Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious podcast,
discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten of eighties
and nineties pop culture with your co hosts James D.
Speaker 2: Graves and Jason Colban.
Speaker 3: That is awesome, awesome as such a good introduction. I
don't think we can follow that.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure we can live up to it, but
we're gonna have a good time trying to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll do our best. Thank you very much, Jet
Thomason for doing the voiceover on the introduction for us.
Fantastic work. We appreciate everything you do and we love
your podcast as well. Limo's and Roses the Bachelor's podcast
with his wife Chelsea. And we're here to do our
podcast first episode. Super excited, me too, Me too. How
you doingdeed, I'm awesome. How are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I can't wait to dive into the
eighties and nineties stuff that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3: So we talk about the things that we loved when
we were kids. It's something that I'm sure most of
you do as well. We talk about the things that
bring back emotions and passion and excitement and bring us
back to the way we felt when we were young,
because we like feeling that way again.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. We're going to talk about movies.
We're going to talk about music. We may compare and
trust people or events or different things, but.
Speaker 3: We typically agree on things. We like each other, and
so that means that we tend to agree on things,
but we don't always agree.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, So sometimes we have to settle
an argument that's right.
Speaker 3: We may have that today. Yeah, what are we doing today?
Speaker 2: So today we're going to talk about and compare Michael
Jackson's Thriller album versus Michael Jackson's Bad album.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I don't think there's a comparison there because
Thriller is obviously the best album. It's the number one
sellar in history of music. It is.
Speaker 2: But everybody tricks themselves into believing that Thriller is a
better album when Bad is actually a better album.
Speaker 3: I thought we said we were not going to be
haters about this, so now I'm tricking myself that was happening.
Speaker 2: Thriller is fantastic. I mean, Thriller is a great album
and really one of my favorites.
Speaker 3: 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 2: 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 3: Okay, yeah, I think that if you guys want to
take part in this argument, that is what we're all about.
Why don't you tell them where they can tweet us?
Speaker 2: All right, so we would love to hear your thoughts
and whether you agree or disagree, follow us on Twitter
at Suirly Podcast on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Okay, so, now you said that you love Thriller. Obviously,
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 2: 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.
Speaker 3: Okay, so the kids, who's who's your teacher?
Speaker 2: 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 3: Okay, can somebody get mister Hoover on the line.
Speaker 2: Please, I'm telling you call in the podcast. If we
had a phone, you could call it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, would be neat if you could do call on. Well,
I'm excited to talk about how I got there as well.
Let's let's keep on going. All right, Well, let me
let me tell you about my experience. So I was
born in seventy five, 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
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 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 2: Maybe some time we can debate whether or not the
Chipmunks were actually punk or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were definitely not. 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 had 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 of solos and and I'll agree to do this.
Speaker 2: Is this the infamous moonwalk Billy Jean?
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: Did you have that on record?
Speaker 3: Or I had the LP and I had the vinyl LP.
Speaker 2: Okay, gotcha? So I had it on tape I had
it on tape, which this is how old I am.
My buddy had it on record LP and you could
actually open it up and there was drawings that Michael
Jackson had done himself on the inside, and I remember
I had to unfold the tape, but there were other
strong thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the tape paper.
Speaker 2: It was always a disappointment, I know, I know, I remember.
I don't remember all of them. I do remember the
Girl is Mine. It had a picture of Michael and
Paul sort of like pulling on the girl, you know,
like a wishboner.
Speaker 3: 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 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. Ah. Yeah, they didn't do anything wrong.
Even the album design is flawless on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 3: It was amazing.
Speaker 2: So Thriller was released November thirtieth, nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty two, it was when we started doing Valley
Girl Talk, grody to the max and totally tubular gag
me with the spoon, the guy who'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 roads?
Speaker 2: Well, we're going we don't need roads.
Speaker 3: Yeah, until nineteen eighty five, when the greatest movie of
the eighties was released.
Speaker 2: Surely can't be serious, Yes, all.
Speaker 3: Right, don't know That summer was the release of another huge,
huge movie. Yes, Et.
Speaker 2: Et, I remember seeing Et. Well, go ahead, yeah, I mean,
we'll talk about Et in later episodes hopefully, But I
remember just wasn't just an avalanche of e t that
summer and 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 3: The music for that year. It sucked. Looking at the
music from nineteen eighty two is terrible, Like the biggest
the biggest thing was Ebony and Ivory, which was was
I remember that and I liked that song kind of yeah, yeah,
I know how you feel about those duets with Paul McCartney.
Speaker 2: I am doc ken, you are live blind.
Speaker 3: But I love rock and roll, which was kind of
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 parlor and
I would hear Pink Floyd, I would hear Queen Hero.
