Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982): Track by Track

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious
<v Speaker 1>Podcast with your co hosts James D. Graves and Jason Colban.
<v Speaker 1>That is awesome. That is awesome.
<v Speaker 2>That is such a good introduction.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think we can follow that.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not sure we canna live up to it, but
<v Speaker 3>we're gonna have a good time trying. So today we're
<v Speaker 3>going to talk about and compare Michael Jackson's Thriller album
<v Speaker 3>versus Michael Jackson's Bad album.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well, I don't think there's a comparison there because
<v Speaker 1>Thriller is obviously the best album.
<v Speaker 2>It's the number one seller in history of music.
<v Speaker 3>It is, but everybody tricks themselves into believing that Thriller
<v Speaker 3>is a better album when Bad is actually a better album.
<v Speaker 1>I thought we said we were not going to be
<v Speaker 1>haters about this, so now I'm tricking myself that was happening.
<v Speaker 3>Thriller is fantastic, and I mean, Thriller is a great
<v Speaker 3>album and really one of.
<v Speaker 1>My and Bad is a great album in one of
<v Speaker 1>my favorites. But there is no way that you can
<v Speaker 1>think that Bad is better than Thriller.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, well, I'm going to explain why Bad is better
<v Speaker 3>than Thriller, and hopefully I can get you to agree
<v Speaker 3>with me, maybe some other people to agree with me
<v Speaker 3>as well.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so now you said that you loved Thriller ob usially,
<v Speaker 1>Thriller came out before Bad, five years before Bad came
<v Speaker 1>out in nineteen eighty two. Bad came out in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty seven. What do you remember from when you heard thriller?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so Thriller to me is elementary school. That's my
<v Speaker 3>fourth and fifth grade year, and I remember roller skating
<v Speaker 3>to those songs and hearing them at basketball games. And
<v Speaker 3>people that at my elementary school will be shocked to
<v Speaker 3>hear that I'm preferable to Bad because I was very
<v Speaker 3>much a Thriller mega fan in fourth and fifth grade.
<v Speaker 3>My teacher, mister Hoover, my fifth grade teacher. I bet
<v Speaker 3>you if we found him today called him up, he
<v Speaker 3>would be like, there's no way Jason was mister Thriller.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, can somebody get mister Hoover on the line, please, mister,
<v Speaker 1>I'm telling you call in the podcast. If we had
<v Speaker 1>a phone, you can call it. Yeah, would be neat
<v Speaker 1>if you could do call on podcasts. Well, I'm excited
<v Speaker 1>to to talk about how I got there as well.
<v Speaker 1>Let's let's keep on going, all right.
<v Speaker 2>Let me tell you about my experience.
<v Speaker 1>So I was six to seven years old the first
<v Speaker 1>experience that I had with Michael Jackson, and I tell
<v Speaker 1>everybody that that Thriller was my first.
<v Speaker 2>LP to own.
<v Speaker 1>But in kind of going back and looking at things,
<v Speaker 1>I remember there was one LP, but I don't really
<v Speaker 1>count it as great of an LP.
<v Speaker 2>As it was. It was the Chipmunk Punk and.
<v Speaker 1>I had Chipmunk Punk, which has literally no punk on
<v Speaker 1>it at all, but it has it has some of
<v Speaker 1>the greatest songs of that time, including songs from Queen
<v Speaker 1>and Blondie.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe some time we can debate whether or not the
<v Speaker 3>Chipmunks were actually punk or not.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they were definitely not.
<v Speaker 1>So the first adult album that I ever owned, the
<v Speaker 1>first adult LP I owned was Thriller, and I can
<v Speaker 1>remember very clearly, was watching TV and I saw the
<v Speaker 1>motown where the Jackson's got together again time. Michael Jackson
<v Speaker 1>wasn't going to come like he and his brothers. I
<v Speaker 1>guess it had a falling out and so he wasn't
<v Speaker 1>even going to show up, but they begged him. He
<v Speaker 1>said let me do a couple solos and and I'll
<v Speaker 1>agree to do.
<v Speaker 3>This the infamous Moonwalk Billy Jean.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, yes, absolutely so after the Jackson's get done
<v Speaker 1>with their set, which I don't remember any of it all.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the only thing that I can have a
<v Speaker 1>clear memory of, despite my extreme young age, is him
<v Speaker 1>singing and then the dance that he did when he
<v Speaker 1>hit the moonwalk and the crowd erupted. I said to myself,
<v Speaker 1>I want to be that guy. Did you have that
<v Speaker 1>on record?
<v Speaker 2>Or I had the LP? I had the vinyl LP.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, gotcha?
<v Speaker 3>And you could actually open it up and there was
<v Speaker 3>drawings that Michael Jackson had done himself on the inside,
<v Speaker 3>and I remember had to unfold the tape, but there
<v Speaker 3>were other strong.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and these was the tape paper was always a disappointment,
<v Speaker 1>I know, I know, I remember. I don't remember all
<v Speaker 1>of them. I do remember the Girl is Mine.
<v Speaker 3>It had a picture of Michael and Paul sort of
<v Speaker 3>like pulling on the girl, you know, like the wishbone.
<v Speaker 1>Wow. Yeah, I don't remember that at all. I remember
<v Speaker 1>the front cover was what everybody saw, which was him
<v Speaker 1>kind of posed in that awesome white jacket. And that
<v Speaker 1>awesome black background. He and he's like almost glowing, and
<v Speaker 1>he's got the cool little leopard, the leopard hang your
<v Speaker 1>chief in his pocket and then when you opened it up,
<v Speaker 1>you're like, oh, he's actually got a tiger on his knee,
<v Speaker 1>Like there's a baby tiger there. Ah. Yeah, they they
<v Speaker 1>didn't do anything wrong. Even the album design is flawless
<v Speaker 1>on that. Yeah, it was amazing.
<v Speaker 2>It was amazing.
<v Speaker 3>So Thriller was released November thirtieth, nineteen eighty two.
