The quarter-century mark carries weight for
Thriller -- not necessarily for the anniversary of the album's release itself, although it offers as good an opportunity as ever to revisit one of the true pop phenomenons of the 20th century, but rather for another anniversary:
Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, and Forever, the television special where
Michael Jackson performed
"Billie Jean" and unleashed the moonwalk, sending
Thriller into the stratosphere. For those who hadn't paid attention to
Off the Wall -- and despite its success there were some, often older listeners who didn't bother with discos -- this performance was the unveiling of a marvelous, mature
Jackson, a musician whose growth seemed sudden, swift, staggering. Maturity isn't a word that was much associated with
Jackson over the next 25 years. Not long after
Thriller was logging its second year on the charts, well on its way to becoming the biggest album ever (a title it eventually lost to
the Eagles'
Their Greatest Hits, which is merely a technicality; that was a catalog item, not a supernova that burned up the charts),
Jackson methodically turned himself into a man-child, first through his public appearance -- he was first seen with
ET, then
Emmanuel Lewis -- and that antiseptic mass appeal crept into his music, so by the tenth anniversary of
Thriller, there was not much adult about his music.
Because of this gradual morphing into something other, many listeners may have not listened to
Michael Jackson or
Thriller in years, maybe even two decades, so the album was given a much-hyped re-release in February 2008, with
Epic/Legacy releasing
Thriller 25 complete with bonus tracks and an extra DVD, in several different editions with different covers, too. There was so much hype surrounding this reissue that it's easy to overlook the fact that this is the second pumped-up reissue of
Thriller within a decade. Six years earlier,
Michael Jackson's
Epic catalog was refurbished to coincide with the release of
Invincible, so the album was given a bunch of bonus tracks and a new cover -- an outtake from the photo shoot that produced the gatefold pic of
Jacko cuddling with a baby tiger, playing right into his frozen childhood -- and it didn't garner much attention, possibly because only two of the 12 bonus tracks were interesting (the rest were almost all interview snippets). Those two songs,
"Someone in the Dark" and a demo of
"Billie Jean," are left behind on that issue, and
Thriller 25 likewise contains none of the assorted oddities and rarities
MJ released during this era. Unlike the 2001 reissue, this is not targeted to listeners who care about digging deep into the vaults, curious about how the album was made and what was left behind. No,
Thriller 25 is for fans who want to take a trip back and for younger listeners who may have never heard the entire album before -- and to rope the latter in, this reissue has five new remixes all featuring modern stars. That sounds more impressive on the surface than it actually is, as, for whatever reason, such
Michael-mimicking superstars as
Justin Timberlake and
Chris Brown did not participate, but
Kanye West,
Akon,
Fergie, and
will.i.am did. By and large these are outright embarrassments -- only
Akon has the guts to rework the original track, turning
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" into moody piano murk, so he gets credit for vision; it's not great, but it is better than
Fergie parroting the lyrics of
"Beat It" back to a recorded
Jackson, and it's better than
will.i.am turning
"The Girl Is Mine" into a hapless dance number -- but it's also true that these artists can't help but seem small when compared to
Michael.
Kanye is the closest of these four to having anything close to the musical and cultural impact in 2008 as
Jackson did in 1982-1983, but even that is a bit of a reach, as
Kanye isn't nearly as close to being as omnipresent as
Michael was at his peak.
Of course, those were different times, as one listen to the proper album makes clear.
Thriller built upon the disco breakthroughs of
Off the Wall but was designed to cross over to all audiences: baby boomers (a duet with
Paul McCartney on
"The Girl Is Mine"), hard rockers (
Eddie Van Halen's guitar on
"Beat It"), electro-funk (the paranoiac
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," the stark
"Billie Jean"), modern R&B (the bright
"Baby Be Mine"), quiet storm (
"The Lady in My Life"), soft rockers (
"Human Nature"), and kids (the cartoonish title track). That large streak of softness is often overlooked in memories about
Thriller; it's rightly overshadowed by
"Billie Jean," "Beat It," and
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," and the visual extravaganzas of the video (all documented here on the DVD, with only the overcooked
"Thriller" seeming old). But the genius of
Thriller is that
Jackson, producer
Quincy Jones, and writer/arranger
Rod Temperton made it with L.A. studio pros (including many members of
Toto,
Greg Phillinganes, and
David Foster), so it has an alluring slickness placing it as firmly within pop as it is within R&B.
Jackson,
Jones, and
Temperton meticulously assembled these tracks, finding a balance where the tight grooves laid down by the studio musicians and the synth sequencing by
Michael and
Rod felt precise yet pulsated with a human heart. This polish helped bring
Thriller to a mass audience who otherwise might have paid no attention. Once
Thriller got their attention, it captivated because
Jackson did everything and he made it seem so easy. Once his dazzle wore off, the songs stuck around because there were no weak tunes -- even the weakest, the slow-burning closer
"The Lady In My Life," is a fine generic R&B ballad -- and the best are eternal.
Even so, classic pop can be overplayed and several of the
Thriller signature hits no longer sound fresh -- that creaky title track and the clenched posturing of
"Beat It" are the worst offenders -- but
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and
"Billie Jean" remain startling in their futuristic funk and
"Baby Be Mine," one of two songs not to be a hit single, sounds positively incandescent, perhaps because it isn't as familiar, but more likely because it is a brilliantly crafted piece from
Temperton. And, again, it's that craft that impresses after all these years -- it's possible to hear past the myth, past the baggage that
Jackson accumulated in the years since its release, and hear what he created on this singular sensation. It's not necessary to purchase the 25th anniversary reissue to appreciate this -- for those who appreciate the craft behind the album, the only worthwhile extra is the perfectly fine unreleased ballad
"For All Time" -- but the set does have one trump card up its sleeve: the DVD has that performance of
"Billie Jean" from
Motown 25. It is the one thing on the set that comes close to capturing the excitement that
Thriller generated upon its initial release -- and since excitement was as necessary to
Thriller's success as craft, such a jolt is needed for this, although it may not be quite enough of an enticement for millions of fans to purchase this album a second time. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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