Thriller

THE STORY BEHIND ' THRILLER '

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This is the centerpiece of the album and arguably the most famous song in pop history. The story below covers the fascinating evolution from its original disco version ("Starlight"), the recording of the sound effects, the legendary Vincent Price session, and the music video that changed the world.

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The song that would become the anthem of Halloween didn't start out scary. In fact, it started out as a bright, optimistic disco track called "Starlight."

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Rod Temperton, the British songwriter who had become Quincy Jones's go-to hitmaker, wrote the original demo. The chorus lyrics were: "Starlight! Starlight sun... Gimme some starlight, for a new day has begun." It was catchy, but it felt safe. When Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones listened to the demo, they liked the groove, but they felt the album needed a darker edge. They wanted a song that captured Michael’s love for horror movies and theatricality, a song that felt like a "midnight movie" for the ears.

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Quincy gave Temperton a challenge: go home and rewrite the lyrics. He wanted a title that was "mysterious" and "visceral." Temperton spent the night brainstorming. He famously came up with the title "Midnight Man," but felt it sounded too much like a newspaper headline. He eventually settled on a single word that jumped off the page: "Thriller."

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Temperton wrote the new lyrics with a specific vision in mind. He wanted the verses to build suspense, narrating a scene where "something evil's lurking in the dark." He visualized the song as a film script.

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The next morning, Temperton arrived at the studio with the new lyrics. He had written them so quickly that the ink was barely dry. When Michael saw the title Thriller, his eyes lit up. He immediately understood the concept. He wasn't just singing a song; he was playing a character, a narrator warning a girl about the beasts about to strike.

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One of the most legendary moments in music history is the spoken-word "rap" at the end of the song. The idea came from Quincy Jones’s wife, actress Peggy Lipton. She knew the horror film icon Vincent Price and suggested he would be the perfect voice to close the track.

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However, they had a problem: they had no lyrics for him. On the day of the recording, Rod Temperton realized he hadn't written the verse yet. In a panic, he wrote the famous "Darkness falls across the land..." poem in the taxi on the way to the studio.

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When Vincent Price arrived, he was the epitome of professionalism. He put on his headphones and delivered the speech in his signature macabre baritone. Amazingly, he nailed it in just two takes. The laughter at the end, that bone-chilling, maniacal cackle, was done live. They used the second take, and it fit perfectly. Price was reportedly paid a flat fee of $1,000 for the session, declining a percentage of the royalties, a decision that cost him millions of dollars in the long run.

 

"Thriller" is more than just a song; it is an audio landscape. Engineer Bruce Swedien and Michael Jackson spent days perfecting the sound effects that give the track its spooky atmosphere.

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• The Creaking Door: The sound of the crypt door opening at the beginning was a stock sound effect from a Hollywood library, but Swedien processed it to sound massive and heavy.

• The Footsteps: The footsteps walking across the wooden floorboards were recorded by Michael himself. He walked on a wooden platform in the studio, experimenting with different shoes to get the right "stalking" sound.

• The Howl: The wolf howl that echoes before the first verse wasn't a sound effect; it was Michael. He stood in the vocal booth and howled like a wolf repeatedly until they captured the perfect, mournful sound.

 

Musically, the track is driven by synthesizers. The iconic bassline, that gritty, descending riff, was played on two Minimoog synthesizers linked together to create a thicker, "fatter" sound.

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The distinctive "brass" chords that stab throughout the song were played on a Roland Jupiter-8 synthesizer. This gave the song its sharp, futuristic edge. Unlike the organic funk of "Billie Jean," "Thriller" was designed to sound artificial and cold, enhancing the "undead" theme.

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You cannot talk about the song without talking about the video. In 1983, music videos were usually cheap clips of bands playing instruments. Michael wanted to change that. He hired John Landis, the director of the horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London, to direct a short film.

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The budget was unprecedented: $500,000 (at a time when most videos cost $50,000). CBS Records refused to pay for it, calling it a vanity project. To fund it, Michael and John Landis ruthlessly exploited the "Making Of" concept. They sold the rights to a documentary, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, to MTV and Showtime. The documentary sales paid for the video.

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The 14-minute short film premiered at the Avco Theatre in Los Angeles to a packed audience of celebrities. When the zombies started dancing, the crowd went wild. The video changed the music industry overnight. It established the "story arc" video format and turned MTV into a global powerhouse. The red leather jacket Michael wore became the most famous piece of clothing in the world.

 

The choreography, created by Michael and Michael Peters, was groundbreaking. They didn't want the zombies to look like ballet dancers; they wanted them to look rigid and decomposing. They studied how bodies moved in old horror movies. The resulting "claw hands" and the "shoulder shuffle" became the most imitated dance routine in history, performed at weddings, flash mobs, and parties worldwide for over 40 years.

 

"Thriller" was the seventh and final single released from the album, yet it became the defining track. It re-entered the charts decades later, becoming a perennial Halloween anthem.

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In 2009, the "Thriller" video became the first music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, cementing its status not just as pop culture, but as significant art. It represents the moment Michael Jackson ceased to be a musician and became a mythological figure.