<v Speaker 1>Nineteen eighty two. It was when we started doing Valley
<v Speaker 1>Girl Talk, a grody to the max and totally tubular
<v Speaker 1>gag me with the spoon the guy who I'm doing it,
<v Speaker 1>the delareate gloriate. Yes, he got busted. He got busted
<v Speaker 1>in eighty two. I guess the DeLorean business was not
<v Speaker 1>going as well as he wanted it to and he
<v Speaker 1>got caught with about twenty million dollars worth of cocaine
<v Speaker 1>and that was the end of the DeLorean car or
<v Speaker 1>was it?
<v Speaker 4>Rose Well, what we Don't Need Road?
<v Speaker 1>That summer was the release of another huge, huge movie. Yes, et.
<v Speaker 3>Tea were seeing et Well, go ahead, yeah, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>we'll talk about et in later episodes hopefully, but I
<v Speaker 3>remember it just was just an avalanche of et that summer,
<v Speaker 3>just out of control. I saw it many times in
<v Speaker 3>the movie theater. I remember taking my mom. Then I
<v Speaker 3>wanted to take my dad and take my sister and
<v Speaker 3>take my friend, and so ET big, big at the
<v Speaker 3>box office that summer.
<v Speaker 2>For that year. It sucked.
<v Speaker 1>Looking at the music from nineteen eighty two is terrible,
<v Speaker 1>like the biggest The biggest thing was Ebony and Ivory.
<v Speaker 2>I remember that and I like that.
<v Speaker 1>Song kind of yeah, yeah, I know how you feel
<v Speaker 1>about those duets with Paul McCartney. I am doc ken,
<v Speaker 1>you are blind. But I love rock and roll, which
<v Speaker 1>was kind of you know it was it was the
<v Speaker 1>end of the disco era and rock and roll was
<v Speaker 1>coming back.
<v Speaker 2>So I love rock and roll.
<v Speaker 1>I loved going to pizza parlor and I would hear
<v Speaker 1>Pink Floyd, I would hear Queen and you Hero. I
<v Speaker 1>love rock and roll every single time we went to
<v Speaker 1>be to the pizza parlor. And so, yeah, music terrible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah until yes, November of.
<v Speaker 5>Nineteen eighty two, Yes, when Thriller was released, swamped everything.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, absolutely, And so I think we're probably getting into
<v Speaker 1>the meat of things now, so let's let's talk about that.
<v Speaker 1>The track listing for thriller, We've got I want to
<v Speaker 1>be Starting something, Baby Be Mine, The Girl is Mine Thriller,
<v Speaker 1>and then on the other side, you've got Beat It.
<v Speaker 1>You've got Billy Jean, you've got Human Nature, and you've
<v Speaker 1>got Pyt and the Lady in My Life. The first
<v Speaker 1>song that was actually released from the album was released.
<v Speaker 2>Before the album, was.
<v Speaker 4>The Dog Against.
<v Speaker 1>And so what happened was they're trying to put together
<v Speaker 1>this album. They give Paul McCartney a call and Michael
<v Speaker 1>Jackson's like, he's Michael Jackson speak Party's.
<v Speaker 2>Paul McCarty's like, who is this Jackson.
<v Speaker 1>He's like he didn't believe it, and which is the
<v Speaker 1>same thing happens a little bit later on to Beat It.
<v Speaker 2>But finally he's like, oh, this really is Michael Jackson.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, he says, you would just come over with
<v Speaker 1>report song, sure, and so they could go over report song.
<v Speaker 1>They do this ridiculous the Dog Girl is Mine, and
<v Speaker 1>they put it out and it's a hit.
<v Speaker 3>It's a hit.
<v Speaker 1>It's a big hit, like it was, what did it?
<v Speaker 3>It ranged number two on the Hot One hundred. That's
<v Speaker 3>nice with no video support either, just kind of a release.
<v Speaker 1>Right, So, oh yeah, that's the continuation.
<v Speaker 2>We've got MTV.
<v Speaker 1>Ladies and Gentlemen Rock and Rolling. So MTV had just
<v Speaker 1>come out the year before. It just came out in
<v Speaker 1>August of eighty one, and so they're looking for I mean,
<v Speaker 1>there's only two hundred and fifty videos in existence in
<v Speaker 1>eighty two that they're just recycling over and over, so
<v Speaker 1>they're trying to get more stuff. So they're excited about
<v Speaker 1>what they can do with Michael Jackson because.
<v Speaker 3>Well, no, wait a minute. So the only thing that
<v Speaker 3>I'm wondering is when Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson did
<v Speaker 3>a song called Say Say.
<v Speaker 6>Sae, Say Say Say too long.
<v Speaker 4>Game.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, that had a video with it. Yes, that's the
<v Speaker 1>one where they're dressing up like clowns and stuff like that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's like a traveling service. I don't think that came
<v Speaker 1>out until later, but I don't know. It may have
<v Speaker 1>been on a maybe it was on a Paul McCartney album. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>here you go, it says Michael Jackson.
<v Speaker 3>Paul McCartney recorded Say Se Say and another song called
<v Speaker 3>The Man for his fifth solo album Pipes of Peace,
<v Speaker 3>that was released in nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 1>So I guess I remember Pipes of Peace right, Well,
<v Speaker 1>you know, one of.
<v Speaker 3>The best albums of the types of peace. So that
<v Speaker 3>was released in nineteen eight three, so I guess that
<v Speaker 3>was after Guy's mind.
<v Speaker 1>So okay, go, so girl is mine. Now the pressure's
<v Speaker 1>on to get these things, this song out, so let's
<v Speaker 1>just just real quick we can.
<v Speaker 2>I just want to throw this out there.