I love rock and roll every single time we went
to the to the pizza parlor. And so yeah, music terrible. Yeah,
until yes, November of nineteen eighty two, Yes, when Thriller was.
Speaker 2: Released swamped everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And so I think we're probably getting into
the meat of things now. So let's let's talk about that.
Let's we'll say, okay, first 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. Some of those you're like, I don't remember
that song. Yeah, I didn't either. That's okay. Those are
the ones that I skipped whenever. And they had to
very carefully move the needle from that song back over
to the beginning of Beat It Right right. The first
song that was actually released from the album was released
before the album was against and so what happened was
they're trying to put together this album. They give Paul
McCartney a call and Michael Jackson's like.
Speaker 4: Michael Jackson speak McCarty's Paul McCarty's like, who is this Jackson,
He's like, he didn't believe it, and which is the
same thing happens a little bit later on to Beat It.
Speaker 3: But finally he's like, oh, this really is Michael Jackson.
He says, you would just come over with the word song,
so sure, so they could go over a course song.
They do this ridiculous the Dogot Girl is Mine, and
they put it out and it's a hit. It's a hit.
It's a big hit, like.
Speaker 2: It was what did. It reached number two on the
Hot one hundred that's nice with no video support either,
just kind of a release, right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's the continuation. We've got MTV Ladies and
Gentlemen Rock and Roller. 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 2: Well, no, wait, amene. So the only thing that I'm
wondering is when Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson did a
song called Say Say Say Say Say Say too long game. Yes,
that had a video with it.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's the one where they're dressing up like clowns
and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a traveling service.
Speaker 3: I don't think that came out until later. But I
don't know. I don't I don't think. I do not
think they had recorded together.
Speaker 2: Well, I know that's not another thriller album.
Speaker 3: No it's not. I don't know that it was released.
It may have been on a maybe it was on
a Paul McCartney album.
Speaker 2: 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 nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: So I guess Pipes of Peace right, Well, you know,
one of the best.
Speaker 2: Albums of these types of peace. So that was released
in nineteen eighty three, so I guess that was after
guy's mind.
Speaker 3: 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. I just want to
throw this out there. 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?
Speaker 2: Total?
Speaker 3: Yeah, 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. But it's kind of funny, you know.
I don't think I would know any of those guys
if I saw him in walmart.
Speaker 2: No, no, no chance.
Speaker 3: No. And they've got which is you know, for some
I still cannot figure out how that researched like it has.
So they heard the Paul McCartney song and they heard
Dog on Girl's 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'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. 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. 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 up and they find them 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 2: Yeah, but we also talked about I was talking to
you earlier. It was very nearly not thriller. It was
almost called starlight.
Speaker 3: Starlight, Yes, the.
Speaker 2: Starlight you know, just doesn't have the same ring as thriller.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Definitelyempleton's the one that came up with the title
track title of the album. He's quiz, He's like, this
is this is good, but it's not quite what we need,
you know, think something else, work on it. 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 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 and Quincy Jones is like, you know, my wife
knows Vincent Price and like, okay, call him up.
Speaker 2: Let's get him in here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, 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 what don't know what they were. They weren't
xerox is back then it was like a photo cup,
you know. Yeah, And so she does that and puts
it on the stand just as Price comes into the
recording studio. Yes, in the mid tight hour.
Speaker 5: Its closive haird the creatures all in the search of blood,
the terrorized all the neighborhood. And who's, however, shall be
found without the cells or getting down stab and makes
the holm was like hell and rocked inside a corpse shell.
Speaker 3: And he does like two takes, two takes, It's done.
Speaker 2: You know how much he 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 3: Right, Well, he and Eddie need to get together. I guess.
I think Eddie got like a couple of cases of beer, Like,
I mean, he really he got nothing.
Speaker 2: I did read a little bit that Vinzi Price was
not pleased that they didn't give him more money.
Speaker 3: About that he kind of had an insurgence of fame,
and I would think that I would have ourself.
Speaker 2: With lines like the funk of forty thousand years. How
can we go wrong?
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, okay two.
Speaker 2: Takes less than a thousand bucks.
Speaker 3: Okay, before we go any further, can we just take
a minute and do a Potter and Family shout out?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: 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 2: So today we want to recognize the guys at the
thirty something Movie podcast.
Speaker 3: 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 2: Yeah that's right. So they've been doing it for about
five years or so. They are now entering nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: 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 appreciate Illinois contingent. 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.
Speaker 2: All right, Well wait a minute, wait a minute, let's
let's go album. Let's go hold out, hold out, hold album.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, so we start with want to be
Starting Something? Yes, what did you tell me about want
to be starting?
Speaker 2: 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. I want to 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.
Speaker 3: All right, because it's want to be Starting.
Speaker 2: Something, right, and it just it kicks off the album.
It's h here we go, let's get it on.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then you you close with the now infamous Mama
se Mama Sama macraso.
