THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.
511-Michael Jackson-Thriller.
1983-Number 10 single. Due to the introduction of downloads, and the songs popularity at Halloween, the song has re-entered the UK top 40 on five occasions at the time of writing. It reached Number 35 in 2008, Number 34 in 2017, Number 40 in 2021, and Number 20 in 2023. After the death of Michael Jackson in 2009, the song reached Number 12.
Best Bit-At 4.24. Don’t be frightened, it’s about as scary as the Honey Monster.
‘Thriller’ was the seventh and final single released from Michael Jackson’s (1958-2009) (see also best songs 812-249-191 and 137) sixth solo studio Album of the same name from November 1982, with worldwide sales in excess of 66 million it is the best selling Album of all time. The track ‘Thriller’ was written by Rod Temperton, (1949-2016) (see also best songs 889 and 357) and produced by Quincy Jones (see also best songs 1022-889-812-703-357 and 191.) By the time of this songs release, the Album ‘Thriller’ had already been an outstanding success yielding six American Billboard top 10 singles, but with sales beginning to drop off, Michael Jackson pushed for the release of a seventh single, ‘Thriller,’ but ‘Epic’ records having already paid for previous video’s refused to promote a seventh single, so Jackson organised the financing himself. The video for ‘Thriller’ references numerous horror films, and was directed by the American filmmaker John Landis. After Jackson had seen the Landis written and produced film ‘An American Werewolf in London, (1981) he contacted Landis, and they together conceived a 13 minutes and 43 seconds short film, with a budget much larger than previous music videos. The video was premiered on ‘MTV’ on December 2nd, 1983, and is credited with transforming the music video in to a serious art form. In 1999 ‘MTV’ listed ‘Thriller’ as being the greatest music video ever, on their ‘100 Greatest Video’s.’ In 2009, it became the first music video inducted into the ‘National Film Registry,’ as ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically’ significant.
‘Thriller’ was written by Rod Temperton who had previously worked with Michael Jackson on his 1979 Album ‘Off the Wall,’ writing that Albums title track, as well as the hit single ‘Rock With You.’ Temperton wrote three of the tracks on the ‘Thriller’ Album, the other two were ‘Baby Be Mine,’ and ‘The Lady in My Life,’ which were the only two songs on the Album not issued as singles. With ‘Thriller’ Rod Temperton wanted to write something theatrical for Michael Jackson knowing of his love for films. At first Temperton called the song ‘Starlight,’ but the songs producer Quincy Jones didn’t think that suited the image they were looking for, eventually after giving it a great deal of thought Temperton said that he awoke one morning with the word ‘Thriller’ on his mind. He has also said, ‘Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualise it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as ‘Thriller.’ Temperton had also envisaged a talking part at the end of the song performed by a famous voice in the horror movie genre. It just so happened that Peggy Lupton, (1946-2019) who was the wife of Quincy Jones at that time suggested Vincent Price, (1911-1993) who was a friend of hers. Price recorded the spoken section (and the evil laugh) in the song on his second take, after it had been written by Rod Temperton in the taxi on the way to the studio for the recording session. Incidentally I suggest you take a listen to the Rick James song ‘Give It To Me Baby,’ from his 1981 Album ‘Street Songs,’ to hear where Temperton may have taken inspiration for this songs bassline.
Rod Temperton had first come to the attention of Quincy Jones, and Michael Jackson, through the recording engineer Bruce Swedien (1934-2020) who had recommended Temperton on the basis of his songwriting for the UK ‘Disco,’ and ‘Funk’ band ‘Heatwave,’ whose songs included ‘Boogie Nights,’ (1977-UK & Billboard Number 2) and Always and Forever.’ (1978-UK Number 9 & Billboard Number 18.) Bruce Swedien was born on April 19th, 1934, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, he died on November 16th, 2020, from surgery complications for a broken hip caused by a fall, at the age of 86. Bruce Swedian was a recording engineer, mixing engineer and record producer, first achieving recognition as the engineer with the ‘Four Seasons’ 1962 single ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry,’ (see also best songs 284) which sold in excess of one million copies and stayed at Number one on the American Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks. Bruce Swedien first met Quincy Jones when Jones was vice president for ‘Mercury Records’ in Chicago. The two worked on Albums for artists of the calibre of Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan. Swedien was known for pioneering the ‘Acusonic Recording Process,’ which was pairing up microphones together on vocals and instruments. a technique enabled by synchronising several multi-track recorders with ‘SMPTE timecode.’ This achieved an enhanced roomy ambient sound, and can be heard on the ‘Thriller’ Album. He would often experiment while recording with Michael Jackson, having the singer stand at different distances from the microphone, and singing through a cardboard tube, among other techniques.
‘Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures crawl in search of blood, to terrorise y’all’s neighbourhood. And whosoever shall be found without the soul for getting down, must stand and face the hounds of hell, and rot inside a corpse’s shell.’