From child music sensation to world mega star, Michael Jackson epitomises the idea of seeing a musical legend growing up before your eyes and until his untimely passing seeming to be a legend that was indestructible.

Thriller, thirty years down the line still holds onto the record of being the best-selling album of all time and whilst perhaps not being in the same vein as its predecessor Off The Wall, it can be seen as the album that changed Michael Jackson from a boy to a man. The songs on the album still retained the core elements and critical awareness that producer Quincy Jones established in his working arrangement with the former child star on Off The Wall but with one key ingredient thrown into the mix that took Michael away the boy of the 1970’s to the sophisticated and international entertainer that would wow audiences till his death. Namely the song in which the album took its name from, Thriller!

Thriller not only propelled Michael Jackson into the homes of the ordinary music buyer on both sides of the Atlantic but it also helped speed up a process of seeing a black singer/songwriter as something more than sitting comfortably in the realms of Motown or the emerging rap scene. The infectious dance beats combined with some extraordinary rock sound made many people sit up and take notice, perhaps even for the first time.

The song that kicks of the album, Wanna Be Startin’ Something, although a decent enough tune by Jackson, doesn’t begin to display the extravaganza that is waiting for the listener further and deeper into the record. It is a song that quite frankly could have sat easily in any of the albums that had funk, post-disco elements to it that were released around the early 1980’s. It fairs though better than Baby Be Mine which unfortunately sounded like a poor man’s Hall and Oates musical arrangement.

It is from The Girl is Mine, sung with Liverpool’s Paul McCartney, that the album really starts to get interesting. Although not in the same league as the song that the two had earlier collaborated upon, the decent track, Say, Say, Say, it nevertheless has the easy listening appeal that makes it a favourite of late night radio and beautiful melody that Toto’s Steve Lukather, Steve and Jeff Porcaro can be heard upon. It was a sign that the boy was growing up. Although the song sounds slightly dated with thirty years of hindsight it still has the ability to install a sense of joy when hearing it .

The album hangs in the pantheon of 1980’s classic due to the fourth, fifth and sixth songs that parade as three of the all-time classics of Jackson’s career and what made them even more spectacular was that two of them were written by Michael Jackson himself. This evolving shift from a boy to a man can be seen on the tracks Beat It and the outstanding Billie Jean.

There had been nothing like the excitement generated by Thriller, both as a song and as a video. If Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen is considered the father of music video then Thriller was its natural heir apparent. For any teenager in the early 1980’s the use of a well written which showed off Michael Jackson’s vocal talent and sense of humour with a video that took the idea of ‘B’ Horror films was one of tangible ecstasy. Never mind how cool or uncool you were, there was something about the film that got the attention of that generation, the first set of people to see Michael Jackson in a new light from the child singer of the early 1970’s.

The music suddenly becomes infectious and retains perhaps what Michael Jackson was trying to get across. This really was a thriller, a joy ride of pop fused with funk and classy elements of rock. Lyrics that audiences at concerts couldn’t help but sing along to rather than sitting through, lyrics that suggested there was more to the man than was first thought. His creation of Billie Jean with its distinctive bass line has hints of the singer using a personal experience or great astuteness in using others in his thoughts as the theme of the song of questionable paternity is one that would not have been associated with Jackson before that.

Beat It also shows the increasing confidence in which Michael Jackson was displaying in his lyric writing. Its catchy tune coupled with the intimation of danger not only made it acceptable for the younger teenagers of the time to enjoy him but certainly also still made their parents admire his new found voice.  These three songs gave notice that as a performer, Michael had changed. The three years since Off The Wall had not only it seems been good for the man as an artist and a human being but also for the audience. The time away between albums could be seen as lowering their expectations and when Michael came back with Thriller, it blew everybody’s mind.

It would be a further five years before Michael Jackson recorded another original album in the form of Bad, however, the spirit of Thriller, its themes of sweet love, youthful exuberance and ground breaking music would hold Michael in the public’s affections for many years. Thriller remains one of Michael Jackson’s finest albums of his later period and one that surprisingly still holds up to close scrutiny. An album that won an impressive eight Grammy Awards, numerous honours for the videos  and spawned one of the most memorable songs of the 1980’s, that is the Thriller.

Ian D. Hall