Still "thrilling"

Remember when Michael Jackson was cool? Remember when people walked around with red leather jackets and that lone bejeweled glove? Remember debating your friends on what the lyrics to “Billie Jean” really meant?

Now, whenever the name Michael Jackson comes up in conversation, it seems to be followed by a snicker and a dirty joke about his penchant for young boys and monkeys.

But for me, no matter how long he insists on covering his face with veils and talking nonsense about “Neverland,” Michael Jackson’s coup de grace – “Thriller” – will remain one of my all-time favorite albums.

A few weeks ago, an expanded 25th anniversary edition of this innovative musical accomplishment hit the stores. It includes a CD of the original nine-song album, pristinely re-mastered, with six new remixed songs by current pop stars will.i.am, Akon, Fergie and Kanye West. The album's groundbreaking music videos and Jackson's career-defining 1983 performance on the television special “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever” are on DVD.

The discs are housed in an attractive casebook with 48 glossy pages of “Thriller” song lyrics and photos of Jackson before his skin turned alabaster and his face morphed into something out of a Wes Craven movie. There are also several ghoulish shots from the incredibly innovative (and still awesome) “Thriller” video (think about Jennifer Garner’s dance moves in “13 Going on 30”).

However, online critics have lamented that ultimately, the 25th anniversary edition offers nothing fans haven't been able to obtain for years. They said that the new remixed tracks are hardly worth getting excited about, as the modern pop stars, especially will.i.am, muddle songs that have managed to stay fresh-sounding after all these years. Again, remember when MTV was a novel concept only available in certain markets (and it actually played MUSIC!?). “Thriller” was one of the first big hits catapulted to the top thanks in part to its very cool music video.

According to an article I found on the Web, “A skinny guy with a Jheri curl and a fresh nose job single-handedly brought black music back to the mainstream, polishing and fusing elements of styles that were in limbo during the late 1970s and early 80s. Glints of disco, R&B, new wave, punk and rock suffused ‘Thriller,’ which CBS Records (now Sony-BMG) brilliantly mass-marketed. Jackson, who had been refined by the Motown machine during his years as a child star, became the era's most important artist.”

Other than Madonna, there was no artist who could compare to Michael Jackson’s fame, popularity or musical influence at the time. And his music is still speaking to a new generation of fans. For example, I have a 20-year-old nephew who is into all kinds of crazy music (he follows that strange ‘Insane Clown Posse” band). However, I noticed that one of the CDs in his random and much-varied musical collection is Michael Jackon’s “Thriller.” I must admit, I was stunned.

It remains pop's biggest-selling album with more than 100 million copies sold worldwide. It still sells about 60,000 copies a year. Jackson's famous and oft-copied dance moves are imitated today by the likes of Usher, Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown. One of the most memorable commercials during Super Bowl Sunday showed animated lizards in a SoBe Life Water ad, re-enacting the dance moves from the “Thriller” video.

The online article stated that, “No other album released in the last 25 years has managed to be so musically transcendent, which makes the seemingly rushed execution of the expanded edition a bit disappointing. If anything, the reworked bonus cuts only reinforce what pop fans have known since 1982: Nobody can mess with ‘Thriller.’”

Well said.