You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - "Thriller" – Michael Jackson

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

In 1981, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones set out on one of the most ambitious projects in pop music history: an album where every song was a hit. The result was Thriller. The record-breaking, chart-topping masterpiece produced six top-ten hits, became the best-selling album of all time, and propelled Black American music into global pop dominance.Watch as jazz musicians Peter Martin and Adam Maness react to this iconic '80s pop album. They break it down track-by-track: MJ's timeless ad-libbed melodies, Ndugu Chancler's drum intros (the greatest in pop history?!), Greg Phillinganes's synths, and Rod Temperton's songwriting.Thriller is so much more than "Thriller". Listen with us, and you'll never hear this record the same way again.Michael Jackson unveils the moonwalk at NBC's Motown 25 special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB7TqzPVt_M&t=538sGreg Phillinganes breaks down the bass line on "Thriller": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqxOg3M-OM Adam and Peter analyze Off the Wall: https://youtu.be/jR9zxGueeq4 Start your free Open Studio trial for ALLLLL your jazz lesson needs: https://osjazz.link/yhi  

Peter? Yes. Peter, what are you doing? Just playing some chords. Let's not do this. Why not? Peter, I don't think this is such a good idea. You don't like where it's leading?

Peter, Caleb's just a kid, man. Don't do this to Caleb. That dude's 33 years old. Peter, okay, I'm begging you. Let's not do this. Please, let's not do this. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear in podcast.

Music Explore. Explored. Brought to today by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com for all your jazz. Oh, I see what she did there. Lesson needs, Peter. It was just for you. A little foreshadowing, because today, Peter,

we're talking about a little album called Thriller. Yeah. I think you're underselling it because it oversold. It oversold. The greatest selling album of all time. Before we get too deep into that, I just want to give a little shout out. And a thanks to our dear listeners

because we did walk away with some Signal Awards hardware this week. We did. Well, actually, we haven't gotten the hardware yet. But we've got the virtual hardware for it. We are Signal Award, silver winners in two categories was for best music podcast and most innovative video

I mean look at this is this not innovating here It is a innovative video podcast Shout out to our whole team for that big win And shout out to you for supporting us We really really appreciate it Yeah thank you guys for all the votes And man shout out to all the other folks in our category

That was such an honor We got one song our friends from there Switched on Pop Friends of the show Fat Joe formerly Fat Joe Maybe a future friend I mean it's really like It's humbling to be amongst

such podcast legends. So upwards and onwards, my friend. Congratulations to you. And you might ask yourself, Peter, like, well, congratulations to you back, but you might ask yourself, like, where do we go from here? Well, let's go straight to the stratosphere, my friend.

I'm going to say, is there anywhere to go? That's right. This is going to be our last episode ever, because after we do thriller, it's like, what else do you do? Well, this will be interesting, man. But can I bring it down to Earth a little bit? I could do that because I don't want to...

So this is the best-selling album of all time, of course. But I don't even think this is Michael Jackson. Exxon's best album. And I don't even think it's his top two. Not even close. And it may not even be his top three. No, we'll love this record, though. We'll talk about it more, but it's not even close to his best album.

In my opinion, too. Yeah, but I do think it's probably MJ's most important, I know it's his most important record, especially culturally. Yeah. And it may be the most important cultural artifact ever made. And that might be forever just because of the timing of when it came out, when you could kind of have this collective consciousness in the U.S. and beyond. and a singular focus upon one sort of cultural element or event,

although it was a number of events, the videos, the releases, it stretched out over like a year and a half. But to have it in so much of the sort, it was such a zeitgeist awareness of this that nowadays with like algorithms being more like, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's so fragmented. And I think if you were born like probably 1990 or after,

even, you probably don't remember a time where everybody watched the finale of MASH. Everybody listened to Thriller. Like, you can say, yeah, there's some Taylor Swift albums or Beyonce albums that are really, really popular. But my grandmother knew about Billy Jean. And knew the lyrics to Billy Jean.

You know what I mean? Like, this was a woman who was born in 1912. Right. It was so ubiquitous. It was so massive. And there were only so many platforms for it to be on. Right.

It was on all of them. It was. And that, by the way, was very calculated by MJ and Quincy. And that whole team. Epic records. They had made off the wall, which was a massive hit, but mostly on black radio, on R&B charts.

Just a little bit of pop crossover. I mean, Michael always had a little bit of crossover. So he was ripe for it to happen if it was going to happen. That's right. And it never quite got to this like every radio station is playing it. And they said, that can happen. We can make an album where that happens. Michael is so talented and he's so appealing that if we choose the right songs,

if we record them in a way that's probably a little bit more simple than they did with off the wall, with the arrangements and with the kinds of songs they chose, then we think we can appeal to a mass audience of not just like in America, but worldwide. We're talking about every single hemisphere. Oh my God, Japan, they love this record. South America.

