Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist and entertainer. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene at the age of 11 as a member of The Jackson 5 and began a solo career in 1971 while still a member of the group. Referred to as the "King of Pop" in subsequent years, four of his solo studio albums are among the world's best-selling records: Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991) andHIStory (1995), while his 1982 Thriller is the world's best-selling record of all time.
In the early 1980s, he became a dominant figure in popular music and the first African-American entertainer to amass a strong crossover following on MTV. The popularity of his music videos airing on MTV, such as "Beat It", "Billie Jean" and Thriller—credited for transforming the music video into an art form and a promotional tool—helped bring the relatively new channel to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made Jackson an enduring staple on MTV in the 1990s. With stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of physically complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced many hip hop, pop and contemporary R&B artists.
One of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records—including one for "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time"—13 Grammy Awards, 13 number one singles in his solo career—more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era. Jackson's highly publicized personal life, coupled with his successful career, made him a part of popular culture for almost four decades. Michael Jackson died ofcardiac arrest on June 25, 2009, aged 50.
Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson and the best-selling album of all time. The album was released on November 30, 1982 byEpic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall. Thriller explores similar genres to those of Off the Wall, including funk, disco, soul, soft rock, R&B and pop. However, Thriller's lyrics deal with generally darker themes, including paranoia and the supernatural.
With a production budget of $750,000, recording sessions took place between April and November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California. Assisted by producer Quincy Jones, Jackson wrote four of Thriller's nine tracks. Following the release of the album's first single "The Girl Is Mine", some observers assumed Thriller would only be a minor hit record. With the release of the second single "Billie Jean", the album topped the charts in many countries. At its peak, the album was selling a million copies a week worldwide. In just over a year, Thriller became—and currently remains—the best-selling album of all time. Sales are estimated to be between 47–109 million copies sold worldwide. Seven of the album's nine songs were released as singles, and all reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards at the 1984 Grammys. Despite numerous five-star reviews, Thriller was not universally praised.
Thriller cemented Jackson's status as one of the predominant pop stars of the late 20th century, and enabled him to break down racial barriers via his appearances onMTV and meetings with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The album was one of the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools—the videos for Thriller, "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" all received regular rotation on MTV. In 2001, a special edition issue of the album was released, which contains additional audio interviews, a demo recording and the song "Someone In the Dark", which was a Grammy-winning track from the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial storybook. In 2008, the album was reissued again as Thriller 25, containing re-mixes that feature contemporary artists, a previously unreleased song and a DVD.
Thriller ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003, and was listed by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers at number three in their Definitive 200 Albums of All Time. Thriller was preserved by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry, as it was deemed "culturally significant."
Thriller was released on November 30, 1982, and sold one million copies worldwide per week at its peak. Seven singles were released from the album, including "The Girl Is Mine"—which was seen as a poor choice for the lead release and led some to believe that the album would be a disappointment, and to suggestions that Jackson was bowing to a white audience. "The Girl Is Mine" was followed by the hit single "Billie Jean", which made Thriller a chart-topper. Success continued with the single "Beat It", which featured guitarists Eddie Van Halen and Steve Lukather. The title track "Thriller" was released as a single and also became a hit internationally.
Thriller was mostly well received by critics. A four-star Rolling Stone review by Christopher Connelly described it as "a zesty LP" with a "harrowing, dark message". Despite the positive response, the title track came under strong criticism. Rolling Stone expressed a negative sentiment, criticising its "degenerat[ion] into silly camp". The magazine expressed confusion at the use of Vincent Price over Count Floyd for the track's concluding rap. The New York Times gave a positive review of the album, and dedicated a large amount of its coverage to the song "Human Nature". They described it as the most "striking" song on the record, and wrote, "this is a haunting, brooding ballad by Steve Porcaro and John Bettis with an irresistible chorus and it should be an enormous hit". Concluding their review The New York Times added; "there are other hits here, too, lots of them. Best of all, with a pervasive confidence infusing the album as a whole, Thriller suggests that Mr. Jackson's evolution as an artist is far from finished".
