Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” remains the best-selling album of all time globally and one of the most influential records in history, and it’s a bit startling to realize Michael was just 24 when the record was released some FORTY YEARS AGO, and how’s that for a little wakeup call with your morning coffee?
The Showtime documentary “Thriller 40” is an upbeat and well-paced celebration of the making of the album that yielded seven Top 10 singles and inspired a number of seminal moments of cultural significance, from Jackson breaking racial barriers on MTV to the legendary appearance on Motown’s 25th anniversary special to the release of music videos such as “Beat It” and “Thriller.”
With director Nelson George eschewing gimmicks and relying on archival audio and film footage, as well as a bounty of present-day interviews with studio musicians, recording engineers, old friends and current artists, “Thriller 40” takes us quickly through the paces of Michael’s early days — there he is in Gary when he was 6, now with the Jackson 5 on “The Ed Sullivan Show” — before focusing on Jackson’s solo career. His fifth studio album, “Off the Wall,” was a major breakthrough, but after he won just a single Grammy, for best R&B vocal performance, Jackson’s Michael Jordan-level competitiveness kicked in, and he was determined to make an album that would change the music and pop-culture landscape.
“I wanted to do something that was so powerful, so strong,” he says in an audio recording. “My attitude was, I wanted the biggest selling album of all time. … I wanted to perfect perfection.”
With the likes of recording engineer Matt Forger, guitarist and arranger Steve Lukather and keyboardist/arranger Greg Phillinganes sharing anecdotes about the recording of “Thriller” at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, and in some cases even re-creating memorable snippets from various songs, “Thriller 40” is pure pop heaven at times.
We see footage of Michael and Paul McCartney recording “The Girl Is Mine” (which took place a few months before the rest of the album was created) and Michael with Quincy Jones in recording sessions. And we hear slices of the original demos for songs such as “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ ” and “Billie Jean,” with Michael singing a cappella into a recording machine, which was his way of writing music. We’re reminded that MTV initially balked at playing “Billie Jean” and only acquiesced after CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all his other artists off the channel.
Director John Landis shares some golden memories of filming “Thriller” with Michael, who was a huge fan of Landis’ “An American Werewolf in London.” Ole Obermann, global head of music for TikTok, notes that the user-submitted video hosting service has some 10 million creations that include music from “Thriller” and there are some 17 billion views and 2 billion likes for those videos. Who among us hasn’t seen one of those viral videos where a flash mob or a group of teachers or parents or students re-create the “Thriller” zombie dance?
Michael Jackson said he was determined to make the best-selling album of all time, a sensation that would elevate him to the exosphere of stardom. “Thriller 40” is a terrific reminder of how he made it happen.
