Thriller 25th Album

This week, Sony BMG/Epic is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the best-selling album in music history by releasing a new version of it worldwide.

“Thriller” (meaning thrilling) entered the music world 25 years ago, on the first day of December 1982, and after that, everything was under Michael Jackson’s control—along with his new album. The music industry was transformed by this album. Michael broke down barriers and opened new doors for people in the music world. Eight Grammy Awards—whose prestige is on par with the Oscars—was a record that, after Thriller, was never repeated for nearly two decades. “Billie Jean” and its innovative video, as well as “Beat It,” shattered MTV’s anti-Black-artist tradition and, without a doubt, left a tremendous impact on raising the level of Black music. Because for the first time in music broadcast history, MTV no longer had the power to ignore a Black artist.

Thriller, another landmark video from this historic album, forever changed the entire concept of music videos. A musical piece with a theatrical structure: an opening, a body, and an ending. And not just a collection of photos and images.

Starting today, Monday, February 11, 2008, an album commemorating the 25 years since Thriller’s release—dubbed by the world’s press a “bomb” and clearly revolutionary for the music industry—will take over music stores around the world. This new edition, produced with the help of young and prominent artists from the music scene—Akon, Fergie, Kanye West, and will.i.am—includes, in addition to the original tracks, seven new tracks and a DVD containing short films from the Thriller album: Thriller, Beat It, and Billie Jean. Also included is the explosive and mind-blowing performance of Billie Jean at Motown’s 25th anniversary on May 16, 1983. That performance was nominated for an Emmy Award.

One of these seven new tracks is “The Girl Is Mine,” which was released on January 28 as the first single from this new edition on CD in the UK in three different versions (single, remix, and the original demo).

The original, previously unreleased demo of “The Girl Is Mine” was recorded with Michael’s vocals in the early 1980s. But the duet version of the song, featuring backing vocals by Paul McCartney, was placed on the Thriller album.

The other new tracks are remixed versions of songs from the Thriller album, prepared and performed by the young singers mentioned above.

This collection also includes a message from Michael to his fans, written specifically for this occasion:

“To my fans around the world…

I want to thank you for helping make Thriller the best-selling music album in history. We’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of Thriller, and I know that without your love and constant support, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve any of these historic accomplishments related to this album.

I hope you enjoy listening to the new and previously unreleased tracks added to this new version of the Thriller album, as well as the new mixes of the songs made by my friends—Akon, Kanye West, Fergie, and will.i.am.

I worked hard to make this CD memorable for you, and I hope you enjoy it.

Again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

With respect.

Michael Jackson.”

The new Thriller album will be released in two versions. The deluxe and luxurious version will be sold in a package with a gold-foil (gilded) cover (hardcover) and includes a 48-page booklet of rare color photos, as well as the lyrics text for the album’s songs. The standard version has a cover featuring the animated dead from the Thriller video, plus a very beautiful, bright box and a 20-page booklet.

In Japan, an additional previously unreleased song is also added to the album. The song is called “Got The Hots.” It was originally supposed to be included on the 2001 version of Thriller, but that didn’t happen.

The tracklist for the new Thriller album is:

1. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin2. Baby Be Mine3. The Girl Is Mine (with Paul McCartney)4. Thriller5. Beat It6. Billie Jean7. Human Nature8. P.Y.T. - Pretty Young Thing9. The Lady In My Life

The new tracks are:

10. A mix with Vincent Price’s voice, performed as a spoken recitation at the end of the song Thriller.11. The Girl Is Mine by will.i.am12. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) by will.i.am13. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin by Akon14. Beat It by Fergie15. Billie Jean remix by Kanye West16. For All Time (an unreleased song from the original album, newly mixed and produced by Michael Jackson.)

Michael is also the executive producer of this album.

To mark the 25th anniversary of Thriller, a website has also been dedicated to this album.

Epic Records has also created a page for Michael Jackson on YouTube, where all Thriller album videos and the new promotional teaser for this album are available.

Review of the Thriller Album

Michael Jackson’s classic album transformed the music industry. Many of its songs landed among the top ten on music charts, and its music videos also gave the industry a whole new shape.

