Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious
Podcast with your co hosts James D. Graves and Jason Colban.
That is awesome. That is awesome.
Speaker 2: That is such a good introduction.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can follow that.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure we canna 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.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I don't think there's a comparison there because
Thriller is obviously the best album.
Speaker 2: It's the number one seller in history of music.
Speaker 3: It is, but everybody tricks themselves into believing that Thriller
is a better album when Bad is actually a better album.
Speaker 1: I thought we said we were not going to be
haters about this, so now I'm tricking myself that was happening.
Speaker 3: Thriller is fantastic, and I mean, Thriller is a great
album and really one of.
Speaker 1: My and Bad is a great album in one of
my favorites. But there is no way that you can
think that Bad is better than Thriller.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I'm going to explain why Bad is better
than Thriller, and hopefully I can get you to agree
with me, maybe some other people to agree with me
as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you said that you loved Thriller ob usially,
Thriller came out before Bad, five years before Bad came
out in nineteen eighty two. Bad came out in nineteen
eighty seven. What do you remember from when you heard thriller?
Speaker 3: 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 will 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, mister 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 mister Thriller.
Speaker 1: Okay, can somebody get mister Hoover on the line, please, mister,
I'm telling you call in the podcast. If we had
a phone, you can call it. Yeah, would 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.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you about my experience.
Speaker 1: So I was six to seven years old the first
experience that I had with Michael Jackson, and I tell
everybody that that Thriller was my first.
Speaker 2: LP to own.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: As it was. It was the Chipmunk Punk and.
Speaker 1: I had Chipmunk Punk, which has literally no punk on
it at all, but it has it has some of
the greatest songs of that time, including songs from Queen
and Blondie.
Speaker 3: Maybe some time we can debate whether or not the
Chipmunks were actually punk or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were definitely not.
Speaker 1: So the first adult album that I ever owned, the
first adult LP I owned was Thriller, and I can
remember very clearly, was watching TV and I saw the
motown where the Jackson's got together again time. Michael Jackson
wasn't going to come like he and his brothers. I
guess it had a falling out and so he wasn't
even going to show up, but they begged him. He
said let me do a couple solos and and I'll
agree to do.
Speaker 3: This the infamous Moonwalk Billy Jean.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yes, absolutely so after the Jackson's get done
with their set, which I don't remember any of it all.
I mean, 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 be that guy. Did you have that
on record?
Speaker 2: Or I had the LP? I had the vinyl LP.
Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha?
Speaker 3: And you could actually open it up and there was
drawings that Michael Jackson had done himself on the inside,
and I remember had to unfold the tape, but there
were other strong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these was the tape paper was always a disappointment,
I know, I know, I remember. I don't remember all
of them. I do remember the Girl is Mine.
Speaker 3: It had a picture of Michael and Paul sort of
like pulling on the girl, you know, like the wishbone.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I don't remember that at all. I remember
the front cover was what everybody saw, which was him
kind of posed in that awesome white jacket. And that
awesome black background. He and he's like almost glowing, and
he's got the cool little leopard, the leopard hang your
chief 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. Ah. Yeah, they they
didn't do anything wrong. Even the album design is flawless
on that. Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 2: It was amazing.
Speaker 3: So Thriller was released November thirtieth, nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty two. It was when we started doing Valley
Girl Talk, a grody to the max and totally tubular
gag me with the spoon the guy who I'm doing it,
the delareate gloriate. Yes, he got busted. He got busted
in eighty two. I guess the DeLorean business was not
going as well as he wanted it to and he
got caught with about twenty million dollars worth of cocaine
and that was the end of the DeLorean car or
was it?
Speaker 4: Rose Well, what we Don't Need Road?
Speaker 1: That summer was the release of another huge, huge movie. Yes, et.
Speaker 3: Tea were seeing et Well, go ahead, yeah, I mean,
we'll talk about et in later episodes hopefully, but I
remember it just was just an avalanche of et that summer,
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 take my sister and
take my friend, and so ET big, big at the
box office that summer.
Speaker 2: For that year. It sucked.
Speaker 1: Looking at the music from nineteen eighty two is terrible,
like the biggest The biggest thing was Ebony and Ivory.
Speaker 2: I remember that and I like that.
Speaker 1: Song kind of yeah, yeah, I know how you feel
about those duets with Paul McCartney. I am doc ken,
you are blind. 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.
Speaker 2: So I love rock and roll.
