Michael Jackson's Thriller Track by Track (Episode Transcript)

This transcript was created with AI, so there are probably a lot of mistakes. If you see one, let us know with an email to surelypodcast@gmail.com

 

Hello everybody and welcome to the Surely You Can't Be Serious Podcast with your co-hosts, James D. Graves and Jason Colvin.

That was an- That was awesome. That is, that was such a good introduction. I don't think we can follow that introduction like that . We just, I'm not sure we can live up to it, but we're gonna have a good time trying.

So today we're going to talk about and compare Michael Jackson's Thriller album versus Michael Jackson's Bad album. Okay. Well, I don't think there's a comparison there because Thriller is obviously the best album. It's the number one seller in history of music. It is. But everybody tricks themselves into believing that Thriller is a better album when Bad is actually a better album.

I thought we said we were not gonna be haters about this. So now I'm tricking myself if that was happening. Thriller's fantastic. I mean, Thriller is a great album and really one of my favorites and Bad is a great album and one of my favorites, but there is no way that you can think that Bad is better than Thriller.

Okay, well I'm gonna explain why Bad is better than Thriller and hopefully I can get you to agree with me maybe some other people. Do you agree with me as well? Okay, so now you said that you love Thriller. I did. Obviously Thriller came out before Bad, five years before Bad came out in 1982, Bad came out in 1987.

What do you remember from when you heard Thriller? Okay, so Thriller to me is elementary school. That's my fourth and fifth grade year, and I remember roller skating to those songs and hearing them at basketball games and people that at my elementary school would be shocked to hear that I'm preferable to Bad.

Because I was very much a Thriller mega fan in fourth and fifth grade. My teacher, Mr. Hoover, my fifth grade teacher, I bet you if we found him today, called him up. He would be like, there's no way. Jason was Mr. Thriller. Okay. Can somebody get Mr. Hoover on the line, please? When we need Mr. Hoover, I'm telling you, call in the podcast.

If we had a phone, you can call us right now. Yeah, it'd be neat if you could do call on podcasts,  . Well I'm excited to to talk about how I got there as well. Let's, let's keep on going. All right.

Let me tell you about my experience. So I was, Six to seven years old. The first experience that I had with Michael Jackson, and I tell everybody that th that Thriller was my first LP to own. But in kind of going back and looking at things, I remember there was one lp, but I don't really count it. As great of an LP as it was, it was the chipmunk punk.

I had Chipmunk Punk, which has literally no punk on it at all, but it has, it has some of the great songs of that time, including songs from Queen and Blondie. So maybe next time we can debate whether or not the Chipmunks were actually punk or not. Yeah, they were definitely not punk . Yeah. So the first adult album that I ever owned, the first adult LP I owned was Thriller, and I w I can remember very clearly was watching TV and I saw the Motown where the Jacksons got together.

Again, time. Michael Jackson wasn't gonna come, like he and his brothers, I guess had, had a falling out. And so he wasn't even gonna show up, but they, they begged him. He said, let me do a couple solo. Yep. And, and I'll agree to do it. Is this the infamous moonwalk Billy Jean? Oh, yeah. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. So after the Jacksons get done with their set, which I don't remember any of at all, I mean, the, the only thing that I can have a clear memory of, despite my extreme young age, is him singing.

And then the dance that he did when he hit the moonwalk and the crowd erupted, I said to myself, I want to beat that guy.

Did you have that on record or tape? Yeah, I had the lp. Okay. I had the L, the vinyl lp. Okay, gotcha. And you could actually open it up. Oh yeah. And there was drawings that Michael Jackson had. Done himself on the inside and I remember had to unfold the tape, but there wouldn't throw the straws thinking.

Yeah. And these is, the tape paper was always a disappointment. . I know, I know. I remember. I don't remember all of 'em. I do remember the Girl is Mine. It had a picture of Michael and Paul's sort of like pulling on the girl, you know, like a wish boat. Wow. Yeah. I don't remember that at all. I remember the front cover was what everybody saw, which was him kind of posed.

