A decade when thriller and MTV remodeled pop, Michael Jackson releases a collection that mixes a classic greatest-hits collection with a jarring and uneven new album. Throughout History, we’re reminded of the vocalist who helped groove music go thought with Off the Wall, fused high-tech New Wave and Caribbean rhythms with the help of producer Quincy Jones on thriller and bad, and communed with trancelike ‘90s soul and New Jack Swing discoverer Teddy Riley on 1991’s underpraised Dangerous.
A decade when thriller, Jackson’s still the same: the apolitical theological doctrine who never shared the hip-hop generation’s politics, the pop figurehead who bends the latest mass flavors to his artistic will, the Spielbergian artist mogul who’s drawn to recent Hollywood glamour and New Hollywood balance sheets. He still desires to be the King of Pop and to be left alone.
“They Don’t Care About Us,” a new track from History, demonstrated a new culture. In the past, Jackson’s albums defined their pop surroundings so a fan could hear past their oddness. Nevertheless, November 30, 1982: Jackson releases “Thriller,” which will become the world’s best-selling album of all time.
Helmed by producer Quincy Jones, thriller was associate album engineered for across-the-board acceptance. The tracks appealed multifariously to just about each radio format – pop, R&B, adult-contemporary, and even rock. More significantly, its exceptional video clips – for “Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and “Thriller” – helped break down racial and genre-based barriers at MTV, reworking the channel into a juggernaut of not simply music video, however of fashion and marketing; and remodeling the music industry furthermore.
At the Grammys in 1984, the album won seven awards, including album and record of the year (“Beat It”). Jackson and Jones actually won an eighth award, best recording for children, for “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”
The other Thriller track (besides “Baby Be Mine”) that was not released as a single, “The Lady in My Life” is a quiet album closer, considering everything that preceded it. Written by Rod Temperton and Quincy Jones, it’s a serviceable R&B seduction ballad, but not the sort of song that is likely to shake the echoes of “Thriller,” Beat It” and “Billie Jean” out of your head.
Jackson’s voice soars all over the melody, Eddie Van Halen checks in with a blistering guitar solo, you could build a convention center on the backbeat, and the result is one nifty dance song.
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