Speaker 1: I loved going to pizza parlor and I would hear
Pink Floyd, I would hear Queen and you Hero. I
love rock and roll every single time we went to
be to the pizza parlor. And so, yeah, music terrible.
Yeah until yes, November of.
Speaker 5: Nineteen eighty two, Yes, when Thriller was released, swamped everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And so I think we're probably getting into
the meat of things now, so let's let's talk about that.
The track listing for thriller, We've got I want to
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 Pyt and the Lady in My Life. The first
song that was actually released from the album was released.
Speaker 2: Before the album, was.
Speaker 4: The Dog Against.
Speaker 1: And so what happened was they're trying to put together
this album. They give Paul McCartney a call and Michael
Jackson's like, he's Michael Jackson speak Party's.
Speaker 2: Paul McCarty's like, who is this Jackson.
Speaker 1: He's like he didn't believe it, and which is the
same thing happens a little bit later on to Beat It.
Speaker 2: But finally he's like, oh, this really is Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: I mean, he says, you would just come over with
report song, sure, and so they could go over report song.
They do this ridiculous the Dog Girl is Mine, and
they put it out and it's a hit.
Speaker 3: It's a hit.
Speaker 1: It's a big hit, like it was, what did it?
Speaker 3: It ranged number two on the Hot One hundred. That's
nice with no video support either, just kind of a release.
Speaker 1: Right, So, oh yeah, that's the continuation.
Speaker 2: We've got MTV.
Speaker 1: Ladies and Gentlemen Rock and Rolling. So MTV had just
come out the year before. It just came out in
August of eighty one, and so they're looking for I mean,
there's only two hundred and fifty videos in existence in
eighty two 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.
Speaker 3: Well, no, wait a minute. So the only thing that
I'm wondering is when Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson did
a song called Say Say.
Speaker 6: Sae, Say Say Say too long.
Speaker 4: Game.
Speaker 1: Yes, that had a video with it. Yes, that's the
one where they're dressing up like clowns and stuff like that. Yeah,
it's like a traveling service. 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.
Speaker 3: Paul McCartney recorded Say Se Say and another song called
The Man for his fifth solo album Pipes of Peace,
that was released in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: So I guess I remember Pipes of Peace right, Well,
you know, one of.
Speaker 3: The best albums of the types of peace. So that
was released in nineteen eight three, so I guess that
was after Guy's mind.
Speaker 1: So okay, go, 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.
Speaker 2: I just want to throw this out there.
Speaker 1: So Thriller has obviously Michael Jackson, and this is obviously
a collaborative effort. But we've got sir Paul McCartney. Yes,
then we've got Eddie van Halen. Yes. Do you know
who the band was that was playing the music Total? Yeah, yeah,
you guys from Total. That's exactly right. I mean they're
the most skilled guys playing music at the time, which
I mean is appropriate.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of funny, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't think I would know any of those guys
if I saw.
Speaker 3: Him in walmart No, no, no chance.
Speaker 1: No. And they've got which is you know, for some
I still cannot figure out how that's resurged like it has.
So they hear they heard the Paul McCartney song and
they heard Dog on Girls Mind and they fell out
of their chair laughing. But who knows from good taste,
I guess because it was big and the pressure is
on to get this done. And they recorded Thriller in
eight weeks. They've got a couple of guys. Bruce Sweden
I believe is his last name, Rod Timbleton, Quincy Jones
and Michael Jackson are the four bodies in one brain
behind Thriller. They they're trying to get this thing that
they call the sonic sound, like it's the crisp sound,
and that is That's one of the things I remember
the most.
Speaker 2: You listen to.
Speaker 1: Stuff before and after Thriller and you're like, why does
this sound so kind of foggy and muted and stuff
like that. 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 listened to it and Michael
Jackson walks out and they find him in the room
across the hall sobbing because it doesn't sound right. And
so for the next three days they remix and re
record or then re record. They remixed the entire album
so here's the thing. 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 and make it exciting. They
remixed it all and gave us that sound, which is thriller.
Speaker 3: Yeah, 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Definitelyton's the one that came up with the title
track title of the album. He's becuase he'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.
Speaker 2: It was just thriller.
Speaker 1: 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 in some other song called Starlight,
and so they're back at it again. So they they
put these songs, they put the right words to Thriller
and then they're like, okay, there's got to be a
rap at the end. Yes, it has to be a rap,
talking about all the contributors to the album, right, And
they're like, okay, well, we don't know who's going to
do the rap, and we haven't written the rap yet.
