Ma Ma Se, Ma Ma Sa, Ma Ma Ma Coo Sa

Last week Amazon did one of the absurdly cheap daily sales for Thriller and I came to the realization that I never upgraded my cassette tape version to CD so I jumped on the deal (please not as of this writing it is back up to $9.99, which is probably cheaper than what you paid for it on cassette). Thirty years later, yep the Michael Jackson album hits the big 3-0 later this year, it is easy to forget how big the album was but when a great song Baby Be Mine is the least recognizable track on the album, you are doing something right. Seriously, Thriller, which is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, is pack with more hits than most artists’ Greatest Hits albums.

Thriller starts off what remains today one of the great party starters Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ which will have everyone within ears shot shouting along the ending tribal chanting. And who else but Michael Jackson can make calling you a vegetable sound fun? Jackson was also one of the few people who could recruit a Beatle to sing one of his songs on his album and even battled for a girl’s affection with Paul McCartney on The Girl Is Mine.

And that just the start of the album, then you get to the heart of the album and Thriller, Beat It, and Billie Jean is the musical version of the Murder’s Row. Each song is vastly important in its own way. Billie Jean and it lighting effects because the first music video by a black artist t hit heavy rotation on MTV. Then MTV helped catapult Jackson into legendary status with the fourteen minute movie for Thriller turning the new medium into must see television. And as much as Rihanna and the pop stars tried, Thriller remains the darkest pop song of all time. And of course what better compliant than when Beat It got the “Weird Al” Yankovic treatment? And forget the aging Beatle, Jackson recruited an in his prime Eddie Van Halen to play guitar on the song.

The sneaky great song on the album is Human Nature. The smooth delivery and sythy backing music is almost Yacht Rock and maybe is Michael’s most sampled song in his catalogue. Thriller is really a great rediscovery for those that have yet to upgrade it to your digital library. Hopefully Bad gets the deeply discounted treatment soon because I need to upgrade that also to the digital age in the near future.