Only slightly on topic: “Thriller” was great for aerobics classes. That was pretty much my exposure to it, since I didn’t listen to radio much at that mid-20’s time of my life. Recently heard Chris Cornell’s version of “Billie Jean” performed by David Cook. This version is slowed down and angsty and really works well. Check the you tube if interested; I can’t dig up the link right now.
I was in Junior High at the time, and during Thriller’s reign MJ was definitely seen as a cool icon and hadn’t acquired his creepy vibe yet. There were many kids in my school emulating his dress and dancing, the breakdancing fad and the horrid “Electric Bugaloo” street fashion were at their highpoint.
Me, I was on the competing side, with my Def Leppard pins and feathered hairsprayed hair and ripped jeans. A fashion embarrassment of another tale…
I think you have your timelines crossed. Sheena Easton crossed the line to r’n’b in '84. George Micael didn’t go offcially solo until '87 though of course Careless Whisper was released in his name, not that of WHAM!
Hall & Oates wrote She’s Gone, which was covered by the tavares in '74 and went to #1 on the r’n’b chart. They hardly started “crossing over” in '82. Madonna’s self titled debut was released in '83 and since it was recorded by Reggie Lucas (black, played with Miles Davis) one could argue that she was crossing when she started.
All in all, MTV, while getting negative publicity about not playing black artists (most notably Superfreak by Rick James) and putting Billie Jean in heavy rotation was perceived by many as MTV breaking the color barrier, it had little or nothing to do withwhite artist crossing over to the r’n’b charts and even if Jackson and MTV benefited from each other I think you’re making too much out of this.
Timelines again. Houston’s album debut was in '85, Pointer Sisters career peaked in '83 (with the album Break Out) and criticism of Houston didn’t arise until after her second album. You’re right in saying that the third was more r’n’b and less pop. But it was released in '90. Hardly having anything to do with the release of Thriller.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. The birth of rock is a topic that will never be settled, but you keep coming back to '55. Personally, I think '56 would be a better year. That doesn’t matter, since it’s hindsight anyway. What matters is what people thought at the time. I wasn’t around in the mid 50’s, but people I trust who were, and who were of relevant age, assure me that rock didn’t explode on the scene, the way we perceive it today. Most of these people listened to jazz and considred Elvis and his peers about the same way we view the pop sensations of this era, i.e. people like Brittney, Jessica Simpson.
Also, I made a lengthy OP a couple of years back, claiming that rock music isn’t relevant anymore. It’s gone the way of jazz. It didn’t get much traction and hardly anyone agreed with me. But it seems to me as if you’re saying the era of rock ended in the early 80’s. Are you actually saying that? Because it that’s the case, I’d really like to read more about that opinion, one I think is quite rare.
I was born in 1970, so I was old enough to appreciate the album when it came out (though, like GargoyleWB, I was more apt to be listening to Pyromania at the time). I do think “Billie Jean” is a good song - I especially like the (synthesized?) string hook after “the kid is not my son” - but it doesn’t make it to the “great” level for me. Obviously, that’s a subjective call, and I do recognize the impressive elements of its composition and performance. But I’ve always been a little off, I guess, when it comes to picking hits that the majority of people will like. Never thought “Losing My Religion” was that great, even before it got played out, and I have a lot of album tracks I prefer to singles in just about every genre. But even if I give you “Billie Jean” (and “P.Y.T.”), the album doesn’t merit the attention it received. As Wordman agreed, I think, by most objective standards, Dirty Mind is a superior album that still holds up, yet it went nowhere (at least, compared to Thriller). But it sounds like most people agree that overall it was more spectacle than perfect album, so I guess there’s not much of an argument to be had.
I think Thriller is the perfect example of the producer’s art. A lot of slick songs with great beats. And that is without the videos.
That’s a really interesting idea - I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I think you might be right about rock not being relevant. I don’t think I’d say rock ended so much as it evolved, and the 80’s was definitely the beginning of that.
