michael jackson Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Michael Jackson “Thriller”

sfilzen — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:46:26 +0000

Michael Jackson “Thriller” 1983. Today, August 29th, would have been Michael Jackson’s 60th birthday (b. 1958). “Thriller” was the seventh and final single released from Jackson’s monster smash LP Thriller and it hit #4 in the US and #10 in the UK in early ‘84. (It has re-entered the charts multiple times since its initial release, including after Jackson’s death in 2009, then again in 2014 and 2015). The track was written by Rod Temperton and produced by Quincy Jones (from Wiki: “while Temperton was writing “Thriller” he stated that he’d ‘always envisioned’ a ‘talking section at the end’ on the song, but did not really know what ‘to do with it,’ until deciding ‘to have somebody, a famous voice, in the horror genre, to do this vocal.’ Jones’ then-wife, Peggy Lipton, who knew Vincent Price, suggested Price for the vocal part, which Price agreed to do.”). It is arguably one of the weaker tracks on Thriller: Allmusic says “the ridiculous, late-night house-of-horrors title track is the prime culprit, arriving in the middle of the record and sucking out its momentum,” but it remains ridiculously popular 35 years later. The accompanying video, directed by horror film director John Landis, made its own indelible mark on pop culture history, winning three MTV video music awards in ‘84, becoming the first video selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, and supplying a zombie dance routine that continues to be performed at Halloween parties to this day.

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Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney “Say Say Say”

sfilzen — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:21:35 +0000

Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney “Say Say Say” 12″ single on clear vinyl went to #1 this week of December 14th, 1983. 2015 rerelease, Record Store Day special. I picked this one up kind of as a joke, but I will totally cop to loving it back in ‘83 when I was still on my Michael high. Jackson and McCartney recorded “Say Say Say” in 1981, before the release of mega-seller Thriller, and it appears on McCartney’s ‘83 LP release Pipes of Peace. This 2015 remix reverses the vocal roles of Jackson and McCartney and the b-side is an instrumental version, with some “ooo ooo ooo’s” and “say say says” thrown in toward the end. “Say Say Say” ended up spending six weeks on the top of the US charts, Jackson’s 7th top ten hit that year which broke the record previously held by Elvis and McCartney’s old band, The Beatles. With worldwide success, it remains in the top 50 biggest hits of all-time, which is weird because I don’t think I’ve heard it (until now) since the early 80′s. The video is noteworthy for the cameos by Linda McCartney and La Toya Jackson, also for being the first to have dialogue and a storyline in a major music video.

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Michael Jackson “Thriller”

sfilzen — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 15:28:46 +0000

Michael Jackson “Thriller” released on this date, November 30th, 1982. My dad went out on Christmas Eve that year to get this record for me as I think my 11 year old brain would have exploded if it was not under the tree on Christmas morning. Michael was my first celebrity crush, complete with life size posters on my bedroom walls (I don’t really count my brief manufactured crush on Paul McCartney earlier that year. I remember deciding that I was sick of the boys in my classroom and needed kind of boy obsession that didn’t include pimples and stinky feet. McCartney was a weird choice; he was 40 years old in ‘82 – older than my parents! – but perhaps a prophetic crush as he collaborated with Jackson on “The Girl is Mine.”). The following year my crush veered across the pond to Simon LeBon. Anyway, I have, along with 65 million and counting other people, Thriller in the vinyl collection (gatefold!).

Thriller is the best-selling album of all-time and spawned an astonishing seven top 10 singles: “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Human Nature,” “PYT (Pretty Young Thing),” “The Girl is Mine,” “Thriller” and my favorite on the record “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin.’” I always thought I misheard the words on that one but no, Michael really does say “You’re just a buffet, you’re a vegetable,” which to my mind is one of the weirdest set of Top 10 lyrics ever.

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