Awesome white jacket and that awesome black background. He, and he is like almost glowing and he is got the cool little leopard, the leopard handkerchief in his pocket. And then when you opened it up, you're like, oh, he's actually got a tiger on his knee. Like there's a baby tiger there. Uhhuh. . Yeah. They, they didn't do anything wrong.

Even the album design is flawless on that. Yeah, it, it was amazing. It was amazing. So Thriller was released November 30th, 1982. 1982. It was when we started doing Valley Girl Talk, Uhhuh grody to the max. Yes, and totally Tubular gagging me with the spoon. The guy who invented the DeLorean. DeLorean?

Yes. He got busted . He got busted in 82. I guess the DeLorean business was not going as well as he wanted it to, and he got caught with about 20 million worth of cocaine, and that was the end of the DeLorean car. Or was it robes where we're going, we don't need robes. That summer was the release of another huge, huge movie.

Yes. ET

ET Then I remember seeing et Well, my goodness. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, we'll talk about ET in later episodes hopefully, but I remember it just wasn't just an avalanche of ET. I'm just out of control. I saw it many times in the movie theater. I remember taking my mom, then I wanted to take my dad and I'd take my sister and take my friend.

And so ET big, hit of the box office that summer,

The music for that year...

It sucked. Looking at the music from 1982 it's terrible. Like the biggest, the biggest thing was Ebony and Ivory. I remember that. And I, and I like that. Yeah. Song kind of. Yeah. And yeah, I know how you feel about those two wets with Paul McCartney. Hi, I am Doc. Can you alive? You are blind as a back . Sorry.

Sorry. Don't get to that. But I love rock and roll, which was kind of, you know, it was, it was the end of the disco era and rock and roll was coming back. So I love rock and roll. I loved going to Pizza Parlin and out here, pink Floyd. I would hear Queen and Hero. I love rock and roll. Every single time we went to the to the pizza.

And so yeah. Music terrible. Yeah. Until, yes, November of 1982.

Yes. Win Thriller was released. Swamped everything. Yeah, absolutely. . And so I think we're probably getting into the, the meat of things now. So let's, let's talk about that, the track listing for Thriller. We've got wanna be starting something baby? Be mine. The girl is mine. Thriller. And then on the other side, you've got Beat It.

You've got Billy Jean, you've got Human Nature, and you've got P Y T. And The Lady In My Life, the first song that was actually released from the album was released before the album was.

And so what happened was they're trying to put together this album, they give Paul McCartney a call. Michael Jackson's like Michael Jackson, can, can I speak Mcca? He's Paul Mcca, who is this Jackson. He's like, he didn't believe him and, and which is the same thing, happens a little bit later on with Beat It.

But finally he's like, oh, this really is Michael Jackson. And he says, you just come over and record song says, sure. And so the dog reports, they do this Ridiculous. The dog is mine. And and they put it out and it's a hit. It's a hit. It's a big hit. Like it was. What did it reach? It reached number two on the hot 100.

That's nice. So with no video support either. Just kind of a release. Right. So yeah, that's the continuation. We've got mtv, ladies and gentlemen. Rock and roll.

So, MTV had just come out the year before. It just came out in August of 81. Mm. And so they're looking for, I mean, there's only 250 videos in existence in 82 that they're just recycling over and over, so they're trying to get more stuff. So they're excited about what they can do with Michael Jackson because Well now wait a minute.

So the only thing that that I'm wondering is when Public McCartney and Michael Jackson did a song called Say, say, say, say, say what? You want games? Yes. That had a video with it. Yes. The one where they're dressing up like clowns and stuff like that. Yeah, it was like a traveling circus. I don't think that came out until later, but I don't know.

It may have been on a, maybe it was on a Paul McCartney album. Yeah, here you go. It says, Michael Jackson. Paul McCartney. Recorded, say, say, say. And another song called The Man for His Fifth Solo album, pipes of Peace. That was released in 1983. So I guess there was, you don't remember. Types of peace, right? Oh, you know, , one of the best albums of the eighties.

Types of Peace. So that was released in 1983, so I guess that was after, that was mine. So, okay. Go. Keep going. So girl is mine. Now the pressure's on to get these things, this song out. So let's just, just real quick, we can, I, I just wanna throw this out there. So Thriller has, obviously Michael Jackson, and this is obviously a collaborative effort, but we've got Sir Paul McCartney.

