Thriller (Michael Jackson album)

Occupation

Thriller (English for something like: " horror story " ) is the sixth studio album by American pop singer Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982 with the label Epic Records. As with the previous album Off the Wall was Quincy Jones Co - producer. With Thriller Jackson became the world's most commercially successful pop singer in the 1980s. The previously uncommon term "Mega Star" was henceforth attributed to him.

The album combines similar genres as already off the wall, such as Pop, R & B, rock, post - disco, funk and Adult Contemporary. The recordings took place from April to November 1982 in the Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California (USA) with a production budget of $ 750,000 instead.

Of the nine tracks on the album four pieces were written solely by Jackson. Seven singles from Thriller were released, all of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 reached.

With about 140 million copies sold, Thriller is the world's best-selling album of recorded music history. At the 1984 Grammy Awards Jackson won a total of eight awards for the album, which to this day also is a record. In the list of the 500 greatest albums of all times of the Rolling Stone magazine's Thriller is also 20th place

  • 5.1 Re- release in 2008

Reception

Thriller is considered to be Jackson's best album. In contrast to the previous album Off the Wall, Thriller is oriented to the genre Pop and is, as usual, in the early 1980s, much of synthetic produced. Jackson pursued at the second collaboration with producer Quincy Jones, a much stronger influence on the album than it was at Off the Wall. In 2008, Thriller was inducted into the National Recording Registry.

Commercial success

Thriller was very successful commercially; have contributed to Jackson's music videos ( Beat It, Billie Jean, Thriller ) and his dance technique, especially the moonwalk. Were also well be altered, but still dark-skinned appearance, as well as his outfit, for example, the single white glitter glove. The following points illustrate Jackson's former success:

  • International Sales: Thriller is the world's best-selling album since the decade of its appearance and overtook the previous leader, the album The Wall by Pink Floyd. The sales number was at the end of 1984, over 30 million copies in the late eighties, there were over 50 million. In early 2006, Jackson was awarded by the Guinness Book of World Records for 104 million copies thriller, the end of June 2006, the sale number 109 million copies. In 15 countries, the album went platinum in seven other gold. After Jackson's death in June 2009, four million copies of the album were sold in the same year.
  • Placement of the album in the U.S. singles chart: Thriller was 80 weeks in the top ten of the U.S. charts. It was the first album that stayed longer than a year there. Then it also succeeded Céline Dion Falling into You Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill and. There was a total of 37 weeks, the longest at the head, twice 17 weeks in a row.
  • Placement of the singles in the U.S. top ten: Seven of the nine album tracks were released as a single (only Baby Be Mine and The Lady in My Life not ). All reached the top ten of the U.S. charts; Billie Jean and Beat It also sat at their peak. With the exception of the first and last single - The Girl Is Mine (1982 ) and Thriller ( 1984) - all appeared in the course of 1983, seven Top Ten singles are out on the album Thriller, only to Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. and included on sister Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814.
  • On March 25, 1983 Jackson was at the ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of his former record label Motown in his performance of Billie Jean for the first time the moonwalk. This time new dance step - it is not Jackson's creation, but made ​​famous by him - advanced to Jackson's trademark. The album Thriller was thus commercially more successful.
  • On December 2, 1983 Jackson launched with producer John Landis about a fifteen-minute short film as a video clip for the title song of the album, Thriller. He is the internationally best-selling video clip. There is also a making-of VHS video of the same.
  • Awards: in early 1984, Jackson was honored with a record number of eight Grammy Awards. Was only in 2000, with Carlos Santana on the occasion of his album Supernatural an artist also has eight of these awards.
  • The music magazine Rolling Stone chose Thriller ranked 20 of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time, and ranked 7th of the 100 best albums of the 1980s.
  • Tour for Album: Album accompanying tour, the Victory Tour, finally took place in North America in the second half of 1984. In favor of this last joint tour with his brothers abandoned Jackson on a solo tour. That he took while commercial losses into account, but his mother had asked him to do, because his brothers were - at least since the success of Thriller - compared to him become musically meaningless.