<v Speaker 1>So Thriller has obviously Michael Jackson, and this is obviously
<v Speaker 1>a collaborative effort. But we've got sir Paul McCartney. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>then we've got Eddie van Halen. Yes. Do you know
<v Speaker 1>who the band was that was playing the music Total? Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you guys from Total. That's exactly right. I mean they're
<v Speaker 1>the most skilled guys playing music at the time, which
<v Speaker 1>I mean is appropriate.
<v Speaker 2>But it's kind of funny, you know.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think I would know any of those guys
<v Speaker 1>if I saw.
<v Speaker 3>Him in walmart No, no, no chance.
<v Speaker 1>No. And they've got which is you know, for some
<v Speaker 1>I still cannot figure out how that's resurged like it has.
<v Speaker 1>So they hear they heard the Paul McCartney song and
<v Speaker 1>they heard Dog on Girls Mind and they fell out
<v Speaker 1>of their chair laughing. But who knows from good taste,
<v Speaker 1>I guess because it was big and the pressure is
<v Speaker 1>on to get this done. And they recorded Thriller in
<v Speaker 1>eight weeks. They've got a couple of guys. Bruce Sweden
<v Speaker 1>I believe is his last name, Rod Timbleton, Quincy Jones
<v Speaker 1>and Michael Jackson are the four bodies in one brain
<v Speaker 1>behind Thriller. They they're trying to get this thing that
<v Speaker 1>they call the sonic sound, like it's the crisp sound,
<v Speaker 1>and that is That's one of the things I remember
<v Speaker 1>the most.
<v Speaker 2>You listen to.
<v Speaker 1>Stuff before and after Thriller and you're like, why does
<v Speaker 1>this sound so kind of foggy and muted and stuff
<v Speaker 1>like that. It's because they didn't have that sonic sound,
<v Speaker 1>and these guys were trying to do it. And after
<v Speaker 1>eight weeks of recording, they listened to it and Michael
<v Speaker 1>Jackson walks out and they find him in the room
<v Speaker 1>across the hall sobbing because it doesn't sound right. And
<v Speaker 1>so for the next three days they remix and re
<v Speaker 1>record or then re record. They remixed the entire album
<v Speaker 1>so here's the thing. It's too much music, it's too long.
<v Speaker 1>And what happens when you try to pack in a
<v Speaker 1>whole bunch of stuff on those LPs is the grooves
<v Speaker 1>get tighter and tighter, and so you lose all of
<v Speaker 1>the little pinks and pops and make it exciting. They
<v Speaker 1>remixed it all and gave us that sound, which is thriller.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but we also talked about I was talking to
<v Speaker 3>you earlier. It was very nearly not thriller. It was
<v Speaker 3>almost called Starlight. Starlight, Yes, starlight, you know, just doesn't
<v Speaker 3>have the same ring as thriller.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Definitelyton's the one that came up with the title
<v Speaker 1>track title of the album. He's becuase he's like, this
<v Speaker 1>is this is good, but it's not quite what we need,
<v Speaker 1>you know, think of something else, work on it. Good
<v Speaker 1>try And he said he woke up the next morning
<v Speaker 1>and it just was the word in his head.
<v Speaker 2>It was just thriller.
<v Speaker 1>And he said he could see it on the billboards,
<v Speaker 1>he could see it on the marquee. He could see
<v Speaker 1>the thriller and he was like, this is it. This
<v Speaker 1>is the name of the album. And then I mean
<v Speaker 1>they're literally weeks into production, like they haven't even written
<v Speaker 1>the song yet. They've in some other song called Starlight,
<v Speaker 1>and so they're back at it again. So they they
<v Speaker 1>put these songs, they put the right words to Thriller
<v Speaker 1>and then they're like, okay, there's got to be a
<v Speaker 1>rap at the end. Yes, it has to be a rap,
<v Speaker 1>talking about all the contributors to the album, right, And
<v Speaker 1>they're like, okay, well, we don't know who's going to
<v Speaker 1>do the rap, and we haven't written the rap yet.
<v Speaker 1>And Quincy Jones is like, you know, my wife knows
<v Speaker 1>Vincent Price and like, okay, call him up. Let's get
<v Speaker 1>him in here. And so he calls him. Next day,
<v Speaker 1>he's like, hey, he's on the way over, and Rod
<v Speaker 1>Templeton's like in the taxi. He's like, I haven't even
<v Speaker 1>written the rap yet, and so he writes it like
<v Speaker 1>freaking Abraham Lincoln on an envelope. He's writing the rap
<v Speaker 1>on the way and he like he gets there, he
<v Speaker 1>sees the limo pull up, he sees Vincent Price get
<v Speaker 1>out of the limo, and so he runs around back,
<v Speaker 1>throws it to a receptionist and says, copy this for me,
<v Speaker 1>and so she does a quick.
<v Speaker 2>What on what they were. They weren't xeroxes back then.
<v Speaker 1>It was like a photography, you know, yeah, yeah, And
<v Speaker 1>so she does that and puts it on the stand
<v Speaker 1>just as Price comes into the recording studio.
<v Speaker 6>Docness all across the land in the mid tight hour,
<v Speaker 6>exclosive hair, people, the creatures all in search of blood,
<v Speaker 6>the terrorized alls, neighborhood and whos, however, now be found
<v Speaker 6>without the cells or getting down the style, and makes
<v Speaker 6>the homes of hell and rocked inside a call shell.
<v Speaker 2>And he does like two takes.
<v Speaker 1>Two takes.
<v Speaker 3>It's you know how she was paid for that nothing
<v Speaker 3>less than one thousand dollars. Yeah, less than one thousand dollars.
<v Speaker 3>And it was heard on every radio station around the
<v Speaker 3>world for the next three Christmases.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Well, he and Eddie need to get together.
<v Speaker 2>I guess.
<v Speaker 1>I think Eddie got like a couple of cases of beer,
<v Speaker 1>Like I mean, he really he got nothing.
<v Speaker 3>I did read it a little bit that Benzi Price
<v Speaker 3>was not pleased that they didn't.
<v Speaker 1>Give him more money, give him more money about that.