Then we've got Eddie Van Halen. Yes. Do you know who the, the band was that was playing the music? Toto, I believe. Yeah, it was the guys from Toto. Yeah, that's exactly right.

I mean, they're the most skilled guys playing music at the time, which I mean is appropriate, but it's kind of funny, you know, I don't think I would know any of those guys. If I saw 'em in Walmart. No, no. No chance, no. And they've got,

which is, you know, for some, I still cannot figure out how that's resurged like it has. So the they hear, they heard. The Paul McCartney song and they heard Dog on Girl's Mind and they fell outta their chair laughing sometimes , but who, who knows from good taste, I guess because it was big and the pressure's on to get this done.

And they recorded Thriller in eight weeks. Okay. And they've got a couple of guys, Bruce Sweden, I believe is his last name. Rod Templeton, Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson are the four bodies in one brain behind Thriller. They, they're trying to get this thing that they. The sonic sound like it's the, the crisp sound.

And that is, and that's one of the things I remember the most. You listen to stuff before and after Thriller and you're like, why does this sound so kind of foggy and muted and stuff like that? Right? It's because they didn't have that sonic sound and these guys were trying to do it. And after eight weeks of recording, they listen to it and Michael Jackson walks out and they find him in the room across the hall sobbing because it doesn't sound.

Okay. And so for the next three days, they remix and rerecord. Oh, or then rerecord, they remix the entire album. So here's the thing, the the, it's too much music. It's too long. And what happens when you try to pack in a whole bunch of stuff on those LPs is the grooves get tighter and tighter. And so you lose all of the little pinks and pops, right?

That make it exciting. They remixed it all and.  gave us that sound, which is Thriller. But we also talked about, I was talking to you earlier, it was very nearly not Thriller, it was almost called Starlight. Starlight. Yes.

Starlight, you know, just doesn't have the same ring as Thriller. So yeah, definitely. Brian Templeton's, the one that came up with the title track title. Of the album, he's Quincy's. Like this is, this is good, but it's not quite what we need. You know, think of something else. Work on it. , good try. And he said he woke up the next morning and it just was the word in his head, it was just Thriller.

And he said he could see it on the billboards, he could see it on the marquee. He could see the Thriller and he was like, this is it. This is the name of the album. And then, I mean, they're literally weeks into production. Like they haven't even written the song yet. They've written some other song called Starlight.

And so they're back at it again. So they, they put these songs, they put the, the right words to Thriller, and then they're like, okay, there's gotta be a wrap at the. Yes, there has to be a rap, right. You know, we're talking about all the contributors to the album, right? . And they're like, okay, well we don't know who's gonna do the rap.

And we haven't written the rap yet. And, and Quincy Jones is like, you know, my wife knows Vincent Price. And they're like, okay, call him up. Let's get him in here. Yeah. And so he calls him the next day, he's like, Hey, he's on the way over. And Rod Templeton's, like in the taxi, he's like, I haven't even written.

The rap yet. And so he writes it like freaking Abraham Lincoln on an envelope. He's writing the, the rap on the way. And he, he, like, he gets there, he sees the limo pull up, he sees Vincent Price get out of the limo. And so he runs around back, throws it to a receptionist and. Copy this for me. And so she does a quick, what?

I don't know what they were. They weren't Xeroxes back then. It was like a photocopy. Ditto. Yeah. Yeah. And so she does that and puts it on the stand just as price comes into the recording studio. Oh. The midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures fall in sort of blood to terrorize yours neighborhood and whosoever shall be bound without the soul for getting down.

Must stand and face the homs of hell and rock inside a corpse shell.

and he does like two takes and two takes. It's done. You know how much he was paid for that? Nothing Less than a thousand dollars. Yeah. Yeah. Less than a thousand dollars. And it was heard on every radio station around the world for the next three Christmases. Right. Well, he and Eddie need to get together, I guess.