ETA: I think the Boomers who are clilnging by the fingertips to their music from the 60’s and 70’s are responding to this. As a cuspy Boomer/Xer (born in 1966), I listen to as much modern music as I can get my hands on, instead of trying to hold onto what was and isn’t any longer, and I definitely see the evolution.
There have been some comparisons between “Thriller” and “Dirty Mind,” but I’d say the better comparison would be “Purple Rain” - that’s an album from nearly the same time with nearly as large an impact, and I would say it has stood up incredibly well. Looking back at “Thriller,” I’d say it was a necessary, huge step on the road that has brought us to where we are in modern music, and I wouldn’t take a thing away from it on that basis alone.
Observation - It’s not that rock is no longer relevant - I mean, jeez, hang out with 10-year-olds playing Guitar Hero and Rockstar and you will be disabused of that belief - and they all want to buy a Les Paul or a Strat and play Iron Man and Sunshine of Your Love. What’s different is that rock is no longer the rallying cry for the generation gap - it is not the wedge it was between young people and parents. Folks like you and I, as parents or at least parent-aged, share a love for rock music with kids. No, the focal point of any generation gap right now is the Internet - I don’t live a Facebook, Myspace, Twitter kind of life and my kids do…and, like rock music did for our parents in the 60’s, that scares me a bit…
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that of his earlier videos, *Beat It *was by far the most influential. Thriller was neat, but the big-budget minimovie production that overwhelms the song didn’t really take off and become the standard for music videos. Beat It, which it is important to note cvame before Thrilled and was at the time absurdly expensive to produce by musiuc video standards - a million bucks, as I recall - was the video that really became the standard. It doesn’t tell much of a story but introduces the singer into a story setting, and centrally features a group dance number of the sort we now take for granted in music videos.
Every third video you see now is just like “Beat It,” but few if any are like “Thriller.”
Absolutely not. There’s just no truth to this at all; it’s mixed memory, a case of confusing things about the same person that happened at different times. You and your friends wouldn’t have been aware of Jackson’s existence or made jokes about him until long after “Thriller” and, for that matter, “Bad.” Jackson’s weirdness didn’t really start to gain him negative PR until well after Thriller, and is generally positively correlated to how fucked up his face got, and how boring his music became. To be honest, his weirdness would have started gaining traction at almost exactly the same time you and your peers would have started gaining significant consciousness of popular music.
I was born in 1971, so remember the time very well; I’d been into music for a few years before Thriller hit. It’s hard to explain how huge it was without just resorting to sales numbers. In 1983, Thriller was about as big an album as you could possibly imagine. Jackson was the biggest phenomenon since the Beatles and nothing since has quite reached that level; Thriller is STILL the #1 selling album of all time, and according to some sources has sold more copies than any other two albums combined. If that isn’t an essential album, what could possibly be?
I’m a little older than Cisco, to whom you were responding above, and a little younger than you.
I was in 2nd Grade when Thriller came out and everybody, everybody, loved it and thought Michael Jackson was the coolest.
I was in 7th Grade when Bad came out. I remember one girl who showed up at the start of school in September wearing a Bad button on her jean jacket. She was ridiculed.
None of us made jokes about him being a pervert, no one thought of him like that yet (or he wasn’t yet popularly thought of that way), but liking Michael Jackson- at that time and among kids our age- was definitely uncool.
It was more of a “so over that” kind of thing rather than a response to his music.
Wait, what? It’s like you’re disagreeing with me, then agreeing with me, then disagreeing with me again. I remember when I first heard the Michael Jackson in a tree joke because I remember what school I was going to and who told it to me - I moved shortly after that and never went to that school or saw that kid again. It would’ve been no later than the fall of 1987.
And I’m not saying Thriller wasn’t a huge phenomenon or essential album by any means. I’m saying it wasn’t those things to people my age and younger.