And Quincy Jones is like, you know, my wife knows
Vincent Price and like, okay, call him up. Let's get
him in here. And so he calls him. 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 rap
on the way and 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 says, copy this for me,
and so she does a quick.
Speaker 2: What on what they were. They weren't xeroxes back then.
Speaker 1: It was like a photography, you know, yeah, yeah, And
so she does that and puts it on the stand
just as Price comes into the recording studio.
Speaker 6: Docness all across the land in the mid tight hour,
exclosive hair, people, the creatures all in search of blood,
the terrorized alls, neighborhood and whos, however, now be found
without the cells or getting down the style, and makes
the homes of hell and rocked inside a call shell.
Speaker 2: And he does like two takes.
Speaker 1: Two takes.
Speaker 3: It's you know how she was paid for that nothing
less than one thousand dollars. Yeah, less than one thousand dollars.
And it was heard on every radio station around the
world for the next three Christmases.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, he and Eddie need to get together.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: I think Eddie got like a couple of cases of beer,
Like I mean, he really he got nothing.
Speaker 3: I did read it a little bit that Benzi Price
was not pleased that they didn't.
Speaker 1: Give him more money, give him more money about that.
Speaker 2: He kind of had a resurgence of fame. And I
would think that would have yourselthing.
Speaker 3: With lines like the funk of forty thousand years? How
can he go wrong?
Speaker 1: 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 a Potter and Family shout out?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 3: So today we want to recognize the guys at the
thirty something Movie Podcast.
Speaker 1: They take movies that are thirty 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.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So they've been doing it for about
five years or so. This they are now entering nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too, Thanks, guys, We really appreciate Illinois contingent.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's do you want to go into track
by track now? Let's go track by track, okay, So
let's we're gonna look at the singles, all right.
Speaker 3: Well, wait minute, wait minute, let's let's go album. Let's
go hold out, hold out, hold album.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so we start with want to Be
Starting Something? Yes, what did you tell me about want
to Be Starting?
Speaker 3: So pop in the tape or the album whatever. Three
beats in that first little right that that drum track,
I'm in. I'm totally in want to Be Starting Something.
It's fantastic, right, And then just from that track alone,
so you've got that great groove of the beginning, maybe
maybe the best first track of any album.
Speaker 1: All right, because it's going to be starting something.
Speaker 3: Right, and it just it kicks off the album. It's
here we go, let's get it on. And then you
close with the now infamous Mamase Mama Sama markraso.
Speaker 1: Right, do we do you know what that means? No?
Speaker 3: I have no idea that, so, yeah, I mean, what's
your what's your take on that one?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I mean that the I think that the
what what he did with the combination of sounds there,
He's got obviously the jazz influence with Quincy Jenes going
on it's got that kind of Caribbean feel about it
and a little African Yeah, and an 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 crisper
sharper sound, it just can't be beat.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Great, great track.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 3: It actually reached number five on the Hot one hundred. Okay,
no video, but still released as a single, did very
well and with five yeah, right, very very strong showing.
Speaker 1: All right. Okay, so next track is Baby Be Mine,
which I skipped.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's skip it. It's it's junk. Yeah, it actually
to me, it's it's disci. It sounds like it belongs
on off the Wall.
Speaker 1: Right, It's definitely it's it's got more of the horns
and jazz stuff that I really don't want to.
Speaker 3: Yeah it for me, that's a I had a little
boombox that if play was down, you can get fast
forward and you get them. 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.
Speaker 7: John but yeah, yeah, definitely I throw away 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.
Speaker 1: It is a catchy tune. It is goofy lyrics, the
dog on Girl is Mine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the dog on Girl is Mine and Paul I
told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter.
Speaker 2: Dude, that's the best part of the.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Okay, I love Thriller, but this one.
Speaker 1: Okay, but it.
Speaker 3: Did reach number two in the Hot one hunder right,
so clearly a smash. It.
Speaker 1: I's 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, because yeah,
freaking Beatles know how to make you okay. And then
we've got Thriller, which I mean we've already talked about
the making of right, so the electronic and syntheset ethetic
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, like you're
walking into walking into space. I mean, it's just those
beginning pure It's just it's too cool.
Speaker 3: You've got you've got slamming doors, you've got creaky noors,
you've got howling wolves, you know, and then you've got the.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's so good, it's so good. It's well.
Speaker 3: This was the last single released, only made it to number.
Speaker 1: Four, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 4: It's insane.
Speaker 3: For this song to have this kind of life right
and never make it to number.