Speaker 3: Right do we do? You know what that means? No?
I have no idea.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, what's your what's your take on
that one?
Speaker 3: 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 Jones 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. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Great, great track. Great. Oh 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.
Speaker 3: Okay, so next track is Baby Be Mine, which I skipped. Yeah,
let's skip it.
Speaker 2: 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 3: Right, it's definitely it's it's got more of the horns
and jazz stuff that I really don't want to Yeah.
Speaker 2: It for me, that's a I had a little boombox
that if play was down, you can get 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 John but okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely throw away track in my mind as well.
And 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.
Speaker 2: The dog on Girl is Mine. Yeah, the dog on
Girl is Mine. And Paul I told you, I'm a lover,
not a fighter, dude.
Speaker 3: That's the best part.
Speaker 2: Of the Oh my gosh, Okay, I love Thriller, but
this one okay, so but it did reach number two
in the Hot one hunder right, so clearly a smash it.
Speaker 3: I at seven years old, thought it was fantastic. I
still like listen, 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 Thrill, which I mean, we've already
talked about the making of Right, so the electronic and
syntheseticthetic 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 2: 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 dun.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's so good, it's so good. It's well. This
was the last single released, only made it to number four,
which is crazy to.
Speaker 3: Me, totally great.
Speaker 2: It's insane for this song to have this kind of
life right and never make it to number.
Speaker 3: 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. It was amazing.
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 changed 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 those, yah. And so they what
they said is will 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. Well.
Speaker 2: So okay, so wait when you're talking about the video
directed by John Landis right, the same guy who did
American World for London.
Speaker 3: He also did National Lampoo, his Animal House.
Speaker 2: Animal House Training places, right, I mean he's done some
some big time movie. Rick Baker did the makeup for.
Speaker 3: This, right, Rick Baker of Star Wars fan.
Speaker 2: Star Wars America from London. So he did all the
transformative you know, changing Michael into her, well, changing Michael
into zombie.
Speaker 3: So you've got the video, you've got the Playboy model.
Do you remember her name?
Speaker 2: Her name was Ola ray Ray.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, beautiful.
Speaker 2: I didn't know she was in Playboy though, So what.
Speaker 3: Are we going to do now? Oh 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.
Speaker 2: 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 to be curious about this, But
so Thriller was not never made it to number one
on the Hot 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 3: I don't know what justified it is?
Speaker 2: It almost is so number one. The week that Thriller
peaked at number four, number one was jumped by Van Halen.
I justified, Yeah, justified Eighties iconic song Okay, number two
ninety nine affluents by Nina Right, great song, great sonic
right yep? Okay number three Yes, girls Just want to
have Fun by Cyndi Lauper once again.
Speaker 3: I mean, you've defined the eighties in four.
Speaker 2: Songs, that's right, songs. If that's all you know about that,
you've got a pretty good handle.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: Just jump.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: Cover that later. He's great, he's great. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: And you never knew whether you're going to get English
and what was the originally Germany?
Speaker 2: 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 3: Right.
Speaker 2: We had an argument one time and I felt like, man,
I know eighties music, and to me that song is
in is English and she's like, no, it's like German
or something. I'm like, no, it's English. So we have
this anyway. She loves to rub it my face.
Speaker 3: 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 2: So anyway, So Thriller is the fourth track on the album.
Speaker 3: 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, 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 it
rocks and them out. I mean, there's no question about it.
This is a rock song. This is not 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. Fantastic. And then the video is this
kind of dirty, gritty, uh 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.
Speaker 2: New York, no doubt, but they were actual gangs. Other
than certain dancers, they had real gang members on the set.
Speaker 3: So that 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 u 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.
Speaker 2: Clearly based on West Side Story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, west Side Story deal. And 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 a 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 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. 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 monitor starts flaming and
they're like, holy smokes. 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 you Rod turns to Bruce and he's like, I
guess this means it's going to.
Speaker 2: Be That's fantastic. 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 3: 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. 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 that Christmas
for eighty three, and then it's the unfortunate fire that
causes the big resurgion for eighty four. Wow. Incredible.
Speaker 2: Okay, So back to beat It we Saw video? Is
this where we talked about weird now? For me?
Speaker 3: And oh sure you want to talk about weird now?
Speaker 2: I mean, I might as well throw it in here
as a little side note.
Speaker 3: I don't think you grew up in the eighties without
either loving or hating word Avid.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was my introduction to wed now.
Speaker 3: Oh Min too, Yeah, well, I don't know what the I.
Speaker 2: Think he had some stuff before this, but he was well,
he was.
Speaker 3: On a 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 I was surprised to hear about that.
Speaker 2: I showed Ava, my daughter, the weird al video the
other day. Eat it Okay, so weird. I eat it obviously,
beat it is what it's based on. It still kills.