What does an album’s sales have to do with its quality? I could give you countless examples of why that’s a fallacy.
I wholeheartedly agree that “Wanna Be Starting Something” is the best song on the album, although “Billie Jean” has a fucking awesome bass line. Other than that, give me Off the Wall any day.
Or better yet, give me Prince.
Not surprising, considering you were ‘1’ at that time. :rolleyes:
I never said anything about its quality (although as to that it’s a very good album.) “An essential album,” at least to me, is about more than quality; we’re talking about an album that was a landmark of popular music history, for a lot of reasons - its quality, its influence on music, its influence on music videos, its positioning of Michael Jackson in the public consciousness, the way albums are made and marketed, AND its popularity. An understanding of the evolution of popular music is badly incomplete without “Thriller.”
Yes, but, dude, you were wearing diapers and listening to “Itsy Bitsy Spider” when “Thriller” came out. By the time you’d attained a consciousness of popular music “Thriller” was old news and Michael Jackson had long since completed his transition from Exciting Pop Star to Wacko Jacko (he was not yet King Pervert) so of course you and your friends wouldn’t care about it. You would have been into the music of 1990-1992 around the time you started getting into music.
Maybe I can help:
Cisco is saying that he hears people his age (born circa '81) talk now in 2009 about what a major influence Thriller was to them as they were growing up.
Cisco is suggesting that, when they do so, they are being disengenous and are re-writing history. He says his earliest memories of sharing with his peers any opinion at all about Michael Jackson were that Michael Jackson was to be made fun of.
The Michael Jackson jokes Cisco remembers are from about the time of Bad- 1987, Cisco would have been in 1st grade maybe. In my previous post I mentioned that although kids my age loved Michael Jackson at the time of Thriller (we were in 2nd grade), we all thought of him as a joke by the time of Bad (we were in 7th grade). So I can easily believe that a first grader at the time of Bad was aware of jokes suggesting that Michael Jackson was uncool.
A joke suggesting that he would be inappropriate with children strikes me as a bit early at the time of Bad, but it doesn’t seem implausable- and Cisco’s joke “What do you do when you are in a tree with Michael Jackson? Get down!” doesn’t even explicitly suggest him as a child molester- the intent could certainly been as simple as “he is creepy and you’d want to get away from him” set in a tree so as to use a double meaning of “get down” connecting to Jackson as a musician and dancer.
Cisco is saying that although he was “wearing diapers and listening to “Itsy Bitsy Spider” when “Thriller” came out” there are many people his age who claim that Thriller was a major influence in their lives. He is calling them out on this, suggesting that they are latching on to Thriller praise that they hear from the mainstream and that they have no true personal connection to the album at all (at least not a genuine connection from their youth).
I pledge allegiance to the flag/
Michael Jackson is a fag/
Pepsi-Cola burned him up/
Now he’s drinking 7up.
Apologies for the use of the word fag but this is a little rhyme that was popular when I was in third grade in 1984. It’s really hard for me to imagine the early 80s without Michael Jackson and especially without Thriller. I actually owned a cassette of the album, I loved the Thriller video when it was released, and even after all these years I can’t think of a single track on the album that I don’t like.
Odesio
Thank you, bienville. I was starting to think I was on crazy pills. I thought I had been very clear.
And then there was - {lights match, bobs it up and down} - What am I? Michael Jackson!
I think this basically answers your question about the album. It was - as noted - a perfect album for exactly its time. Remember, when this album was released MTV was just entering its golden years and everyone assumed (incorrectly, as it turned out) that music videos were how records would get sold going forward. So when MJ came out with this immaculately constructed pop album with a song specifically created to maximize the return on this business model, it was way ahead of the curve, both artistically and financially.
Oh and you are dead wrong about “Billie Jean.” It is fantastic.
I dunno. On the one hand I’m all for artistic integrity, but on the the other the older I get the more I see how making money is an art form unto itself.