<v Speaker 2>He kind of had a resurgence of fame. And I
<v Speaker 2>would think that would have yourselthing.
<v Speaker 3>With lines like the funk of forty thousand years? How
<v Speaker 3>can he go wrong?
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, yeah, okay, two takes less than a thousand bucks. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>before we go any further, can we just take a
<v Speaker 1>minute and do a Potter and Family shout out?
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely?
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, Okay. Podcasters are a very supportive community. We've received
<v Speaker 1>support from so many out there, and there are some
<v Speaker 1>that we love and we'd like to give support to. Absolutely.
<v Speaker 3>So today we want to recognize the guys at the
<v Speaker 3>thirty something Movie Podcast.
<v Speaker 1>They take movies that are thirty years in the making
<v Speaker 1>and they do an analysis of the movie to say, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is a movie that you should revisit or no,
<v Speaker 1>it's okay, you don't have to come back and see
<v Speaker 1>this again right now.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's right. So they've been doing it for about
<v Speaker 3>five years or so. This they are now entering nineteen ninety.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the nineties decade has just begun, and I'm super
<v Speaker 1>excited to hear what they have. They've been so supportive
<v Speaker 1>of everything that we've done and we love what they do.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, me too, Thanks, guys, We really appreciate Illinois contingent.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so let's do you want to go into track
<v Speaker 1>by track now? Let's go track by track, okay, So
<v Speaker 1>let's we're gonna look at the singles, all right.
<v Speaker 3>Well, wait minute, wait minute, let's let's go album. Let's
<v Speaker 3>go hold out, hold out, hold album.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, all right, so we start with want to Be
<v Speaker 1>Starting Something? Yes, what did you tell me about want
<v Speaker 1>to Be Starting?
<v Speaker 3>So pop in the tape or the album whatever. Three
<v Speaker 3>beats in that first little right that that drum track,
<v Speaker 3>I'm in. I'm totally in want to Be Starting Something.
<v Speaker 3>It's fantastic, right, And then just from that track alone,
<v Speaker 3>so you've got that great groove of the beginning, maybe
<v Speaker 3>maybe the best first track of any album.
<v Speaker 1>All right, because it's going to be starting something.
<v Speaker 3>Right, and it just it kicks off the album. It's
<v Speaker 3>here we go, let's get it on. And then you
<v Speaker 3>close with the now infamous Mamase Mama Sama markraso.
<v Speaker 1>Right, do we do you know what that means? No?
<v Speaker 3>I have no idea that, so, yeah, I mean, what's
<v Speaker 3>your what's your take on that one?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? No, I mean that the I think that the
<v Speaker 1>what what he did with the combination of sounds there,
<v Speaker 1>He's got obviously the jazz influence with Quincy Jenes going
<v Speaker 1>on it's got that kind of Caribbean feel about it
<v Speaker 1>and a little African Yeah, and an African mix. He's
<v Speaker 1>definitely you've got those the rhythms that you didn't have before.
<v Speaker 1>Like you said, those drum beats, but with that crisper
<v Speaker 1>sharper sound, it just can't be beat.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Great, great track.
<v Speaker 1>Great.
<v Speaker 3>It actually reached number five on the Hot one hundred. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>no video, but still released as a single, did very
<v Speaker 3>well and with five yeah, right, very very strong showing.
<v Speaker 1>All right. Okay, so next track is Baby Be Mine,
<v Speaker 1>which I skipped.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's skip it. It's it's junk. Yeah, it actually
<v Speaker 3>to me, it's it's disci. It sounds like it belongs
<v Speaker 3>on off the Wall.
<v Speaker 1>Right, It's definitely it's it's got more of the horns
<v Speaker 1>and jazz stuff that I really don't want to.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah it for me, that's a I had a little
<v Speaker 3>boombox that if play was down, you can get fast
<v Speaker 3>forward and you get them. That's what Yeah, that's what
<v Speaker 3>baby Be Mine sounds like in my head, right right.
<v Speaker 3>I did listen to it for this podcast, and I
<v Speaker 3>still think it's.
<v Speaker 7>John but yeah, yeah, definitely I throw away track in
<v Speaker 7>my mind as well, then the next one is The
<v Speaker 7>Girl is Mine, which we've already talked about, right, and
<v Speaker 7>it's simple it is.
<v Speaker 1>It is a catchy tune. It is goofy lyrics, the
<v Speaker 1>dog on Girl is Mine.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the dog on Girl is Mine and Paul I
<v Speaker 3>told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter.
<v Speaker 2>Dude, that's the best part of the.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh, Okay, I love Thriller, but this one.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, but it.
<v Speaker 3>Did reach number two in the Hot one hunder right,
<v Speaker 3>so clearly a smash. It.
<v Speaker 1>I's at seven years old, thought it was fantastic. I
<v Speaker 1>still like listening. I know every word I told when
<v Speaker 1>we you know, we said, hey, we're doing this, I said,
<v Speaker 1>and we both listened to the each album beginning to end.
<v Speaker 1>When I walked away, that was the song that was
<v Speaker 1>still in my head. It wasn't Thriller, it wasn't beat It, it
<v Speaker 1>wasn't Billy Jean. It was The Girl is Mine, because yeah,
<v Speaker 1>freaking Beatles know how to make you okay. And then
<v Speaker 1>we've got Thriller, which I mean we've already talked about
<v Speaker 1>the making of right, so the electronic and syntheset ethetic
<v Speaker 1>music that was coming at the time kind of left
<v Speaker 1>me cold most of the time, but these guys took
<v Speaker 1>it and made it something amazing. It's fantastic, like you're
<v Speaker 1>walking into walking into space. I mean, it's just those
<v Speaker 1>beginning pure It's just it's too cool.
<v Speaker 3>You've got you've got slamming doors, you've got creaky noors,
<v Speaker 3>you've got howling wolves, you know, and then you've got the.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's it's so good, it's so good. It's well.
<v Speaker 3>This was the last single released, only made it to number.
