[November 30th
marks the 35th
anniversary of the release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, one of the most popular
and influential 1980s albums (as well as albums
period). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of such albums, including
Jackson’s and other greats from the decade. I’d love your AlbumStudying
thoughts, on these or any others, in comments!]
On three ways
that Michael Jackson’s seminal album combined both ends of a spectrum to
achieve maximum audience engagement and success.
1)
Old and New: By 1982 Jackson himself was a music
industry veteran at the age of 24, having begun recording with the Jackson 5 in 1964 (at
the age of 6!) and having launched a solo career as early as 1971 with the
single “Got to Be There”
(part of his debut solo
album the following year). For Thriller
he enlisted a number of other even more seasoned entertainers and artists,
from Paul McCartney (whose duet with Michael, “The Girl is Mine,” was
the album’s first single) to horror legend Vincent Price (whose narration in “Thriller”
remains one of the most distinctive and signature moments in all of pop music).
Yet at the same time, singles like “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)”
and “Wanna Be Startin’
Somethin’” (among others) offered a strikingly new sound, one that built on
disco and dance but also connected to some of the earliest strains of hip hop
and rap. To put it succinctly, Thriller
both reminded audiences of nostalgic favorites and pushed them toward new
musical horizons, and that combination comprised a significant element in its
mega-success.
2)
Aural and Visual: All those aspects of the album’s
sound—or rather its combination of sounds, often within individual songs but
certainly across the nine total tracks (seven of which were released as
singles, with all reaching
the Billboard Top 10)—helped make
it an irresistible mega-hit. But Jackson was also tuned in as early as any
artist to the new possibilities offered by MTV (just over a year old at
the time) and music videos, and used the form to striking success with a number
of Thriller’s biggest hits. And he
did so in a trio of interestingly distinct ways: the story video for “Beat It”
mirrors the song’s lyrics quite closely; the epic mini-movie for “Thriller”
likewise does so at times, but also extends and expands the song into an
entirely new form; while the video for “Billie Jean” becomes
something wholly different, focusing on Jackson’s dancing skills in a
captivating performance largely unrelated to the song. Taken together, those
three videos epitomize most everything that the genre could include, and pushed
the album even further into the stratosphere.
3)
Safe and Risky: One of the dangers of historical
topics—which are, of course, the majority of topics I feature in this space—is that
they can seem inevitable and obvious in retrospect; that, to coin a phrase, hindsight
is 20-20. Which is to say, given the album’s record-breaking sales and success,
all of Jackson’s choices on Thriller
can seem geared toward such achievements, and thus perhaps safe or mainstream.
But for every such choice (like, say, a lead-single duet with one of the most
acclaimed songwriters and pop musicians of all time), there are others that
were unquestionably risky in their moment (using a rock and roll guitarist
in the middle of a pop/dance song? Featuring a solid minute of Vincent Price
speaking and laughing evilly in another song, and then making a 14-minute movie
that also features an
extended zombie dance sequence?). That the latter choices now feel
inevitable or safe isn’t just an effect of time, of course—it’s also a testament
to how well they succeeded, to the rewards that came from those risks (and I
think it’s telling that the riskier choices and songs have endured far more
fully than that duet with McCartney). If future artists could learn anything
from Jackson’s towering success, I’d say that duality is a particularly strong
lesson to take away.
Last
AlbumStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other ‘80s albums you’d highlight and analyze?
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