Spooky Michael Jackson Thriller

The Michael Jackson Thriller is one of the most memorable Halloween songs ever. This song received immense popularity in the 1980s and was constant staple in many people’s musical diets. After the 1980s, the song has taken on a whole world of its own in the Halloween Holiday. You can hear this song at many Halloween parties and dances.

This was a rare pop song with a horror theme, there were other pop songs that had become a staple of Halloween (like the Monster Mash), but this song had yearlong appeal.

Michael Jackson Thriller: Making the Music

• A British songwriter named Rod Temperton wrote this song. He was the main songwriter in his band Heatwave, which he formed with two Americans. After Heatwave’s song “Boogie Nights” took off in 1977, Jones asked Temperton to write songs for Jackson, resulting in “Rock With You” and “Off the Wall” which became the title track to Jackson’s 1979 album. When it came time for Jackson’s next album, Temperton again delivered the title track, this time the song “Thriller.”Temperton also wrote two other songs on Thriller: “The Lady in My Life” and “Baby Be Mine.” Those were the only songs on the album that weren’t released as singles.
• When Rod Temperton started writing this song, he called it “Starlight” or “Starlight Love” – one of his early demos its titled “Starlight Sun.” Quincy Jones wanted a better title, so Temperton wracked his brain until he settled on “Midnight Man.” Then he got a better idea.”I woke up, and I just said this word,” he told The Sunday Telegraph in 2007. “Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualize 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.'”
• Rod Temperton recalled that when he wrote this song he envisaged “this talking section at the end and didn’t know really what we were going to do with it. But one thing I ‘d thought about was to have a famous voice in the horror genre to do the vocal. Quincy (Jones, producer)’s wife knew Vincent Price, so Quincy said to me, ‘How about if we got Vincent Price?'” (Source Q magazine August 2009).
• In an interview from the 1980s, published by the News of The World, Jackson revealed that he was considering scrapping the Thriller album before being inspired by watching children play. He said: “Thriller sounded so crap. The mixes sucked. When we listened to the whole album, there were tears… I just cried like a baby. I stormed out of the room and said, ‘We’re not releasing this’.” Jackson added: “One of the maintenance crew in the studio had a bicycle and so I took it and rode up to the schoolyard. I just watched the children play. When I came back I was ready to rule the world. I went into the studio and I turned them songs out.”
• The version of the song in the video is different from the one on the album, which you need to account for if you’re planning to stage a “Thriller” dance. On the album, the song begins with a series of spooky sound effects that don’t lend themselves to dancing. Editing the song for the video was a challenge because producer Quincy Jones wouldn’t release the master tapes. In the book I Want My MTV, John Landis explains how they got around this restriction. “The song was five minutes long, and I needed it to be 12 minutes for the video,” he said. “So Michael and I went to the recording studio at three in the morning. We walked past the guard – ‘Hi, Michael.’ ‘Hi’ – put the tracks in a big suitcase and walked out with them. Then we drove across Hollywood, duped them, and put them back.”
• Thriller is by far the best selling album in the world. In the United States, it was overtaken by The Eagles Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975, but reclaimed the title after Jackson’s death.
• This was the last of seven US Top 10 hits from the Thriller album. The first single from the album, “The Girl Is Mine,” reached its peak chart position of #2 on January 8, 1983. The song “Thriller” was released over a year later, on January 23, 1984, peaking at #4 on March 3. This lifespan of chart singles from one album was unprecedented, but so was the video for “Thriller.” The clip was so effective that after six singles and a year of release, it boosted yet another track from the album into the Top 10. It also brought the album back to #1 on December 24, 1983 – it lost the top spot on September 17 to Synchronicity by The Police. Thriller held the peak position until April 21, 1984, over a year after it first went to #1 on February 26, 1983.

Michael Jackson Thriller: Making the Video

• The music video is considered the most famous music video of all time, at least by the Library of Congress, which added it to its National Film Registry in 2009, the first music video in their registry.
• The video was a cultural milestone, introducing elaborate choreography, costumes and dialogue into the format. It also introduced the concept of the long-form music video, where a mini-movie was made for a song, then edited down for the short version. The long version of “Thriller” runs nearly 14 minutes, but had remarkable longevity, easily racking up over 100 million views when it showed up on YouTube. MTV usually ran the short version, which ran a little under five minutes but still contained about a minute of non-song content in a storyline that omits most of the movie the couple is watching at the beginning.
• With its famous graveyard dance, the video popularized group dance scenes in pop videos, a trend Pat Benatar pushed forward earlier in 1983 with her “Love is a Battlefield” video.
• The “Michael Jackson Thriller” video owes a debt to Alice Cooper, who in 1975 created a movie based on the stage show for his Welcome to My Nightmare tour. Cooper’s production was based on an entire album, but it also used a horror theme and was narrated by Vincent Price.
• Most homes had VCRs in 1983 and sales of videos were big business. Along with the Jane Fonda workout tapes, you could buy a VHS or Beta copy of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which included the full video and also “The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller,” a behind the scenes documentary. This tape became the best selling music video at the time, and was later certified by Guinness World Records as the top selling music video of all time, moving nine million units. Part of its appeal was the price, a mere $24.95 at a time when movies on tape cost much more.
• The video won for Best Performance Video, Best Choreography, and Viewers Choice at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. The show was hosted by Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler.
• Jackson, who was a Jehovah’s Witness at the time, insisted on a disclaimer at the beginning of the video reading: “Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.” He asked for the disclaimer after taking criticism from Witness leaders who objected to the zombies and other creatures that violated their beliefs.
• The video cost about $500,000 to make, and Jackson’s record company had no intention of paying for it, as the album was on the downswing and they had already financed videos for two of its songs. According to John Landis, Jackson really wanted to turn into a monster, so he offered to pay for the clip himself. Landis took on the project because he saw it as a way to revive the short film genre, which he loved.
• Vincent Price, while a guest on the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, laughingly stated that when he did the narration for “Thriller” (at the request of Michael Jackson who was a big fan of Price) he had a choice between taking a percentage of the album sales or $20,000. Price was well along in his career, so he took the $20,000. He was good-natured about it when Carson told him he could have made millions off of the royalties due to the vast number of copies sold even at that time. Price laughed heartily and said: “How well I know!”
• The Michael Jackson Thriller dance has become the world’s most famous choreography, fueled by a number of stunts and viral videos. Those who grew up with the song know at least some of the moves and often get a rush of nostalgia from them. It also crosses cultural boundaries, giving it global appeal.

For More About Michael Jackson Thriller, Follow this Link!

Inside the making of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ 40 years on (nypost.com)

For More Halloween Fun, Follow this Link..

The All Halloween Website (celebratehalloween.net)