<v Speaker 1>Four, which is crazy to me.
<v Speaker 4>It's insane.
<v Speaker 3>For this song to have this kind of life right
<v Speaker 3>and never make it to number.
<v Speaker 1>One, I know, and you will even to this day,
<v Speaker 1>you will see people recreating the song the dance that
<v Speaker 1>was done in the video, which, by the way, that
<v Speaker 1>video was like the timing of MTV and Michael Jackson's
<v Speaker 1>release of Thriller, and also I would like to mention
<v Speaker 1>the release of American Werewolf in London. Jack all came
<v Speaker 1>together in this beautiful, perfect power of notice.
<v Speaker 2>It was amazing.
<v Speaker 1>So they're wanting to make this video and the CBS
<v Speaker 1>is like, no, we're selling a ton of these. We
<v Speaker 1>don't need to sell more. I mean, we can't make
<v Speaker 1>them as fast as we're selling them, why would we
<v Speaker 1>want to release another single? So they didn't want to
<v Speaker 1>release the single and so that so they have to
<v Speaker 1>figure out how are we going to pay for the
<v Speaker 1>video if the CBS isn't willing to pay for the
<v Speaker 1>video and we know that we want to blow it
<v Speaker 1>out of the water with John Landis directing, and this
<v Speaker 1>really great. I mean they change the way, they changed
<v Speaker 1>the way of videos, which was a weird, a weird
<v Speaker 1>thing to say looking back and thinking, oh, video has
<v Speaker 1>really only been going on about a year, right, it was.
<v Speaker 1>It was unlike anything ever done. So they go to
<v Speaker 1>MTV and they say, we would like you to pay
<v Speaker 1>for it, and MTV says, we can't do that. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>we start making we start making videos for artists, We're
<v Speaker 1>going to lose, yeah, And so they what they said is,
<v Speaker 1>we'll agree to finance the making of thriller and then
<v Speaker 1>you can use the proceeds from that as the money
<v Speaker 1>to make the video of thriller. Interesting, I don't even
<v Speaker 1>know how that works.
<v Speaker 3>Well, so okay, so wait, when you're talking about the
<v Speaker 3>video directed by on Landis the same guy who did
<v Speaker 3>American World, for London.
<v Speaker 1>He also did National Lampoon's Animal House.
<v Speaker 3>Animal House Training Places, right, I mean he's done some
<v Speaker 3>some big time movies.
<v Speaker 1>Rick Baker did the makeup for this.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Rick Baker of a Star Wars fan.
<v Speaker 3>Star Wars American World from London, So he did all
<v Speaker 3>the transformative you know, changing Michael into her where all
<v Speaker 3>changing Michael into zombie.
<v Speaker 1>So you've got the video, You've got the Playboy model.
<v Speaker 1>Do you remember her name? Her name was Ola Ray Ray. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>thank you beautiful.
<v Speaker 3>I didn't know she was in Playboy though, So what are.
<v Speaker 2>We going to do now? Oh?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, that's Google's arch No, I'm just kidding. And
<v Speaker 1>they completely redo the song in order to fit the video.
<v Speaker 1>I mean they don't did. Yeah, that's right. And so
<v Speaker 1>you've got this long that dance sequence. Michael's totally zombie down.
<v Speaker 1>Do you remember about Thriller?
<v Speaker 3>I was just gonna us make mention of it. So
<v Speaker 3>I was curious about this. I don't know if anybody
<v Speaker 3>else to be curious about this, but.
<v Speaker 1>So Thriller was not never made it to number one
<v Speaker 1>on the Hot.
<v Speaker 3>One hundred, right, So I'm like, immediately when I see this,
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, what in the heck kept it out of
<v Speaker 3>the number one spot. What songs are good enough to
<v Speaker 3>keep Thriller out of the number one spot? So I
<v Speaker 3>went back and I and I went to Billboard and
<v Speaker 3>I found it so so Thriller made it to number four, right,
<v Speaker 3>So these three kept Thriller out of the number one. Man,
<v Speaker 3>they're so good.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>It's justified, it is, It almost is so number one.
<v Speaker 3>The week that Thriller peaked at number four, number one
<v Speaker 3>was jumped by Van Halen. I mean justified, Yeah, justified
<v Speaker 3>eighties iconic song number two ninety nine Affluence by.
<v Speaker 2>Nina Right, great song, great song.
<v Speaker 1>Right, yep?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, number three Yes, girls just want to have Fun
<v Speaker 3>by Cindy Lauper once again.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you've defined the eight in four songs. That's right,
<v Speaker 1>in four songs.
<v Speaker 3>If that's all you know about that, you've got a
<v Speaker 3>pretty good handle.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, because you've got your one hit wonder
<v Speaker 1>in there. Yes, you've got the rock and roll band
<v Speaker 1>that dominated MTV with their just absurd. We're just standing
<v Speaker 1>on stage singing and dancing and jumping and being crazy
<v Speaker 1>as well. Just jump. There's really literally nothing in the
<v Speaker 1>video but man, that thing was on all the time
<v Speaker 1>because it was just awesome to watch them, which speaks
<v Speaker 1>to how good David Lee Roth is. By the way,
<v Speaker 1>we'll cover that later. He's great, he's great. You're absolutely right,
<v Speaker 1>and you never knew whether you're going to get English
<v Speaker 1>and what was the originally Germany?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, my wife and I had a conversation about this
<v Speaker 3>that she loves to remind me of. What's so ninety
<v Speaker 3>nine left Balloons is clearly the German version.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 3>We had an argument one time and I felt like, man,
<v Speaker 3>I know eighties music. Yeah, and to me that song
<v Speaker 3>is in is English and she's like, no, it's like
<v Speaker 3>German or something.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, no, it's English.
<v Speaker 3>So we have this anyway. She loves to rub it
<v Speaker 3>my face.