Cause I, I think Eddie got like a couple cases of beer. Like, I mean, he really, he got nothing. I, I did read it a little bit that Benze Price was not pleased that they didn't give him more money, give him more money about that. He kind of had a resurgence in fame. I would think that would count something with lines like the funk of 40,000 years.

I mean, how could he go wrong? So, ? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Two takes less than a thousand bucks. Okay. Before we go any further, can we just take a minute and do. Potter family, shout out. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Podcasters are a very supportive community. We've received support from so many out there, and there are some that we love and we'd like to give support to.

Absolutely. So today we wanna recognize the guys at the 30 something movie podcast. They take movies that are 30 years in the making.  and they do an analysis of the movie to say, yeah, this is a movie that you should revisit or, no, it's okay. You don't have to come back and see this again right now. Yeah, that's right.

So they've been doing it for about five years or so and this, they are now entering 1990. Yeah, the nineties decade has just begun. And I'm super excited to hear what they have. They've been so supportive of everything that we've done and we love what they do. Yeah, me too. Thanks guys. We really.

Illinois contingent. Okay, so let's, do you want to go into track by track now? Let's go track by track. Yeah. Okay, so let's, we're gonna look at the, the singles. All right, well wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's, let's go. Album. Let's go. Whole album. Whole album. Whole album. Okay. All right, so we start with Wanna be starting something?

Yes. What did you tell me about one of you starting, Seth? So pop in the tape or the album, whatever, three beats.

That first little right, that that drum track I'm in, I'm totally in. Wanna be starting something. It's fantastic. Right. And then just from that track alone, so you've got that great groove the beginning. Maybe, maybe the best first track of any album of all time, right? Because it's wanna be starting something right?

And it just, it kicks off the album. It's, here we go. Let's get it on. And then you, you close with the now infamous mamak.

Right. Do we, do you know what that means? No. I have no idea what that. So yeah, I mean, what's your, what's your take on that one? Yeah, no, I mean, the, the, I think that the, what, what he did with the combination of sounds there, he's got obviously the, the jazz influence of Quincy Jones going on. It's got that kind of Caribbean feel about it, and.

Little African. Yeah. And, and African mix. He's definitely, you've got those, the rhythms that you didn't have before, like you said, those drum beats, but with that crispr Sharper sound, it just, that can't be beat. Yeah. Great. Great track. Great. Oh, it actually reached number five. On the Hot 100. Okay. No video, but still released as a single did very well.

And with five, yeah. Right. Very, very strong showing. All right. Okay, so next track is Baby be Mine, which I skipped.

Yeah, that's, let's skip it. It's, it's junk. Yeah. It actually, to me it's, it's disc. Yeah. It sounds like it belongs on off the wall. Right? It's definitely, it's, it's got more of the, the, the horns and jazz stuff that I really don't want to Yeah. It, for me, that's a, I had a little boom box that you, if, if play was down, you could hit fast forward and you get that.

That's what, yeah, that's what baby be mine sounds like in my head. Right, right. I did listen to it. For this podcast, and I still think it's Jock, but Okay. Yeah. I, yeah, definitely a, a throwaway track in my mind as well. Then the next one is The Girl is Mine, which we've already talked about. Right. And it's simple.

It is, it is a catchy tune. It is Goofy lyrics. The, the Dogone girl is mine. Yeah. , the doggone girl is mine. And Paul, I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter. That's the best part of the, oh my gosh. Okay. I love Thriller, but this one, eh, about fun . Okay. So, but it did, but it did reach number two in the hot 100.

Right? So, so it clearly a smash it, I, I, at, at seven years old thought it was fantastic. I still like listening. I know every word I told when we, you know, we said, Hey, we're doing this. I said, and we both listened to the each album beginning to end when I walked away, that was the song that was still in my head.

It wasn't Thriller, it wasn't Beat It, it wasn't Billy Jean. It was The Girl Is Mine. The Dog On Girl's Mind. Yeah. Freaking Beatles know how to Make You, they ride some good hooks. That's right. Okay. And then we've got. Which I mean, we've already talked about the making of, right, so the electronic and sympathetic music that was coming at the time kind of left me cold most of the time, but these guys took it and made it something amazing.