Thriller, produced by Epic Records, is Michael’s sixth solo album and his second album with Quincy Jones. An album that turned Michael—from a child star of the Jackson 5—into an artist with an unmatched, worldwide reputation. By adding robot dancing and moonwalk to the vocabulary of dance and music culture, Michael Jackson influenced the mainstream of pop music in every way: from radio play to the newly invented art of music videos. At that time, he became the most popular artist in the world.

Michael talks about his memories of this album:

“I remember someone asked me once, what if Thriller doesn’t turn out as good as the previous album (Off The Wall)—would you be disappointed? I remember being upset that the question was even asked. I told them that Thriller has to be better than Off The Wall. I said that I want this album to become the best-selling album of all time. And they started laughing. Apparently, that request seemed unreasonable to them.”

After Michael and Quincy were heavily pressured by the recording company to finish the album on time, an album was made that is very different from what we see today. Michael says:

“The album was so awful in my eyes that I started crying. We were under so much pressure to finish it within the time frame. I was devastated with sadness. I let all my suppressed feelings out at once. I got angry and left the room. I told my people that we weren’t going to release this album. Call the company and tell them they’re not getting this album. In the end, I realized I had to remix the entire album from scratch. When that was done… boom!… the album sounded like a bomb and knocked out all the competitors. Thriller was a very hard project.”

Thriller spent an astonishing 122 weeks (80 consecutive weeks) among the top ten best-selling albums in America, with 37 of those weeks at number one. Seven of the album’s nine songs made it into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, a record that had never been seen before. The singles from this album reached number one on the music charts of the United States, the UK, France, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, South Africa, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, and Canada. Thriller made history by becoming the first—and only—album to remain in the top ten for two consecutive years (1983 and 1984).

With Thriller, Michael Jackson became the undisputed king of pop.

The Billie Jean video had a tremendous impact on MTV viewers and achieved extraordinary popularity. It also removed many of the obstacles and bans that MTV had previously imposed on Black artists. Michael Jackson was, in fact, the first Black artist whose songs were played on this network. Before that, MTV refused to show music videos by Black artists. And Michael changed that forever.

On the second day of December 1983, the Thriller video—which was actually a short film—was broadcast on MTV for the first time and truly sparked a revolution in the way music videos were made. By the end of the second millennium, Thriller was chosen as the best music video of all time!

After the first TV broadcast of Thriller on MTV, CBS (Epic) released the video separately and the album went on to become a sensation. According to statistics, the release of the behind-the-scenes film of Thriller and the album’s singles resulted in additional sales of 14 million albums and soundtrack tapes over six months. In 1984, every week, one million copies of the Thriller album were sold.

On January 16, 1984, Michael became the first artist in the history of the American Music Awards to win eight remarkable awards, and at the MTV Awards ceremony that same year he won three awards as well.

On February 28 of that year, he achieved the record for the most nominations and also the most awards in a single year at the Grammy Awards. He was nominated for 12 Grammy Awards in one night and managed to win in eight categories. Seven of these awards were directly related to the Thriller album:

Album of the YearBest Album Page for “Beat It”Best Male Vocal Performance for “Thriller”Best Recording of a Song for “Thriller”Best Rock Vocal Performance for “Beat It”Best R&B Vocal Performance for “Billie Jean”Best R&B Song for “Billie Jean”

And the eighth award was Best Recording for Children, awarded to the audio storybook “E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial.”

The following year, at the 27th Grammy Awards, the film made from behind-the-scenes footage and the production process of Thriller won the award for Best Music Video Album of the Year.

In 1985, the Guinness World Records book introduced Thriller as the best-selling music album up to that time. A record that has not been broken to this day. With sales of more than 104 million copies worldwide, Thriller currently holds the title of the best-selling album in music history. Also, due to its astronomical sales, the album received 27 Platinum pages from the RIAA and earned the Double Diamond Award.

This album received Diamond and Multi-Platinum awards in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.

Michael Jackson, who now has the title “the most successful showman in history” in the Guinness World Records book, is among the most admirable and influential pop music artists. With sales of 750 million music albums worldwide, he was named the best-selling music artist in history in the Guinness World Records book. In this regard, he also received the Artist of the Century award from the World Music Awards committee as the best-selling male pop artist of the millennium. He has been inducted into and won awards at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice—once in 1997 as a member of the Jackson 5 and once in 2001 as a solo artist.

Source: eMJey / michaeljackson.com / legacyrecordings.com / epicrecords / sony