Right. You know, like in Brazil, the biggest pop star. In Europe, the biggest pop star. Lichtenstein. In Africa, the biggest pop star. Like every corner of the globe, this album made Michael Jackson the most famous music. in the world.

Yeah. And that was, again, by design. Yeah. Yeah, this is what really catapulted him into... I mean, you could say the apex was... The crescendo was bad. But I would say Thriller was what... This is what made him the biggest pop star.

Kind of undisputed. He's like the undisputed heavyweight champ. It's like, you could be like, well, which belt? Which the... No, it's like, this made him the biggest pop star in the world. And then, not only that, he set the bar in a way that I don't think... I mean, you can talk about Taylor Swift. You can talk about Beyonce.

these are certainly huge stars around the world, but I don't think anyone can approach this again. And the fun thing about this is there's some incredible music on here. You know, and so I didn't mean to denigrate anything by saying it's not my favorite M.J record. But are the incredible tracks, the popular tracks? Maybe not. There's nine tracks on here.

Yeah. Okay, fun fact, seven hit singles, top ten, a bunch of them number one. I can't remember how many. I mean, unprecedented with the number of singles. And it's stretched forever. you know, but we're going to get into this a little bit. I think the two that weren't released as singles are the two best tracks. I'm just going to throw that out there.

I am going to agree with you on that, actually. We can talk more about that later. Let's get into some music, Peter, and then maybe we could talk about our histories with this album, but I want to start with the opening track. It's a good one. It's a good one, and I have the controversial takes on this, too. Here's want to be starting something.

Do I hear Hayhorns? I mean, for me, oh, this is all about Michael's vocal abilities. Yeah. This is a nothing of a song as far as the structures. Two chords. Two chords. Over and over again. No bridge, no pre-chorus, no just...

It's a nice beat. Yeah. It's not the greatest beat that's ever been. This is a personality hire of a track, right? This is like, we are relying on Michael's energy, on his incredible vocal riffs. Right. On the improvisations, on the runs that happen. And then the moment at the end, which we're going to save for later in the show,

one of my favorite moments of the whole album. Yeah. And then it's kind of... I would say... a little bit, well, I would almost say perfect production added to it as well in terms of like the sound, the bounce, I mean

incredible, like the production, the engineering, the mastering on this record, the sound design is incredible. My one little, can I already start with a little bit of a quibble bit on this? Please do. Please do. Like, I love this as an opening track. I think it's fine that it's kind of a nothing burger, a little bit harmonically and stuff. It's nothing.

This is Michael's tune, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's one of his compositions. But it's such a great entry point. It's so exciting, so much fun. But I think, check out the drum groove. This is all programmed drums. And this was not the first album, or even the first year, programmed drums.

There's a little thing called the Lynn drums, L-I-N-N. And there's a lot of use of that on this album. And it was really the first time for Michael. I think there might have been a little bit on off the wall. But the idea is like everything else, everybody's playing all the way through. The guitar is guitar. The bass might be on keyboards, like Moog bass or something.

A lot of Moog bass. Just singing, everything. But the drums, it's not that they're not real. It's that there's not a drummer play. There is on the other tracks, we're going to check that up. But on this one, on a couple of them, it's not a drummer playing. You're pressing buttons on a thing, which is fine. But it's so, to me, this is very, it's so precise.

And it's not even quantized. It's just exactly to the grid. It was very evocative of the time. I remember it's like Tron, war games, those movies. Like, everything was like the computer age. It was pretty novel in 1983. It was very novel. And I think later on with the Lynn drums and program drums,

We got a little bit more humanity. But this is the, I want to be starting something, just vocals, guitars, and horns. So no drums. Vocals, guitar, horns. Yeah. Without the drums, basically. Ah.

You hear Michael? I said, you want to be starting something. You get to be starting something. You hear him clapping his fingers. You got to be started something Or do how to get over Guitar David Williams

Even without the bass or the drum Look at him He likes it He likes it It's like it And the pain is thunder I took my baby to the doctor With a fever but nothing he found

By the time it's in the street They said she had a breakdown Someone's always trying That groove My baby crying So I feel Grinian saying You just want to be sliding

In song Because you want to be in Man, very early 80s hip hop reference Yeah, exactly His vocal Not only like the range But like his syncopation and rhythmic Like he's just singing

Even like when the horns or the guitar You're just like Man the groove is so So to me it's like When you add this in It just takes a little bit away It's still great And that's some of the best program drums

In terms of like the sounds The claps The snares are like killer But this song, too, is a lesson for musicians in how to get the most out of these two chords. Right? So you're getting these two chords. I think our beloved keyboards are down today, Peter. They are down.

They're down for the count. That might be good. Maybe we don't need to get on top of the... Couldn't have picked a worse. But what he does, he builds this vocal performance that builds to this breakdown that happens. Like an apex moment? Right. It's an apex moment.