It's fantastic. It's like you're walking into, walking into space. I mean, it's just those beginning, it's. It's too cool. You've got, you've got slamming doors, you've got creaky doors, you've got howling wolves, you know, and then you've got the, you know, it's, it's so good. It's so good. It's in, well, this was the last single release on the album.

Only made it to number four on the hop, which is crazy to me. That's absolutely crazy. It's insane

for, for this song to have this kind of life. Right. And never make it to number one. I. And, and you will, even to this day, you will see people recreating the song, the dance that was done in the video, which by the way, that video was like the timing of M T V and Michael Jackson's release of Thriller. And also I would like to mention the release of American Werewolf in London.

I didn't mean to call you meatloaf, Jack all came together in this beautiful, perfect. Power of No doubt. Some. It was amazing. So they're wanting to make this video and the CBS is like, no, we're, we're selling a ton of these. We don't need to sell more. I mean, we can't make 'em as fast as that's right. As we're selling them, why would we want to release another single?

So they didn't wanna release the single. And so the, so they have to figure out how are we gonna pay for the video if the CBS isn't willing to pay for the video? And we know that we wanna blow it out of the. With John Landis directing and this really great, I mean, they, they changed the way, they changed the way of videos, which was a weird, a weird thing to say.

Looking back and thinking, oh, videos really only been going on about a year. Right. It was, it was unlike anything ever done. So they go to MTV and they say, we would like you to pay for it. And MTV is says, well, yeah, we can't do that. I mean, we start making, we start making videos for artists. We're gonna lose all of money.

That's right. Yeah. And so they, what they said is we'll agree to finance the making of Thriller, Uhhuh , and then you can use the proceeds from that as the money to make the video of Thriller. Interesting. I don't even know how that works. Well, so, okay, so wait. When you're talking about the, the video directed by John Landis, right.

American, same guy who did American Marvel for London. He also did National Lampoon's Animal House. Animal House Trading Places, right? Yeah. I mean, he's done some, some big time movie. Rick Baker did the makeup for this, right? Rick Baker of star War. Star Wars American world in London. So he did all the transformative, you know, changing Michael into our, where All Wars changing Michael into a zombie.

So you've got the video, you've got the Playboy model. Do you remember her name? Her name was Ola Ray. Ola Ray. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Beautiful. I didn't know she was gonna Playboy though. So what are we gonna do now? Yeah, that's Google search. No, I'm just kidding. And they completely redo the song in order to fit the video.

I mean, they don't. They did. Yeah. That's right. And so you've got this long DA dance sequence. Michael's totally zombie out. So tell me more. Tell me what you remember about Thriller. I was just gonna make mention of it. So I was curious about this. I don't know if anybody else would be curious about this, but, so Thriller was not, never made it to number one on the hot 100, right?

Right. So I'm like, immediately when I see this, , what in the heck kept it out of the number one spot? What songs are good enough to keep Thriller out of the number one spot? Right? So I went back and I, and I went to Billboard and I found it. So, so Thriller made it to number four, right? So these three kept Thriller outta the number one man.

They, they're so good. It. I don't know. It's almost justified. It is. It, it almost is. So, number one, the week that Thriller peaked at number four, number one was jump by Van Halen. I mean, justified, yeah. Justified. Eighties iconic song. Okay. Absolutely. Number two. 99 No Balloons by Nina. Right? Great song. Great song.

Great song. Iconic, right? Yep. Okay. Number three. Yes. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cindy Lauper. And once again, I mean, hey you, you've defined the eighties in. In four songs. That's right. In four songs. If that's all you know about the, you got a pretty good handle on age. Yeah. I mean, cuz you've got your one hit wonder in there.

Yes. You've got the rock and roll band that dominated MTV with, they're just absurd. We're just standing on stage singing and dancing and jumping

and being crazy. Might as well just jump, like there's really literally nothing. The video. But man, that thing was on all the time because it was just awesome to watch. Which speaks to how good David Lee Roth is. By the way. We'll cover that later.  , he's great. He's great. You're absolutely right. And you never knew whether you're gonna get English and what was the original language?