<v Speaker 1>Well, it's both, it's both. I mean they sang it
<v Speaker 1>in both English and German. You're both right. That's a
<v Speaker 1>win and if you're arguing with your wife, that's a
<v Speaker 1>definite way.
<v Speaker 3>So anyway, So Thriller is the fourth track on the.
<v Speaker 1>Album, right, Okay, So and my I don't know what
<v Speaker 1>happened to me when I was a kid, but the
<v Speaker 1>way that things started on that album for me was
<v Speaker 1>beat It like somehow I played side to first. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>I just saw that Thriller was the final side on
<v Speaker 1>one thing, and so I thought, Okay, that's the end song,
<v Speaker 1>right beat it has to be the first song, because
<v Speaker 1>at that time Beat it was huge. They had kind
<v Speaker 1>of said, hey, we need a rock song. Quincy Jones
<v Speaker 1>goes to Michael Jackson and plays him My Sharona and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, we need something like this, we need a
<v Speaker 1>rock rock song. And Michael says, I've got something. I
<v Speaker 1>don't have the lyrics yet, I'll get it. Comes back
<v Speaker 1>the next day has it has the song and.
<v Speaker 4>It rocks, and the music was the m.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there's no question about it. This is a
<v Speaker 2>rock song. This is not the disco.
<v Speaker 1>Of Off the Wall, this is not the jazz of
<v Speaker 1>Quincy Jones. This is Michael Jackson rocking the heck out
<v Speaker 1>of the song. Fantastic. And then the video is this
<v Speaker 1>kind of dirty, gritty, you know, you kind of look
<v Speaker 1>back on it now and it looks a little cheesy,
<v Speaker 1>but at the time it was like, oh, these are
<v Speaker 1>you know, these are the gangs of New York, no doubt,
<v Speaker 1>but they were actual gangs. Other than certain dancers.
<v Speaker 3>They had real gang members on the set.
<v Speaker 1>So the guy who wears the white jacket, that's the
<v Speaker 1>choreographer that I was talking about. His name is His
<v Speaker 1>first name is Jeff, and I'm forgetting his last name
<v Speaker 1>right now, but he it old Jeff, Yeah, Jeff. And
<v Speaker 1>so obviously he was the one that put together the
<v Speaker 1>dance for the guitar solo that happens, which is this
<v Speaker 1>really you know, Sharks versus Jets kind of clearly based
<v Speaker 1>on West Side Story. Yeah, west Side Story deal. And
<v Speaker 1>you got Eddie's screaming solo in the back, which I
<v Speaker 1>guess I haven't talked about that either. That was the
<v Speaker 1>other thing. So Quincy called Eddie about coming to He's like,
<v Speaker 1>I got this, you know, Michael's written the song and
<v Speaker 1>Eddie's like who is He's like, it's Quincy Jones. He's
<v Speaker 1>like fu and hangs up the phone and apparently did
<v Speaker 1>that about four different times before Quincy Jones really convinced him, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>this is really Quincy Jones. And he's like, oh, oh,
<v Speaker 1>I'm so sorry, And so he goes in. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>so what do you want me to do? They said,
<v Speaker 1>you're here because you know what to do. So you
<v Speaker 1>just do it, and so he messes around with it
<v Speaker 1>for a minute and says, hey, can you change the
<v Speaker 1>core progression in this spot here and the spot here,
<v Speaker 1>and you can hear it when you listen to the
<v Speaker 1>song the progression changes. And then he throws that solo
<v Speaker 1>down and I think again it was a two take
<v Speaker 1>type of deal. But as he's throwing it down, this
<v Speaker 1>is this is not urban myth. Like all of the
<v Speaker 1>guys who are there, I've seen them, they all say
<v Speaker 1>the same thing. He set the monitor on fire. It
<v Speaker 1>actually went on fire, and like he's playing, and the
<v Speaker 1>monitors starts flaming and they're.
<v Speaker 2>Like, holy smokes.
<v Speaker 1>And the text run in and they've got their you know,
<v Speaker 1>their extinguishers and they're trying to put it out. And
<v Speaker 1>one guy turns to the other. Rod turns to Bruce
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, I guess this means it's going to
<v Speaker 1>be That's fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>But Thriller in general is noted for having three strong
<v Speaker 3>Christmas seasons eighty two, eighty three, and eighty four owned
<v Speaker 3>Christmas three years in a row. That's unheard of, that
<v Speaker 3>would never happen today.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, No, it makes total sense because they released and
<v Speaker 1>they were trying that they wanted the Christmas album, and
<v Speaker 1>I think probably the first of those three and eighty
<v Speaker 1>two was probably the weakest. But they wanted it out
<v Speaker 1>before Christmas because they wanted people. They knew that Off
<v Speaker 1>the Wall had done well, they knew that they made
<v Speaker 1>a good album, right, they wanted it released by Christmas.
<v Speaker 1>It just didn't do as well as they had hoped
<v Speaker 1>that it would. But then it's the release of thriller
<v Speaker 1>video that next year. It causes the big resurgence at
<v Speaker 1>Christmas for eighty three, and then it's the unfortunate fire
<v Speaker 1>that causes the big resurgeon for eighty four. Wow, incredible.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so Mack to beat it? We saw the video?
<v Speaker 3>Is this where we talked about where now for me?
<v Speaker 2>And oh sure you want to talk about weird out?
<v Speaker 1>I mean I might as well throw it in.
<v Speaker 3>Here's a little side note.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think you grew up in the eighties without
<v Speaker 1>either loving or hating word Ayankvi.
<v Speaker 3>I mean this was my introduction to wed now oh too.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Well, I don't know what the.
<v Speaker 3>I think he had some stuff before this, but he
<v Speaker 3>was well, he was on a.
<v Speaker 1>Show called Doctor Demento. But I think that I think
<v Speaker 1>that this that that eat It really led to the
<v Speaker 1>album which I had, which introduced me to a whole
<v Speaker 1>lot of other things. Right and oddly, I think I
<v Speaker 1>like I lost on Jeopardy. I thought that's what the
<v Speaker 1>real lyrics were. I didn't realize that that was that
<v Speaker 1>was not what the real lyrics were. So I was
<v Speaker 1>surprised to hear about that.
