Michael Jackson
Thriller

Have you done more than seven thousand reviews and embarrassingly overlooked "Thriller"?
Eh, this is a true flaw, Debaser!

Usually, I don't revisit an artist I've already discussed, but in this case, at this point, I feel obliged. In truth, the fact that even the most questionable albums of Michael Jackson have been reviewed here (see 'Blood On The Dancefloor') but not this one shows only one thing. 'Thriller' is an album that is easier to take for granted than to tackle. It is such a heavyweight in its category that it intimidates even the most relaxed music narrator. Why?

Firstly, because it has that damned, incredible title of "the best-selling album in music history", with 50 million and more copies sold just in the very first years after release, a boulder that already makes you feel like you're facing a beast not rare, UNIQUE.
A second reason might be that when seven top ten American singles are extracted from a nine-song record, with at least three (let's say "Billie Jean, Thriller, and Beat It") that have been injected into the cultural heritage of anyone who has had a pair of working ears in the last twenty-six years, it can be easy to conclude that just a few very famous tracks are enough to give us an overall idea of the work.

Besides a brisk laziness, another fact arises: 'Thriller' will never benefit from the periodic historical revaluations that so-called "niche" albums encounter; 'Thriller' can never become a "cult", an underground gem to be passed under school desks, generation after generation. It will never be an eternal treasure for a few like the debut of Violent Femmes, nor a formative bible like Nevermind, because Nevermind was an unintended blockbuster, the unexpected emancipation of alternative music that eventually became the soundtrack of a generation.
Here, instead, we clash with a real pop war machine, with the music mainstream's emblematic album. It is a masterpiece of musical construction, a Nietzschean will to power in wanting to become the number one. After the excellent success of that astonishing black music mix that was 'Off The Wall' in 1979, after having realized with 'Triumph' the following year the best album by the Jacksons, the future "The Gloved One" now had all the Afro-American audience on his side.

But an 80s Napoleon cannot settle for this, he wants it all, because he knows he has all it takes to have it. Almost a fifteen-year career behind, a distinctive, very particular voice, already almost an incarnation of the intermediate singing perfection between male and female. Grace, craft, passion, innovation, sensuality, and reassuring pleasantness - these are the key words. To which he adds a stunning and original dance technique that with the various moonwalks and associated steps would form a perfect combo with the voice for any type of performance, including music videos.
And the music videos are precisely the final ace in this commercial strategy. To reach everywhere, to come out from the radios and enter the homes of everyone, Jackson and his collaborators will invent the best videos made until then, short films released one every few months to ensure complete visibility and permanence of the album in the hit parades for at least three consecutive years, culminating with the short film of the song "Thriller", the first masterpiece in MTV's history. The Thriller project encapsulates in itself any strategy feasible to make one's music a universal language, comprehensible to all. And therefore, the final decisive step will be to conquer the white audience, the pop-rock audience completely estranged from the heroic Motown deeds of our child prodigy.

And so tactical collaborations proved to be spot-on with the "rivals" of the period, such as the famous Eddie Van Halen solo in the amazing funk-hard rock cross of "Beat It", the amusing duet with a Paul McCartney still for little longer in a state of grace in "The Girl Is Mine", and above all, the extraordinary "Human Nature", gifted by the then overly successful Toto (who that same year proudly reached second place in the best-selling album charts with their "Toto IV"). Small gestures, but which opened the doors to the pop Olympus to him (two years later he would be dueting with Mick Jagger for the records, an unthinkable event back then).

But the songs? So much smoke around this LP, but also so much roast. So much but not too much, even the quantity is perfect. From the exciting dance-pop intro of the infectious "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", where the afro roots and slowed funk groove dominate, we move to "Baby Be Mine", an homage to the elegant song structure taught by Quincy Jones already in the previous album, subtle variations on a complete sound fabric, an immaculate production. The title-track instead becomes a blueprint of R&B fantasy and fun, for the first time with curious special effects including even cinematic guest-stars (in this case an aged but delightfully eerie Vincent Price) giving us a visionary experience of complete entertainment, where every means is used casually for the sole purpose of leaving us satisfied and amazed, mouth agape like a child.
Everything is a litmus test of the decade to which it belongs; we talk about death, horror, sex, violence, unexpected pregnancies with a disconcerting superficiality, life becomes just a means to fill our days and songs. Indeed it matters little if a dance-floor giant like "Billie Jean" is about a dark and almost nightmare-like relationship, we dance on it, and Michael assures us that it's the best thing to do in these cases. We reach the album's second half and we are already addicted to the music, everything seems secondary, the stories being told, however credible and suggestive, become completely accessory.

We arrive at "Human Nature", pondering the human condition, endless walks through the mind and its sentimental-existential dilemmas. But everything is approached in such a candid, pleasant manner, that we feel transported as if on a small boat near tropical islands, drifting slowly without oars while we lie watching the clear sky above, with that magnificent falsetto accompanying us, wishing it would last longer. But as I mentioned, everything is measured, like the courses in the finest restaurant. Indigestion is absolutely not allowed, we must immediately try new dishes.
Does the soul of Sam Cooke find a conclusion in "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"? Percussions, whistles, spoken intro, whispered and teasing, the desired woman now reduced to an acronym, to a label (which before listening doesn't give a good impression, they seem like the initials of a police district...). We have grown tired and resigned in our attempt to categorize this music.

The difference between 'Thriller' and 'Off The Wall' lies precisely in this, black music so mixed with white music that it is almost unrecognizable. This is inter-racial melody, it can touch anyone's strings. Universal. While the epilogue "The Lady In My Life" flows with infinite class, almost irritating in its mutant smooth-soul and feigned improvisation (there can be nothing more calculated than Thriller), we realize many things. The legendary place that 'Thriller' has in all books of modern music is not undeserved but neither is it obvious. Michael Jackson is not like the post-1966 Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Hendrix, where wherever you dip, you almost always find something good and relatively on the same line. Michael Jackson is such a singular phenomenon that one might have heard all his remaining discography without having the slightest idea of what this album has to offer. And 'Thriller' represents a unique case on its own, certainly the most accredited candidate for the competitive role of cultural emblem album of a decade.

An alien impeccability from which every mainstream author will never stop learning, a benchmark that it will be a joy to see surpassed one day by a new milestone –apparently yet to arrive– equally extraordinary.

PS:
just a few months ago put on sale in every store in Italy at the enviable price of 8 euros and 50.
PS:
highly recommended along with Sgt. Pepper and another couple of albums of your choice for the first absolute listens of life, ideally under-10