I wanna clear the air right away, I am a Michael Jackson fan and have been for almost all my life. There.. secrets out. I refuse to retire my punk or metal card because I threw them away and developed my own person.
Anyways... 40 years ago today, an album that I have held close since I was a baby was released. Thriller isn't just a video, it's an amazing fucking album even putting its main song to the side. Michael Jackson had a way of making anything listenable, even his regrettable later stuff. However, Thriller isn't just an album to me. It's a piece of my nostalgic history of growing up. Lets go into a little story.
My cousin and I were raised together from infancy on, we did everything together including sneaking around the house learning the ways of the world, in a completely different time. When the Thriller video was released, the world was all about scary stuff. Skeletons and vampires lined the streets at Halloween, now it has turned into princesses and sports players, yes, I'm still grumpy about that. It really was a different time, pop culture was in demand, MTV still played music, and people tuned their TV into background noise, there was always music in our house. Most of that music was old country from my grandparents, and Michael Jackson from my uncle. I have to say I related more with Michael at the time. Every song that filled my ears, made me happy inside, it took, and still takes all the bad away.
No album made us dance more than Thriller, it was hit after hit for us and I still can't find a single thing wrong with the album. I happened to see the actual Thriller video one day when I was really young and at first, it scared the shit out of me. Then, in a move that would affect me forever, my uncle let us watch his Thriller VHS in hopes that the "making of" feature afterwards would keep us from being scared, knowing it wasn't real, he was right, we weren't scared anymore. We watched that VHS at least once a day. It brought us into a whole world. We became obsessed with monsters and ghouls. Our minds were rotted into the world of horror, thanks to one single movie.
My cousin passed away when she was 11. It tore my heart out and left a giant void I couldn't fill. I stopped doing everything I enjoyed. I detested all the stuff we did together. Until one day, my aunt came to move in with us for a while, she put up her movie collection and there it was. The old 100th copy of this movie, that every single household we spent that night at had to buy was sitting in front of me. I felt the pain in my gut all over again. But I popped it in the VCR and cried my eyes out, some tears were happy, some were sad, but I made it through the movie. I laid it all out on the line, and rekindled my love for scary stuff and music we used to listen to.
The Thriller album is full of amazing songs that you never feel like skipping. With songs like Beat It, to Human Nature the beat will get you. I think a lot of Michael Jacksons iconic moments started here. Though he was in the business even as a child, Thriller opened him up as an icon of the 80's. When you think of Michael Jackson in the 80's in his shining moment, for a lot of people think of the Thriller album.
We learned a lot about Michaels musical range in this album. The fast, the slow, the mid tempo, its all here. Every god damn song is a jam, also every song seemed to be in order as to not make the listener bored. There was almost a science to what track made it where to keep you listening. It starts off fun and happy with "Wanna Be Startin Something"and goes right into the mid with "Baby Be Mine" and then we find a slow jam with "The Girl Is Mine".. it's such a perfect route to keep interest.
We lost Michael Jackson years ago after a ton of controversy. I never chose to listen to it, I knew what he did for the children of this world, and unfortunately.. all he wanted to be was a kid, and that hits home, here I am at 39 with a bunch of toys and a wallet chain... I think we all pine for childhood, but some of us don't want to let it go. But all issues aside, Thriller is the perfect album to let all that stuff loose, the sad times, the happy times, and you can't help but dance just a little.
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