<v Speaker 3>I showed Eva, my daughter, the weird al video the
<v Speaker 3>other day.
<v Speaker 1>Eat it. Okay, so weird. I eat it?
<v Speaker 3>Obviously, beat it is what it's based on. It still kills.
<v Speaker 1>She loved it. She thought it was hilarious. Well, the
<v Speaker 1>my kids have, they have no inclination to watch the
<v Speaker 1>bad video at all, but they will watch Fat Day Long. Okay, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>well we'll get to that. Yeah a minute, okay, okay,
<v Speaker 1>so we beat it. Billy Jean, I've already talked about brilliant.
<v Speaker 1>It's you know, the songs on here. The the reason
<v Speaker 1>not only is it the sound that sets them apart,
<v Speaker 1>but they do not sound like any other songs that
<v Speaker 1>were before this time, like they changed the paradigm and
<v Speaker 1>this was a shift that happened. And Billy Jean is
<v Speaker 1>obviously a huge factor on that that.
<v Speaker 2>It's just brilliant.
<v Speaker 1>So then we've got we've hit Billy Jean.
<v Speaker 3>So let's talk just a minute about Billy Jean. So
<v Speaker 3>Billy Jean, obviously you have the Motown performance where it
<v Speaker 3>does the moonwalk, where people just lose their mind over
<v Speaker 3>what they're seeing and it still kills. I mean when
<v Speaker 3>I look at it, I'm like, my body is not
<v Speaker 3>capable of doing what he's.
<v Speaker 1>Doing, right, And he was disappointed in it too, apparently
<v Speaker 1>hold the topos for like a good second and a
<v Speaker 1>half and it was just a pop and done. But
<v Speaker 1>I you know, I saw the interview.
<v Speaker 3>He was not pleased that he wanted to spin and
<v Speaker 3>stick it for like five seconds or something to the
<v Speaker 3>toe and it was just an up and down and
<v Speaker 3>he was mad at himself on that.
<v Speaker 1>Right. But that's now what kind of defines people who
<v Speaker 1>who recreate that dances. They'll just do the momentary pop
<v Speaker 1>up and it seems cooler to me. I think it
<v Speaker 1>probably would have been weird if you to help. That's
<v Speaker 1>why it's not a ballerina, right.
<v Speaker 3>So the song was obviously a number one hit on
<v Speaker 3>the Oh. So before we move on, Thriller reached number
<v Speaker 3>four on the Hot one hundred.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about that beat.
<v Speaker 3>It was a number one hit, yes, okay, one of
<v Speaker 3>only two number one hits on the album.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Thrill produce. It seems like it might be playing
<v Speaker 1>into your argument later on the fact that you were two.
<v Speaker 3>So Billy Jean was actually the other number one hit
<v Speaker 3>from Thriller.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So as bad as eighty two sucked, eighty three
<v Speaker 1>and eighty four were really pretty.
<v Speaker 2>Darned good for music.
<v Speaker 1>They were fantastic for me. Okay, I'm not gonna we
<v Speaker 1>will get into that part things. Yeah, let's let's finish
<v Speaker 1>out the album. Okay, sorry, do we cover Billy Jane?
<v Speaker 1>We got Billy Jane?
<v Speaker 2>I think Billy Gene is covered.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So Human Nature, Human Nature re'll catch you too
<v Speaker 1>late add to the album.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, So Human Nature reached number seven on
<v Speaker 3>the Hot one hundred, So another top ten.
<v Speaker 1>Head for me.
<v Speaker 3>The song is excellent, love it a little soft in
<v Speaker 3>the middle, but there's that one section that we'll play
<v Speaker 3>right now hopefully.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, that part is gold. And then second to the
<v Speaker 1>last album on the track is p y T Pretty
<v Speaker 1>Young Thing. Second to the last track on the album
<v Speaker 1>is that free strike that puy t and so the
<v Speaker 1>this is where the Chipmunks come back into play again.
<v Speaker 1>I think I heard that song like, oh, this is
<v Speaker 1>the guys from my Chipmunk Punk album.
<v Speaker 2>I'm so excited.
<v Speaker 1>That's right. Yeah, for some reason, he's got a couple
<v Speaker 1>of weird little voices that come in on this one.
<v Speaker 1>But it doesn't tarnish the beauty of the song.
<v Speaker 3>Well, we can talk about that, I.
<v Speaker 1>Think what I can.
<v Speaker 3>So, yes, you got the Chipmunks at the end of
<v Speaker 3>the p y t, which, in my opinion, does tarnish
<v Speaker 3>a great song. Okay, so you do have So you've
<v Speaker 3>got Janet and LaToya singing.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the backups right.
<v Speaker 2>There, they're the they are the p y Ts.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, they are the pys his sisters. Yes, and sounds good,
<v Speaker 3>sounds great. And then you get the Chipmuncks.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so do you know who the chipmunky is? No,
<v Speaker 1>it's Michael Jackson. Still not good enough to say it.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, But here's the thing. It's nineteen eighty two
<v Speaker 1>and Chipmunk Punk is one of the biggest selling albums
<v Speaker 1>of all time. And we know that one of Michael's
<v Speaker 1>biggest things is he wants to sell a lot of albums, right,
<v Speaker 1>he does, clearly. And you listen to Quincy Jones or
<v Speaker 1>you listen to Rod Templeton talk and they're like, let's
<v Speaker 1>just go make a good album. You listen to guys
<v Speaker 1>from Toto who did the Back, They're like, let's just
<v Speaker 1>go make some good music. You don't know, You're never
<v Speaker 1>going to know whether this is going to be a
<v Speaker 1>big hit or not. But Michael Jackson had went from
<v Speaker 1>alter famous as Little Michael Jackson and the Jackson five
<v Speaker 1>to famous again.