German. German, yeah. Yeah. My wife and I had a conversation about this that she loves to remind me of. What's that? The, so 99 left balloons, , yeah. Is clearly the German version. Right. And red balloons. We had an argument one time and I felt like I, man, I'm, I know. Eighties music. Yeah. And to me that song is Ed is English

And she's like, no, it's like German or something. I'm like, no, it's English . So we, we have this. Anyway, she loves to rub my face and Well, it is both. Well, it is both. It's both. I mean, they sang it in both English and German. You're both right. I guess. So. That's a win, . And if you're arguing with your wife, that's a definite

So anyway. So Thriller is the fourth track on the album, right? Okay. So in my, I don't know what happened to me when I was a kid, but the way that things started on that album for me was Beat It like somehow I played side two first, right? Maybe I just saw that Thriller was the final side on one thing, and so I thought, okay, that's the end song, right?

Beat It has to be the first song because at that,  beat. It was huge. Huge. They had kind of said, Hey, we need a rock song. Quincy Jones goes to Michael Jackson and plays him. My Sharon and he's like, we need something like this. We need a Rock, rock song. And Michael says, I've got something. I don't have the lyrics yet.

I'll, I'll get it. Comes back the next day has, it has the song and it rocks and the,

I mean, there's no question about it. This is a rock song. This. The disco of off the Wall. This is not the jazz of Quincy Jones. This is Michael Jackson, rocking the heck out of the song. That's it, it's fantastic. And then the video is this kind of dirty, gritty you know, you kind of look back on it now and it looks a little cheesy, but at the time it was like, oh, these are, you know, these are the gangs of New York.

These no doubt they, they were actual gangs other than certain dancers. They, they had real gang members on the set. So the, the guy who wears the white jacket? Yes. That's the choreographer that I was talking about. Okay. His name is, his first name is Jeff, and I'm forgetting his last name right now, but he an old Jeff.

Yeah. Jeff . And so obviously I, he was the one that put together the. The dance for the guitar solo that happens, which is this really, you know, sharks versus Jets kind of clearly based on West Side story. Yes. Yeah. West side story deal. And and you got Eddie's screaming solo on the back, which I guess I haven't talked about that either.

That was the other thing. Yeah. So Quincy called Eddie about coming. He's like, I got this, you know, Michael's written a song and, and Eddie's. Who is, he's like, it's Quincy Jones. He's like F you and hangs up the phone. And apparently did that about four different times before Quincy Jones really convinced him, Hey, this is really Quincy Jones.

And he is like, oh, oh, I'm so sorry. And so he goes in, He's like, he said, what do you want me to do? They said, you're here because you know what to do, so you just do it. Yeah. And so he messes around with it for a minute and and says, Hey, can you change the core progression in this spot here, in this spot here?

And you can hear it when you listen to the song. The progression changes. And then he throws that solar down and I think again, it was a two take. Type of deal. But as he's throwing it down, this is, this is not urban myth. Like all of the guys who are there, I've seen them, they all say the same thing. He set the monitor on fire.

It actually went wow. On fire. And like he's playing and the monitor starts flaming and they're like, holy smokes. And the techs run in and they've got their, you know, their extinguishers and they're trying to put it out and one guy turns to the other. You know, rod turns to Bruce and he is like, I guess this means it's gonna be

That's fantastic.

Thriller in general is noted for having three strong Christmas seasons. 82, 83 and 84. There you go. They owned Christmas three years in a row. That's unheard of, right? That would never happen today. Yeah. No, and it makes total sense because they released and they were trying that they wanted the Christmas album and, and I think probably the first of those three in 82 was probably the weakest.

But Right. They they wanted it out before Christmas cuz they wanted people, they knew that Off the wall had done well. They knew that they made a good album. Right? They, they wanted it released by Christmas. It just didn't do as well as they had hoped that it would. But then, It's the release of the Thriller video that next year that causes the big resurgence at Christmas for 83.

Yeah. And then it's the unfortunate fire that causes the big resurgence for 84. Wow. Incredible. Okay, so back to beat it. We saw the video. Is this where we talked about weirdo?