Speaker 1: One, I know, 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 MTV and Michael Jackson's
release of Thriller, and also I would like to mention
the release of American Werewolf in London. Jack all came
together in this beautiful, perfect power of notice.
Speaker 2: It was amazing.
Speaker 1: So they're wanting to make this video and the CBS
is like, no, we're selling a ton of these. We
don't need to sell more. I mean, we can't make
them as fast as we're selling them, why would we
want to release another single? So they didn't want to
release the single and so that so they have to
figure out how are we going to pay for the
video if the CBS isn't willing to pay for the
video and we know that we want to blow it
out of the water with John Landis directing, and this
really great. I mean they change the way, they changed
the way of videos, which was a weird, a weird
thing to say looking back and thinking, oh, video has
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 says, we can't do that. I mean,
we start making we start making videos for artists, We're
going to lose, yeah, And so they what they said is,
we'll agree to finance the making of thriller 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.
Speaker 3: Well, so okay, so wait, when you're talking about the
video directed by on Landis the same guy who did
American World, for London.
Speaker 1: He also did National Lampoon's Animal House.
Speaker 3: Animal House Training Places, right, I mean he's done some
some big time movies.
Speaker 1: Rick Baker did the makeup for this.
Speaker 2: Right, Rick Baker of a Star Wars fan.
Speaker 3: Star Wars American World from London, So he did all
the transformative you know, changing Michael into her where all
changing Michael into zombie.
Speaker 1: So you've got the video, You've got the Playboy model.
Do you remember her name? Her name was Ola Ray Ray. Yes,
thank you beautiful.
Speaker 3: I didn't know she was in Playboy though, So what are.
Speaker 2: We going to do now? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's Google's arch No, I'm just kidding. And
they completely redo the song in order to fit the video.
I mean they don't did. Yeah, that's right. And so
you've got this long that dance sequence. Michael's totally zombie down.
Do you remember about Thriller?
Speaker 3: I was just gonna us make mention of it. So
I was curious about this. I don't know if anybody
else to be curious about this, but.
Speaker 1: So Thriller was not never made it to number one
on the Hot.
Speaker 3: One hundred, right, So I'm like, immediately when I see this,
I'm like, 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? 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 out of the number one. Man,
they're so good.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's justified, it is, It almost is so number one.
The week that Thriller peaked at number four, number one
was jumped by Van Halen. I mean justified, Yeah, justified
eighties iconic song number two ninety nine Affluence by.
Speaker 2: Nina Right, great song, great song.
Speaker 1: Right, yep?
Speaker 3: Okay, number three Yes, girls just want to have Fun
by Cindy Lauper once again.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've defined the eight in four songs. That's right,
in four songs.
Speaker 3: If that's all you know about that, you've got a
pretty good handle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because you've got your one hit wonder
in there. Yes, you've got the rock and roll band
that dominated MTV with their just absurd. We're just standing
on stage singing and dancing and jumping and being crazy
as well. Just jump. There's really literally nothing in the
video but man, that thing was on all the time
because it was just awesome to watch them, 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 going to get English
and what was the originally Germany?
Speaker 3: Yeah, my wife and I had a conversation about this
that she loves to remind me of. What's so ninety
nine left Balloons is clearly the German version.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: We had an argument one time and I felt like, man,
I know eighties music. Yeah, and to me that song
is in is English and she's like, no, it's like
German or something.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, it's English.
Speaker 3: So we have this anyway. She loves to rub it
my face.
Speaker 1: Well, it's both, it's both. I mean they sang it
in both English and German. You're both right. That's a
win and if you're arguing with your wife, that's a
definite way.
Speaker 3: So anyway, So Thriller is the fourth track on the.
Speaker 1: Album, right, Okay, So and 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 to first. 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 time Beat it was huge. They had kind
of said, hey, we need a rock song. Quincy Jones
goes to Michael Jackson and plays him My Sharona 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 get it. Comes back
the next day has it has the song and.
Speaker 4: It rocks, and the music was the m.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no question about it. This is a
rock song. This is not the disco.
Speaker 1: Of Off the Wall, this is not the jazz of
Quincy Jones. This is Michael Jackson rocking the heck out
of the song. 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, no doubt,
but they were actual gangs. Other than certain dancers.
Speaker 3: They had real gang members on the set.