Title list

• = co-production of Michael Jackson

Since 2001, only the Special Edition is distributed. It also contains audio commentary by Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton and the following bonus tracks:

  • Someone in the Dark ( Temperton, Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman ) ( previously released on the " ET Storybook " )
  • Billie Jean ( Home Demo) (Jackson )
  • Voice Over Session from " Thriller " (with Vincent Price ) ( Temperton )
  • Carousel ( Short Version ) ( Sembello, Freeman )

The 25th Anniversary Edition, released in 2008 in addition to the nine original songs following bonus tracks:

  • Voice Over Session from Thriller ( Excerpt ) (with Vincent Price ) ( Temperton )
  • The Girl Is Mine 2008 ( with will.i.am ) (Jackson, will.i.am, Harris)
  • P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing ) 2008 ( with will.i.am ) (Jackson, will.i.am, Harris)
  • Wanna Be Startin ' Somethin' 2008 ( with Akon ) (Jackson, Akon, Tuinfort )
  • Beat It 2008 ( with Fergie ) ( Jackson)
  • Billie Jean 2008 ( with Kanye West) ( Jackson)
  • For All Time ( Sherwood, Porcaro )
  • Got the Hots (Jackson, Jones ) (only in Japan)

The Thriller 25th Anniversary Edition (Deluxe Digipack) contains, in addition to the bonus songs from the 25th Anniversary Edition, a DVD with video clips. This is available with two different covers.

  • Thriller ( video clip)
  • Beat It (video clip)
  • Billie Jean ( video clip)
  • Billie Jean performance from Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever ( Live Performance )

Several cuttings of this LP were of different musicians, mainly sampled from the hip-hop and R & B genre.

Chart positions

Album

Singles

The European publications, especially in the UK and Germany, there were the following differences:

Here was PYT (Pretty Young Thing ), the last single in March 1984 (UK ) and May 1984 ( D ), while Thriller in the UK was coupled out in November 1983 in Germany then in February 1984, just as in the U.S.. Human Nature was also in the UK not as a single on the market.

Trivia

  • Originally, the title song Starlight Midnight or should one say, but Rod Temperton changed the name to Thriller because he had in his opinion, better advertising potential. A demo version of Starlight appeared several years ago on the internet.
  • Billie Jean should only Not My Lover hot because Quincy Jones wanted to avoid confusion with the American tennis player Billie Jean King.
  • In the original German LP record sleeve of the album a verse in the text of Billie Jean is double printed, the missing correct verse.
  • Wanna Be Startin 'Somethin ' has already been written for Off the Wall. The chorus line " Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa" originally comes from the Manu Dibango - Soul Makossa classic from 1972. Michael Jackson was sued by Dibango for copyright infringement.
  • The Girl is Mine was released as the first song to better place the album by this duet with the more well-known in Europe Paul McCartney.
  • Actually, more songs were planned for Thriller ( a total of 30 pieces were written for the album, which were finally selected and published nine ), but these were not placed for various reasons on the record. Some of these songs appeared in recent years on the Internet, such as Hot Street, (She's ) Trouble, Carousel and Nite Line.

Re-release 2008

In 2008 the album with a bonus DVD and five remix tracks and a new track was re-released. As producers, had, among other things, the hip- hop musician with will.i.am and Kanye West. The first single, a remix of the song The Girl Is Mine was disengaged. The second and final single released was a new version of Wanna Be Startin 'Somethin ', worked at Jackson with Akon. Thriller 25 sold so far, some three million times.

Rock music Singing Bass guitar Electronic keyboard Rhodes piano Bill Reichenbach Jr. Concertmaster Bad (Album) Human Nature (Michael Jackson song) P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) Thriller (song) 26th Annual Grammy Awards Moonwalk (dance) Born in the U.S.A. Michael Sembello Hip hop music Media-Control-Charts UK Singles Chart Number-one hits of 1983 (Germany) List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 1983 Got to Be There Ben (Album) Forever, Michael Dangerous (Michael Jackson album) Invincible (Michael Jackson album) Number Ones (Michael Jackson album) Michael (Album) I Wanna Be Where You Are Ben (song) Happy (Michael Jackson song) Rock with You (Michael Jackson song) Off the Wall (song) Bad (Michael Jackson song) The Way You Make Me Feel Dirty Diana Smooth Criminal Leave Me Alone Liberian Girl Remember the Time In the Closet Who Is It (Michael Jackson song) Heal the World Give In to Me You Are Not Alone Earth Song Is It Scary Hold My Hand (Michael Jackson and Akon song) Say Say Say Michael Jackson discography
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