Robert Christgau published a positive (A−) graded overview of the album a few days before its release. He acknowledged that there were "fillers" on the record but still labeled it "almost classic". He expressed the opinion that "Beat It" was the album's best track, calling it "the triumph and the thriller", but criticized "The Girl Is Mine" as "Michael's worst idea since 'Ben'". He was of the opinion that the collaboration did not work well, but still praised it for "getting interracial love on the radio". A year after the album's release, Time summed up the three main singles from the album, saying, "The pulse of America and much of the rest of the world moves irregularly, beating in time to the tough strut of "Billie Jean", the asphalt aria of "Beat It", the supremely cool chills of "Thriller". Conversely, in a Melody Maker review, Paolo Hewitt stated "[t]his is not a good LP"; in his opinion there were only "two songs worthy of mention". "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" was praised as an "exciting", "uptempo electro-funk song", as was "Billie Jean". Hewitt's stance was that as a whole, the album could only be described as "bland", particularly the closing tracks. He summed up: "Jackson seems to have lost his talent for turning gross into gold".
The album won Jackson a record-breaking seven Grammy Awards in 1984, including Album of the Year. The eighth Grammy went to Bruce Swedien. That same year, Jackson won eight American Music Awards, the Special Award of Merit and three MTV Video Music Awards. Thriller was recognized as the world's best-selling album on February 7, 1984, when it was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records. It is one of only three albums to remain in the top ten of the Billboard 200 for a full year, and spent 37 weeks at number one out of the 80 consecutive weeks it was in the top ten. The album was also the first of three to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top ten singles, and was the only album to be the best-seller of two years (1983–1984) in the US. On March 6, 2009, Thriller was certified 28x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipments of at least 28 million copies in the US giving it Double Diamond Award status there. The album topped the charts in many countries, sold 3.7 million copies in the UK, and went 14x Platinum in Australia. Still popular today, Thriller sells an estimated 130,000 copies in the US per year; it reached number two in the US Catalog charts in February 2003 and number 39 in the UK in March 2007. The album is cited as having sold between 47 and 109 million copies worldwide; the Guinness Book of World Records lists Thriller as having sold 65 million copies as of 2007.
Thriller was reissued in 2001 in an expanded set titled Thriller: Special Edition. The original tracks were re-mastered, and the album included a new booklet and bonus material, including the songs "Someone In the Dark", "Carousel", and Jackson's original "Billie Jean" demo, as well as audio interviews with Jones and Temperton discussing the recording of the album.
In February 2008, Epic Records released Thriller 25; Jackson served as executive producer. Thriller 25 appeared on CD and vinyl with seven bonus tracks, a new song called "For All Time", Vincent Price's voice-over, and five re-mixes featuring American artists Fergie, will.i.am, Kanye West, and Akon. It also included a DVD featuring three music videos, the Motown 25 "Billie Jean" performance, and a booklet with a message from Jackson. The ballad "For All Time" supposedly dates from 1982, but is often credited as being from Dangerous sessions. Two singles were released from the reissue: "The Girl Is Mine 2008" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 2008".
Thriller 25 was a commercial success and did particularly well as a reissue. It peaked at number one in eight countries and Europe. It peaked at number two in the US, number three in the UK and reached the top 10 in over 30 national charts. It was certified Gold in 11 countries including the UK, received a 2x Gold certification in France and received platinum certification in Poland. In the United States, Thriller 25 was the second best-selling album of its release week, selling one hundred and sixty six thousand copies, just fourteen thousand short of reaching the number one position. It was ineligible for the Billboard 200 chart as a re-release but entered the Pop Catalog Charts at number one (where it stayed for ten non-consecutive weeks), with the best sales on that chart since December, 1996. With the arrival of Halloween that November, Thriller 25 spent an eleventh non-consecutive week atop the US catalog chart. This brought US sales of the album to 688,000 copies, making it the best selling catalog album of 2008. This was Jackson's best launch since Invincible in 2001, selling three million copies worldwide in 12 weeks.
Tracklisting:
01 Wanna Be Startin Somethin
02 Baby Be Mine
03 The Girl Is Mine (with paul mccartney)
04 Thriller
05 Beat It
06 Billie Jean
07 Human Nature
08 PYT (pretty_young_thing)
09 The Lady In My Life
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