Speaker 1: So the guy who wears the white jacket, that's the
choreographer that I was talking about. His name is His
first name is Jeff, and I'm forgetting his last name
right now, but he it old Jeff, Yeah, Jeff. And
so obviously he was the one that put together 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. Yeah, west Side Story deal. And
you got Eddie's screaming solo in the back, which I
guess I haven't talked about that either. That was the
other thing. So Quincy called Eddie about coming to He's like,
I got this, you know, Michael's written the song and
Eddie's like who is He's like, it's Quincy Jones. He's
like fu 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's like, oh, oh,
I'm so sorry, And so he goes in. He's like,
so what do you want me to do? They said,
you're here because you know what to do. So you
just do it, and so he messes around with it
for a minute and says, hey, can you change the
core progression in this spot here and the spot here,
and you can hear it when you listen to the
song the progression changes. And then he throws that solo
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 on fire, and like he's playing, and the
monitors starts flaming and they're.
Speaker 2: Like, holy smokes.
Speaker 1: And the text 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. Rod turns to Bruce
and he's like, I guess this means it's going to
be That's fantastic.
Speaker 3: But Thriller in general is noted for having three strong
Christmas seasons eighty two, eighty three, and eighty four owned
Christmas three years in a row. That's unheard of, that
would never happen today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it makes total sense because they released and
they were trying that they wanted the Christmas album, and
I think probably the first of those three and eighty
two was probably the weakest. But they wanted it out
before Christmas because they wanted people. They knew that Off
the Wall had done well, they knew that they made
a good album, right, 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 thriller
video that next year. It causes the big resurgence at
Christmas for eighty three, and then it's the unfortunate fire
that causes the big resurgeon for eighty four. Wow, incredible.
Speaker 3: Okay, so Mack to beat it? We saw the video?
Is this where we talked about where now for me?
Speaker 2: And oh sure you want to talk about weird out?
Speaker 1: I mean I might as well throw it in.
Speaker 3: Here's a little side note.
Speaker 1: I don't think you grew up in the eighties without
either loving or hating word Ayankvi.
Speaker 3: I mean this was my introduction to wed now oh too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I don't know what the.
Speaker 3: I think he had some stuff before this, but he
was well, he was on a.
Speaker 1: Show called Doctor Demento. But I think that I think
that this that that eat It really led to the
album which I had, which introduced me to a whole
lot of other things. Right and oddly, 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
surprised to hear about that.
Speaker 3: I showed Eva, my daughter, the weird al video the
other day.
Speaker 1: Eat it. Okay, so weird. I eat it?
Speaker 3: Obviously, beat it is what it's based on. It still kills.
Speaker 1: 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 Day Long. Okay, Yeah,
well we'll get to that. Yeah a minute, okay, okay,
so we beat it. Billy Jean, I've 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 and
this was a shift that happened. And Billy Jean is
obviously a huge factor on that that.
Speaker 2: It's just brilliant.
Speaker 1: So then we've got we've hit Billy Jean.
Speaker 3: So let's talk just a minute about Billy Jean. So
Billy Jean, obviously you have 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.
Speaker 1: Doing, right, And he was disappointed in it too, apparently
hold the topos for like a good second and a
half and it was just a pop and done. But
I you know, I saw the interview.
Speaker 3: He was not pleased that he wanted to spin and
stick it for like five seconds or something to the
toe and it was just an up and down and
he was mad at himself on that.
Speaker 1: Right. But that's now what kind of defines people who
who recreate that dances. They'll just do the momentary pop
up and it seems cooler to me. I think it
probably would have been weird if you to help. That's
why it's not a ballerina, right.
Speaker 3: So the song was obviously a number one hit on
the Oh. So before we move on, Thriller reached number
four on the Hot one hundred.
Speaker 1: We talked about that beat.
Speaker 3: It was a number one hit, yes, okay, one of
only two number one hits on the album.
Speaker 1: Okay, Thrill produce. It seems like it might be playing
into your argument later on the fact that you were two.
Speaker 3: So Billy Jean was actually the other number one hit
from Thriller.
Speaker 1: Okay, So as bad as eighty two sucked, eighty three
and eighty four were really pretty.
Speaker 2: Darned good for music.
Speaker 1: They were fantastic for me. Okay, I'm not gonna we
will get into that part things. Yeah, let's let's finish
out the album. Okay, sorry, do we cover Billy Jane?
We got Billy Jane?
Speaker 2: I think Billy Gene is covered.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Human Nature, Human Nature re'll catch you too
late add to the album.
Speaker 3: By the way, So Human Nature reached number seven on
the Hot one hundred, So another top ten.
Speaker 1: Head for me.
Speaker 3: The song is excellent, love it a little soft in
the middle, but there's that one section that we'll play
right now hopefully.