<v Speaker 3>And really this is the explanation of why Michael Jackson's weird.
<v Speaker 1>Not why he's weird, it's that he wants to be
<v Speaker 1>his I don't think his motivation is money. I think
<v Speaker 1>his motivation Okay, maybe his motivation's money. He wants to
<v Speaker 1>sell an audio, he wants to sell a lot of albums. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>that is what seems to be his driving force. And
<v Speaker 1>so he here he sees the chipmunk punk has gone crazy,
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, put a chipmunk voice in my thing.
<v Speaker 1>I'll just do it. I'll just do it, and I'll
<v Speaker 1>speed myself up and it'll be fun. Right, And so
<v Speaker 1>I think that's I mean, I think he did. I
<v Speaker 1>think he did a money grab or a fame grab
<v Speaker 1>or something with that, and I think it worked because
<v Speaker 1>I was at the time going, oh cool, Chipmunk Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Well, let me just say, first of all, I love
<v Speaker 3>the song PI t Okay. I love it.
<v Speaker 1>It's very catchy.
<v Speaker 3>No video reached number ten on the Hot one hundred yep,
<v Speaker 3>so clearly a smash it. You get Janet and LaToya
<v Speaker 3>is kind of known for getting some of that, and
<v Speaker 3>it works well, it's good.
<v Speaker 1>There's just that.
<v Speaker 3>Michael Jackson's weirdness just kind of creeps in the end
<v Speaker 3>of it. It's kind of the sin of the album.
<v Speaker 3>But it's it's catchy and it's good and I like it.
<v Speaker 1>I clearly like piit a lot. Right, you didn't have it.
<v Speaker 3>If I could strike the Chickmunks from this album.
<v Speaker 1>You didn't have Chipmunk Punk. I did not. I had
<v Speaker 1>Chipmunk Punk, An Urban Chipmunk, and probably the other three
<v Speaker 1>albums that came out. Act I was nine, I guess
<v Speaker 1>I was. Yeah, you were past that. It was beyond
<v Speaker 1>your time. And then the album rounds out with the
<v Speaker 1>Lady of My Life, which again is yeah, it's a
<v Speaker 1>throwaway track for me as well, a stinker. How did
<v Speaker 1>that clear?
<v Speaker 3>So? I heard I heard quinc J was talking about
<v Speaker 3>and you said, you start with eight hundred songs and
<v Speaker 3>then you try to get it down to nine good ones, right,
<v Speaker 3>which they felt like they did. Then they threw out
<v Speaker 3>some and through all that, the Lady in My Life
<v Speaker 3>somehow clears all the hurdles to make it the greatest
<v Speaker 3>solo album.
<v Speaker 1>Well yeah, so of all of the all of the
<v Speaker 1>tracks on the album, only two of them are skippers
<v Speaker 1>for me. You know, I'm gonna skip, I'm gonna skip
<v Speaker 1>Baby Be Mine, I'm gonna skip the Lady in My Life.
<v Speaker 1>But the rest of the album, I mean.
<v Speaker 2>It changed music history.
<v Speaker 3>Was a pop culture nuclear bomb, absolutely without question.
<v Speaker 1>And I note with some embarrassment but not a lot,
<v Speaker 1>that my grandma made me a sequin glove and I
<v Speaker 1>would wear that a school.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, now he I didn't realize you were that cool.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, okay. And so then eighty seven comes along.
<v Speaker 4>You know, those were good songs. I like those songs
<v Speaker 4>a lot, but especially.
<v Speaker 1>I like the new songs.
<v Speaker 3>Much anticipated, right, so maybe the most anticipated album of
<v Speaker 3>all time.
<v Speaker 1>So join us next week for Part two of the
<v Speaker 1>Bad versus Thriller debate. Here is some of what you
<v Speaker 1>will hear off the wall is Star are worse thrillers
<v Speaker 1>and Bad and Bad is returning.
<v Speaker 3>We'll get into this, okay. Chris Jones actually got Prince
<v Speaker 3>and Michael Jackson together, and Bad was originally intended to
<v Speaker 3>be a duet, sort of a back and forth. Your
<v Speaker 3>butt is mine, right?
<v Speaker 1>That becomes more uncomfortable like that? Okay, the point that
<v Speaker 1>he starts doing those yells that.
<v Speaker 4>I will.
<v Speaker 2>What the heck?
<v Speaker 1>This is the best song on either alum, Oh no, no,
<v Speaker 1>this is.
<v Speaker 3>The best song on either album. You it's not my favorite,
<v Speaker 3>but it's the best one.
<v Speaker 1>The next one is Dirty Diana. You will not hear
<v Speaker 1>me say anything bad about Dirty dwn. Okay, thank you
<v Speaker 1>so much for your support of the Shirley you Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious podcast. Don't forget. We also love to debate
<v Speaker 1>on social media as well, so be sure to follow
<v Speaker 1>us at Shirley Podcast on Twitter, at Shirley Podcast on Facebook,
<v Speaker 1>or email us at Shirleypodcast at gmail dot com, and
<v Speaker 1>be sure to check out the Surely you Can't Be
<v Speaker 1>Serious podcast channel on YouTube, and as always, please hit
<v Speaker 1>the subscribe button now so that you never miss an
<v Speaker 1>episode of the Surely You Can't Be Serious podcast.
<v Speaker 4>Don't tell us?
<v Speaker 1>We go on from there, right, we've covered thriller. Golly,
<v Speaker 1>I can I forget this?
<v Speaker 2>Sorry?
<v Speaker 1>Keep going well, I was just going to say say
<v Speaker 1>they say is big because of the video.
<v Speaker 3>The only thing I remember is Michael Jackson winning in
<v Speaker 3>our wrestling contest.
<v Speaker 1>All music, images and movie clips are used for the
<v Speaker 1>purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with the fair
<v Speaker 1>Use Agreement under the U S Copyright Law.