These days Michael Jackson seems to be more of a cartoon character than a recording artist. His exploits get more than attention than his music. Forget that his best friend is a chimpanzee and he lives at a place called Neverland and just listen to the music. The album crosses across all music genres and gives the listener a little bit of everything. There's pop, rock, r & b and dance rhythms; slow, fast and midtempo songs. "Wanna Be Startin' Something" gets the album moving. It's a disco inferno and builds up to a chanting crescendo. The next two songs slow things down after the frenzied opening. One of the two non-singles, "Baby Be Mine" is a nice mid-tempo song and then comes the superstar duet with Paul McCartney "The Girl Is Mine". The song shows off both the artist's vocal talents as they trade verses fighting over a girl's affection. You can almost see the song as a passing of the torch from the Beatles to Jackson as the world's biggest act. The humorous "Thriller" follows and it contains Vincent Price's debut as a "rapper". "Beat It" is the song that pushed the album into the cultural phenomenon that it was. By employing guitar god Eddie Van Halen on the song, Jackson was able to break out of the mold of an R & B artist and reach a vast white audience. Jackson showed he was able to transcend all labels and reach listeners of all colors and musical tastes. The first number one song on the album follows. It was a searing performance of the song, "Billie Jean", on the Motown 25th anniversary special that helped show Jackson's amazing dancing abilities and push album sales into the stratosphere. It was also the first video by a black artist to gain major airplay on the predominately white MTV, setting the stage for other black artists like Prince to start reaching a more diverse audience. "Human Nature" is a pretty ballad and "P.Y.T." is has more of a a hard edge. His sister Janet sings back up on the tune. The album closes with another ballad "The Lady In My Life". This album went on to sell 25 million copies and for a long time was the biggest selling album in history. It almost single handily pulled the recording industry out of it late 70's, early 80's sales funk and made MTV into the marketing machine it is today. It takes a very special album to do that and this is exactly that. Thriller
most reviews on this board missed out one important item. the musicianship on this CD under QJ is tremendous. any jazz fan will easily recognise some of the names on the credit list. Jerry Hay on trumpet (this cat has long experience leading big bands and you can hear jerry from Chuck Mangione all the way to Dave Grusin's big band), Greg Phillanganes, another superb expert on synthesizer, Larry Williams on sax. Williams, in his own right is a fantastic tenor sax guy and you hear him very often on the GRP jazz label and then you have George Duke, man alive, here is a master of jazz who migrated through four generations from main stream jazz to fusion (rock) jazz and then collaborated a few funky jazz CD with bassist Stanley Clark.. then you have Paulinho da Costa, the famed Brazilian/American percussionist providing the beat, subtle but substantial. you can hear Paulinho from Dave Grusin to George Benson... in fact, Paulinho played with Jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Petersen...... with all these great cats. finally, what am i talking here, Quincy Jones HIMSELF was/is a jazz artist. those follow jazz will remember his days playing trumpet in the 60s and even 70s. QJ himself later was heavily involved with Duke Ellington and Count Basie in arranging the music. it is not surprising that he brought in the "musicians' musicians" to add some serious musicianship to this endeavor.
i regret that no reviewer has paid any attention on this fantastic line up of musicians behind this CD.
Stop giving Michael Jackson's albums bad reviews because of his trial. Review it because of the music.
Anyway back to the album.
Wanna Be Startin' Something- Has a great sound. A classic. 5/5
Baby Be Mine- A good song. 5/5
The Girl is Mine- another okay song. 4/5
Thriller- the best song with an even better video. The grand daddy of them all. A true MJ classic. 5/5
Beat It- Another MJ classic. The Guitar solo is awesome! 5/5
Billie Jean- The other MJ classic. Shows his true talent. Especially at Motown 25 with his first moonwalk. 5/5
Human Nature- A nice slow ballad. 5/5
P.Y.T- a catchy beat. I love it!- 5/5
Lady in my Life- A nice slow way to end the album. 5/5
The #1 selling album is also the greatest. Buy this and you won't regret it!!!!
Jazz, R&B, Rock, Soul, Funk, and Pop music had all existed before 1982, but when this album came out, it literally combined all the elements and paved the way for what music is today. From recordings to performances to worldwide sales and recognition, Jackson set the standards for it all. Hundreds of years from now, this will still be looked back on as quite possibly one of the finest albums ever recorded.
While Quincy maintained his masterful touch on all the recordings, Jackson lent his to the timeless compositions of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", "Beat It", and "Billie Jean", songs that have literally become signature songs of the 1980s, and showed the world just how musical Michael could be. Aside from those recordings, master songwriter Rod Temperton ("Rock with You", "Off the Wall", "Always and Forever") and R&B soulman James Ingram contributed their own unique tracks, as well. From "Thriller" to "P.Y.T.", every song here literally changed the course of music as a whole.
While some have maintained that there are far better albums in music history's catalogue, I have yet to come across any with as much quality, energy, diversity, and versatility as this one. A masterpiece. - Pop - King Of Pop - Thriller - Funk'
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