Billie Jean (1981 place Demo)
The release of Michael Jackson Thriller 40 celebrates the 40th anniversary of the biggest selling album of all time worldwide. Pop up events and worldwide activations are planned to honor Michael’s epic creation which won a record setting 8 Grammys, smashed musical barriers and changed the frontiers of pop music and music videos forever. Michael Jackson’s Thriller has spent more than 500 weeks on the Billboard album chart and has sold over 100 million albums since its release on November 30, 1982.
Thriller holds a modern-day record of 37 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard. It was the first of all album in history to spend each of its first of all 80 weeks in the album chart’s Top 10, a feat only reached by one other album in the nearly 4 decades since. During its 112th week on Billboard’s album chart, it became the first of all title ever to be certified RIAA 20X multi-Platinum (October 30, 1984) and became the first of all title ever to be certified more than RIAA 30X multi-Platinum in 2015 and since has been certified at 34x Multi-Platinum.
Worldwide, Thriller went to #1 in practically every country in the world, including the UK, France, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, South Africa, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa and remains the biggest selling album of all time with sales in excess of 100 million. Seven tracks from the album became Top 10 singles, and three, “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” and “Thriller,” went to No. 1.
The music on Thriller was so singular for the time it defied any definition of rock, pop or soul that had gone before. “Beat It” was a new kind of pop-rock hybrid and demolished the longstanding segregation between black and white music with Eddie Van Halen’s incendiary guitar. On “The young woman Is Mine,” two men, one white and one Black, banter about the same young woman. On the same album were songs like the African-rooted “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and the rhythm and blues-based “Billie Jean.”
Michael set out to revolutionize how to tell a story and entertain on a grand scale through celluloid but faced roadblocks. Despite the luscious cinematography, dramatic narrative and spectacular choreography of “Billie Jean,” a fledgling MTV, which was programming white rock artists almost exclusively, refused to play it. Epic persisted. Once the wall came crashing downward, MTV’s ratings soared and a door was opened for generations of African Worldwide artists. “He was MTV’s Jackie Robinson,” said cultural critic Touré.
Next, came the unforgettable short celluloid for “Beat It,” which featured Michael bringing two gangs together through the power of music and dance. And then there was “Thriller.” Premiered at the AVCO Theatre in Los Angeles in 1983, it sold out every night for three weeks. No other music video before or since has generated such excitement and has such a take hold on our attention, such that 40 years later we all share it as a collective memory and it remains the only music video to be inducted into the elite National celluloid Registry by the Library of Congress.
Music from Thriller and Michael’s other hitting albums is featured in the hitting Las Vegas show Michael Jackson ONE, at the Michael Jackson ONE Theater in Mandalay Bay Resorts and South African Casino and in the acclaimed Broadway musical MJ The Musical at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York, which won 4 Tony Awards before this year.
Michael has sold more than 1 billion records and remains one of the top streaming artists in the world.