Me repeat it. Oh, sure. You wanna talk about word Dallas? I mean, might as well throw it in here as a little side note. I, I, I don't think you grew up in the eighties without other loving or hating word. I yank, I mean, this was my introduction to word Dallas. Oh, mine too. Yeah. I don't know what the, I think he had some stuff before this, but I was not aware.

Oh, he was, well, he was on a show called Dr. Demento Uhhuh . But I think that, I think that this, that, that Edith really led to the album which I had.  Which introduced me to a whole lot of other things, right? And oddly, I, I think I like I lost on jeopardy. I thought that's what the real lyrics were.

I didn't realize that that was , that was not what the real lyrics were. So I was, I was surprised to hear about that. I showed.  Ava, my daughter. Mm-hmm.  the weird Al video the other day. Uhhuh. . Eat it. Yeah. Okay. So weird. Al eat it obviously. Beat it is what it's based on, right? It still kills. She loved it. She thought it was hilarious.

Well, the, my kids have, they have no inclination to watch the Bad video at all, but they will watch fat all day. Okay. Yeah. Well, we, we'll, we'll get to that here. Yeah. Get that in a minute. Okay. Okay, so we've got beat at Billy Jean have already talked about Brilliant. It's, you know, the songs on here, the, the reason not only is it the sound that sets them apart, but they do not sound like any other songs that were before this time.

Like they changed the paradigm. This was a shift that happened and, and Billy Jean is obviously a huge factor on that, that it's just brilliant. So then we've got we've, we've hit Billy Jean. Well, wait, wait, well go ahead. Go ahead. So let's talk just a minute about Billy Jean. So Billy Jean. Obviously you have the, the Motown performance where it does the moonwalk, where people just lose their mind over what they're seeing and it still kills.

I mean, when I look at it, I'm like my body is not capable of doing what he's doing. I don't know. Right. And he was disappointed in it too. Apparently he wanted to hold the topos for like a good second and a half, and it was just a. Popping done. But I, I, you know, I saw that interview. He was not pleased that he wanted to spin and stick it for like five seconds or something.

The toe uhhuh  and it was just an up and down and he was mad at himself on that. Right. But that's now what kind of defines people who, who recreate that dance is they'll just do the, the momentary popup. And it seems cooler to me. I think it probably would've been weird if he'd held That's right. He's not ballerina.

Right. So the song was obviously a number one hit on the Oh. Before we move on, Thriller reached number four on the Hot 100. We talked about that Beat. Hit number bead. It was a number one hit. Yes. Okay. One of only two. Number one hits on the album. Okay. Thriller produced. That seems like it might be playing into your argument later on the fact that you're playing one of only two

So Billy Jean was actually the other number one hit from Thriller. Okay, so as Bad as 82 sucked, 83 and 84 were really pretty darn good for music. They were fantastic. Best defer, maybe. Okay. I'm not gonna, we won't get into that part of things yet. Well, let's, let's finish out the album. Okay. So do we cover Billy Jean?

We got Billy Jean. I think Billy Jean is covered. Okay. So human nature. Human nature rule. Catchy to, yeah, a late ad to the album, by the way. So human nature. Yeah. Reached number seven on the hot 100. So another top 10 head for me. The song is excellent. Love it. Yeah. A little soft in the middle, but there's that one section that we'll play right now.

Hopefully.

Yeah, that, that part is gold. And then second to the last album on the track is p y t, pretty young thing, second to the last track on the album. Is that what it ? Strike that. Reverse it. Yt. And so the this is where the chipmunks come back into play again. . Yes. I think I heard that song. Like, oh, this is the guys from my chipmunk Punk album.

I'm, I'm so excited about. That's right. That's right. Yeah, for some reason he's got a couple of weird. Little voices that come in on this one, but it's doesn't tarnish the beauty of the song. It is. Well, we can talk about that.

So yes, you got the chipmunks at the end of the p y t. In my opinion, does tarnish a great song? Okay, so you do have, so you got Janet and Latoya singing? Yeah. Backups right there. Yes. They're the, they are the pys. Yes, they are the pys. His sisters. Yes. And. Sounds good. Sounds great. Yeah. And then you get the chip box.

