’ John could only smile.
By the end of 1983,
Thriller
would sell a staggering thirteen million copies in the United States and nearly twenty-two million worldwide. At the time, the all-time best-selling album was the original soundtrack to
Saturday Night Fever,
with worldwide sales of twenty-five million since its 1977 release. It wouldn't be long before Michael toppled that record; he had already achieved one milestone: until now, no other solo album had sold more than twelve million copies.
In addition to his personal achievements, Michael had single-handedly revived a moribund recording industry. When people flocked to the record stores to buy
Thriller,
they purchased other records too. As a result, the business had its best year since 1978. As Gil Friesen, then-president of A&M Records said at the time, ‘The whole industry has a stake in
Thriller
's success.’ Michael's success also generated new interest in black music in general.
Ultimately, Thriller would go on to sell more than fifty million copies wordwide; it would spend thirty-seven weeks at number one on the
Billboard
charts, which was amazing. In the UK, it also hit number one and stayed on the charts there for an incredible 168 weeks! (The release of
Thriller
marked the first time an album was number one in the USA and the UK at the same time.) Also, prior to
Thriller,
no other album had ever spawned seven Top Ten singles: ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Beat It’, ‘The Girl is Mine’, ‘Human Nature’, ‘Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'’, ‘PYT’ and ‘Thriller’. All of the songs sold hugely, right around the world.
CBS made at least sixty million dollars just on
Thriller.
Michael fared well too. According to, John Branca, Michael had ‘the highest royalty rate in the record business’. That rate escalated along with the sales, but averaged 42 per cent in the wholesale price of each record sold, or about $2.10 for every album sold in the United States – thirty-two million dollars on
Thriller
's domestic sales alone. Roughly fifteen million dollars more was made in foreign sales. Those figures, of course, did not include the royalties for the four songs he penned on the album.
Michael Jackson was, at twenty-five, a very wealthy young man. He had certainly come a long way from that 0.2 per cent royalty rate Motown once offered him.
The more
Thriller
was heard – and it was possibly the most played record of all time, both privately and on the radio – the better it sounded. Michael and Quincy had achieved their goal: to many listeners – whites, blacks, highbrows, heavy metal fans, teeny-boppers, parents –
Thriller
was the perfect album, every song an exercise in pop music production, every arrangement, every note in perfect place. This achievement made Michael more than a hero; the music industry promoted him to higher ground, almost sainthood. Of course, in entertainment circles these days, even the most untalented artist who sells huge amounts of product becomes a ‘visionary’. However, Michael's phenomenal sales, along with his astounding talent, established a precedent of excellence with
Thriller
– and one that he would secretly attempt to surpass for the rest of his career.