Taylor Swift had a pretty impressive year with her Eras Tour,
she is the biggest artist on the planet, but even Taylor in 2023 pales in
comparison to the year Michael Jackson had in 1983. It has been forty years since Thriller dominated the zeitgeist. 70 million albums sold worldwide, 7 top ten
singles, 12 Grammy nominations, eight won, including Album of the Year. Forget Swift showing up to Chief’s game, Jackson
showed up to the award ceremony that year with Brooke Shields and Emmanuel
Lewis.
That album is now being chronicled with a new documentary, Thriller 40, with commentary from
Shields, Mary J. Blige, Mark Ronson, Raphael Saadiq, Misty Copland, Thriller
director John Landis, and many people who played on the album. Though there is a glaring omission of any new
comments from famed producer Quincy Jones, though he did just turn ninety earlier
this year. It is also a little
surprising than none of Jackson’s siblings gave any new interviews for the
film.
The doc stays focused on the time period so it never even
hints at the many controversies that Jackson dealt with later in his life. But they do focus on a few controversies from
the time period. I forgot that Michael was
involved with ET and there was a big blowout with his record label because the
film had a deal with a different label.
They also go into his accident on the set of the infamous Pepsi commercial. But it was wild to remember that was for a
tour with his family that his father Joe forced him to go on instead of touring
behind Thriller on his own.
The film is a nice walk down memory lane focusing on one of
the most iconic albums of all time. Sure
it is a fluff piece and in the middle there is a weird segment from some guy
from Tik Tok talking about how Jackson is reaching a new generation, but came
off more as an advertisement for Tik Tok, but is still worth checking out if
you were ever a fan of the music, which, considering how many albums that were
sold, was probably everyone who was alive in the eighties.
Thriller 40 airs Saturday at 8:00 is currently streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.
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