Okay. So do you know who the chipmunk is? No, it's Michael Jackson. Still not good enough to say that? Oh yeah. , it's, but here's the thing. It's 1982 and Chipmunk Punk is one of the biggest selling albums of all time. Okay. And we know that one of Michael's biggest things is he wants to sell a lot of albums, right?

He does. Clearly, and, and you listen to Quincy Jones or you listen to Rod Templeton talk and they're like, let's just go make a good album. You listen to guys from Toto who did the back, they're like, let's just go make some good music. You don't know. You're never gonna know whether this is gonna be a big hit or not.

Right. But Michael Jackson had went from ultra famous as Little Michael Jackson of the Jackson five Yes. To Famous Again and drill it. This the, this is the explanation of why Michael Jackson's weird, not why he is weird. Okay. It's that he wants to be his, I don't think his motivation is money. I think his motivation is, Okay.

Maybe his motivation's money. Yeah. He wants to sell an auto, he wants to sell a lot of albums. Yes, yes. That is what seems to be his driving force. And so he hear, he sees that Chipmunk punk has gone crazy and he's like, put a chipmunk voice in my thing. I'll just do it. I'll just do it and I'll speed myself up and it'll be fun.

Right. And so I think that's, I mean, I think he did. I think he did a. Money grab or a fame grab or something with that. And I think it worked because I was at the time going, oh cool, chip on . Okay. Well let me just say, first of all, I love the song, p i t. Okay. I love it. It's very catchy. No video reach number 10 on the hot 100.

Yep. So clearly a smash hit you get Janet and Latoya is kind of known for getting some of that and I, it, it works well. It, it's good. There's just that Michael Jackson's weirdness just kind of creeps in the end of it. It's kind of the sin of the album, but. , but it's, it's catchy. It's good. I, and I like it. I clearly like P Y T a lot.

Right. You didn't have Chip. If I could strike the chipmunks from this album, you didn't have Chipmunk punk, did you? I did not. I had Chipmunk Punk and Urban Chipmunk, , and probably the other three albums that came out after that. I was nine, I guess I was, yeah. You were past that . It was beyond your, it was beyond your time and then the.

album rounds out with the Lady in my Life, which again is, yeah, it's a throwaway track for me as well. It's a stinker. How did that clear? So I heard, I heard Quincy Jones was talking about, and you said you start with 800 songs. Yeah. And then you try to get it down to nine good ones. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Which they felt like they did.

Yeah. Then they threw out some, and through all that, the lady in my life somehow clears all the hurdles. On the greatest selling album? Well, yeah. So of all of the, all of the tracks on the album only two of them are skippers for me. You know, I'm gonna skip, I'm gonna skip Baby, be mine. I'm gonna skip the Lady in my Life.

But the rest of the album,

I mean, it changed music history. It was a pop culture, nuclear bomb. Absolutely without question and I note with some embarrassment, but not a lot that my grandma made me a sequin glove , and I would wear that to school . Oh yeah. Now he, I didn't realize you were that cool. Yeah.

Okay, great. Okay, and so then 87 comes along. You know, tho those were good songs. I, I like those songs a lot, but especially, I like the new songs, the much anticipated. Right, so maybe the most anticipated album of all time.

So join us next week for part two of the Bad versus Thriller Debate. Here is some of what you will hear off the wall is Star Wars Thriller. Jim Empire is Back and Bad is returned. We'll, we'll we'll get into this then. Okay. Prince Jones actually. Prince and Michael Jackson together and Bad was originally intended to be a duet, sort of a back and forth.

Your butt is mine, right? . Right. That that becomes more uncomfortable, right? You say it like that. That's weird. Okay. The point that he starts doing those yells that I would, oh, . What the heck? This is the best song on either album. Oh no, no . No. This is the best song on either album, you, oh, it's not my favorite, but it's the best one.

Next one is Dirty Diana, you will not hear me say. Anything Bad about Dirty Dancing. Okay.

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We go on from there, right? We've covered Thriller. Golly, how can I forget? Sorry. Keep going. Well, I was just gonna say, say, say, say is is big because of the video. The only thing I remember is Michael Jackson winning an arm wrestling contest.

That's hilarious. Yeah.

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