She loved it. She thought it was hilarious.
Speaker 3: Well, the my kids have, they have no inclination to
watch the bad video at all, but they will watch
Fat day Long.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, well we'll get to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get a minute, okay, Okay, So we beat it.
Billy Jean, I have already talked about brilliant. It's you
know the songs on here that 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 it's just brilliant. So then
we've got we've hit Billy Jean.
Speaker 2: 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 doing.
Speaker 3: Right, And he was disappointed in it too. Apparently wanted
to hold the toepos for like a good second and
a half and it was just a pop and done.
Speaker 2: But you know, I saw the interview. 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 3: 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 ify to help.
Speaker 2: That's it's not a ballerina, right, so uh, the song
was obviously a number one hit on So before we
move on, Thriller reached number four on the Hot one hundred.
We talked about that beat. It was a number one hit, yes, okay,
one of only two number one hits on the album.
Speaker 3: Okay, seems like it might be playing into your argument
later on the fact that.
Speaker 2: You were so Billy Jean was actually the other number
one hit from Thrower.
Speaker 3: So as bad as eighty two sucked, eighty three and
eighty four were really pretty durned good for music.
Speaker 2: They were fantastic for me.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm not gonna we will get into that al right. Things. Yeah, well,
let's finish out the album.
Speaker 2: Okay, do we cover Billy Jane? We got Billy Jane.
Speaker 3: I think Billy Gene is covered. Okay, So human Nature Human.
Speaker 2: Nature rull catch you too late add to the album.
By the way, So Human Nature reached number seven on
the Hot one hundred, So another top ten hit for me.
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, Yes, that part is gold.
Speaker 3: And then uh, second to the last album on the
track is p y T Pretty young thing.
Speaker 2: Second to the last track on the album is That's
what strike that.
Speaker 3: Puy D And so uh 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 about that's right.
Speaker 3: Uh 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 6: Well we can talk about that what I can.
Speaker 2: 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 3: Yeah, the backups right there they are the Pyts.
Speaker 2: Yes, they are the Pyts his sisters. Yes, and sounds good,
sounds great. And then you get the chip Bucks.
Speaker 3: Okay, so do you know who the Chipmunky is? No,
it's Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: Still not good enough to say it.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: Right, he does clearly.
Speaker 3: 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 2: And really this is the explanation of why Michael Jackson's weird.
Speaker 3: Not why he's weird, Okay, 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 and going, oh cool,
Chipmunk Okay.
Speaker 2: Let me just say, first of all, I love the
song pi t Okay. I love it. It's very catchy.
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 worked well. It's good. There's just that Michael Jackson's
weirdness just kind of creeps into 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. I
clearly like puyd a lot. Right. You didn't have it,
if I could strike the Chickmunks from this album.
Speaker 3: You didn't have Chipmunk Punk.
Speaker 2: I did not.
Speaker 3: I had Chipmunk Punk and Urban Chipmunk and probably the
other three albums that came out.
Speaker 2: Act I was nine, I guess I was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you were past that. It was beyond your time
and then the album rounds out with The Lady in
My Life, which again is it's a throwaway track for
me as.
Speaker 2: Well, a stinker. How did that clear? So? I heard
I heard Quincy Jones 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 on ther greatest solo
album all.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: Was a pop culture nuclear bomb. Yeah, absolutely, without question.
Speaker 3: And I note with some embarrassment but not a lot,
that my grandma made me a sequin glove and I
would wear that at school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now, he I didn't realize you that cool?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, okay, And so then eighty seven comes along.
Speaker 4: You know, those were good songs.
Speaker 2: Hu.
Speaker 3: I like those songs a lot, but especially I like
the new songs.
Speaker 2: Much anticipated, right, so maybe the most anticipated album of
all time.
Speaker 3: 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 Thrillers, and
Bad is returning. We'll get into this, okay.
Speaker 2: 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 right?
Speaker 3: That becomes more uncomfortable say it like that, right? Okay?
The point that he starts doing those yells that I
will What the heck?
Speaker 2: This is the best song on either Oh no, no,
this is the best song on either album. You it's
not my favorite, but it's the best one. The next
one is Dirty Diana.
Speaker 3: You will not hear me say anything bad about Dirty dwn.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for your support of the Shirley
You Can't Be Serious podcast. Don't forget. We also love
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Tell Us we go on from there, right, we've covered.
Speaker 2: Thriller Colly, I got I forget this, Sorry, keep going.
Speaker 3: Well. I was just gonna say say they say is
big because of the video.
Speaker 2: The only thing I remember is Michael Jackson winning in
our wrestling contest.
Speaker 3: Larious. Yeah. All music, images and movie clips are used
for the purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with
the fair Use agreement under the US copyright law.