Speaker 1: Yes, 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 free strike that puy t and so the
this is where the Chipmunks come back into play again.
I think I heard that song like, oh, this is
the guys from my Chipmunk Punk album.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, for some reason, he's got a couple
of weird little voices that come in on this one.
But it doesn't tarnish the beauty of the song.
Speaker 3: Well, we can talk about that, I.
Speaker 1: Think what I can.
Speaker 3: So, yes, you got the Chipmunks at the end of
the p y t, which, in my opinion, does tarnish
a great song. Okay, so you do have So you've
got Janet and LaToya singing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the backups right.
Speaker 2: There, they're the they are the p y Ts.
Speaker 3: Yes, they are the pys his sisters. Yes, and sounds good,
sounds great. And then you get the Chipmuncks.
Speaker 1: Okay, so do you know who the chipmunky is? No,
it's Michael Jackson. Still not good enough to say it.
Oh yeah, But here's the thing. It's nineteen eighty two
and Chipmunk Punk is one of the biggest selling albums
of all time. And we know that one of Michael's
biggest things is he wants to sell a lot of albums, right,
he does, clearly. 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
going to know whether this is going to be a
big hit or not. But Michael Jackson had went from
alter famous as Little Michael Jackson and the Jackson five
to famous again.
Speaker 3: And really this is the explanation of why Michael Jackson's weird.
Speaker 1: Not why he's weird, it's that he wants to be
his I don't think his motivation is money. I think
his motivation Okay, maybe his motivation's money. He wants to
sell an audio, he wants to sell a lot of albums. Yes,
that is what seems to be his driving force. And
so he here he sees the 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, Chipmunk Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, let me just say, first of all, I love
the song PI t Okay. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's very catchy.
Speaker 3: No video reached number ten on the Hot one hundred yep,
so clearly a smash it. You get Janet and LaToya
is kind of known for getting some of that, and
it works well, it's good.
Speaker 1: There's just that.
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson's weirdness just kind of creeps in the end
of it. It's kind of the sin of the album.
But it's it's catchy and it's good and I like it.
Speaker 1: I clearly like piit a lot. Right, you didn't have it.
Speaker 3: If I could strike the Chickmunks from this album.
Speaker 1: You didn't have Chipmunk Punk. I did not. I had
Chipmunk Punk, An Urban Chipmunk, and probably the other three
albums that came out. Act I was nine, I guess
I was. Yeah, you were past that. It was beyond
your time. And then the album rounds out with the
Lady of My Life, which again is yeah, it's a
throwaway track for me as well, a stinker. How did
that clear?
Speaker 3: So? I heard I heard quinc J was talking about
and you said, you start with eight hundred songs and
then you try to get it down to nine good ones, right,
which they felt like they did. Then they threw out
some and through all that, the Lady in My Life
somehow clears all the hurdles to make it the greatest
solo album.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: It changed music history.
Speaker 3: Was a pop culture nuclear bomb, absolutely without question.
Speaker 1: And I note with some embarrassment but not a lot,
that my grandma made me a sequin glove and I
would wear that a school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now he I didn't realize you were that cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay. And so then eighty seven comes along.
Speaker 4: You know, those were good songs. I like those songs
a lot, but especially.
Speaker 1: I like the new songs.
Speaker 3: Much anticipated, right, so maybe the most anticipated album of
all time.
Speaker 1: 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 are worse thrillers
and Bad and Bad is returning.
Speaker 3: We'll get into this, okay. Chris Jones actually got 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?
Speaker 1: That becomes more uncomfortable like that? Okay, the point that
he starts doing those yells that.
Speaker 4: I will.
Speaker 2: What the heck?
Speaker 1: This is the best song on either alum, Oh no, no,
this is.
Speaker 3: The best song on either album. You it's not my favorite,
but it's the best one.
Speaker 1: The next one is Dirty Diana. You will not hear
me say anything bad about Dirty dwn. Okay, thank you
so much for your support of the Shirley you Can't
Be Serious podcast. Don't forget. We also love to debate
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Speaker 4: Don't tell us?
Speaker 1: We go on from there, right, we've covered thriller. Golly,
I can I forget this?
Speaker 2: Sorry?
Speaker 1: Keep going well, I was just going to say say
they say is big because of the video.
Speaker 3: The only thing I remember is Michael Jackson winning in
our wrestling contest.
Speaker 1: All music, images and movie clips are used for the
purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with the fair
Use Agreement under the U S Copyright Law.