But the... Vah-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. When he gets to that melody, which is an octave of when I'm singing. And then breaks it down. He's gone from every single iteration of those two chords that you can melodically from the bottom up and just built it up and up.

And it's got a very like suss. I'm going for it now. I'm going for it now because we're talking about it. So when we get to after this little break down, that is fucking amazing. Yeah. Into this. That, when the mind,

Mama-say, Mama Samu-Maksa comes in. That's when the lawsuit dropped. But the first, whew-wh-w-h-I-K-I-T. I can't even sing that high. The first, woo-hoo. The joy. Oh. Is mind-blowing.

That is a vocal performance that only Michael Jackson could do or possibly Stevie Wonder. I want to hear it one more time there. All building. The top of his range. Yeah. Big four.

Big four. That's a nice drum sound. Blues. Go on, Jerry Hay. Oh, bad. Horn lines. Why not? Honestly, that was all gone by the time I came on the radio.

Honestly, you know, my... His mind's blown. I can look at it. His mind is blown. It's still... This is the first music I remember as a child. I was four years old when this album came out. I remember being at my aunt Norma's house.

I remember the video to beat it being on the TV. And I just remember all of the grown-ups in the room. My mom, my dad, my aunts, my uncles. They were all talking about this because it was such a... As we mentioned, such a huge deal. They all knew these songs. They all knew Beat It and Billy Jean and Thunel. thriller and the videos were these sensations. And I spent so much time as a kid with this cassette tape

dancing to it in my kitchen, knowing the lyrics to every song. It is my idea of what an album is. It's my idea of what pop music it is. It's, it formed my idea of what a pop star is and a celebrity is. I wanted to not just like listen to this music. I wanted to be the person in making this music. It's really one of the reasons why I became a musician is Thriller. Oh, man. Me too. Yeah. I mean, these melodies. that MJ is ad-libbing here are so timeless. And I think only you can talk about Stevie Wonder

in the same category of being able to nail your heart to the floor with an ad lib. It's just so beautiful. That first he-he that he does over the Mama Seamusama Samu-Makasa. Still drops me to this day. And I've been listening to this for 42 years, however long ago. You know what I mean? It's like, it's a long time.

That's great. And I think, you know, I don't want to get ahead of my skis here. Go over your skis. But I think this is an example. This might have been at sort of a mass scale the first time where black American music, soul music, whatever you want to call it, really permeated the greater culture.

For sure. Right? And so you have a four-year-old little kid dancing trying to be Michael Jack because that's like blues on there. You know, when he's so blues. To this extent. My God.

To be this accepted around the world was probably the first time of this scale. Yeah. And so, I mean, before that, like, you had a, like, my parents' generation. I remember them talking about, like, you know, Elvis, and, like, Little Richard, definitely black artists and stuff, but there was, like, Elvis was kind of the main propagator of black culture to a whole,

you know what I mean? I mean, really, that's what it was. You know what I mean? Like, the blues was filtered through Elvis from, I mean, not to say that there weren't many big black artists that, you know, people, but I mean, not on, not on this scale. Not on this scale. Not on the Elvis scale. So, I mean, to have the authentic thing.

And then Michael Jackson, like, with him. you know, jumping into so many different styles. I mean, I don't even know what you call this. Shout out Paulino de Costa, who was huge on this in terms of doing a lot of like the percussion sounds that came through the linen programming that and all these kinds of grooves to give it this kind of... Like this was sort of the beginning of this sort of world music

kind of, you know, Paul Simony, like a lot of people sort of did it to have the We Are the World, all this kind of stuff. Am I jumbling up my history? I don't know. You're not. So, and again, this was by design. Quincy and Michael reviewed 700 demos for Thriller. 700 demos of songs for thrillers to pick nine.

Right. And there's a bunch that they actually released on the 40th anniversary. We don't have them here because there's just so many to go through that they turned down. Never made it on an album. The motivation for Michael was to create an album in which every song was a hit,

he told Ebony Magazine, ever since I was a little boy, I would study composition, and it was Chikoski that influenced me the most. If you take an album, I like that he says an album. An album like the Nutcracker's Suite, every song is a killer, every one,

which is so true and so interesting because I would put Thriller and The Nutcracker actually on a very similar plane of storytelling musically. And also a little bit of like the greatest or the greatest of their genre or a little bit popular culture combined with their genre.

You know, like the Nutcracker's got that. The Nutcracker is not your classical musician's favorite classical piece. It is what they have to do at Christmas. Right. I mean, it is genuinely beautiful music and every song is catchy as hell. Right. And it's hard to hear like,

and not finish it, right? Because every melody is so catchy. Well, think about this. We both know some classical musicians and they might turn up their nose a little bit at the nutcracker, give them one little glass of wine and start singing it and they'll go, and their eyes will light up and stuff.

So, I mean, like, that's real talk. People like to be popular. That's real talk. That's real talk. So Michael said, why can't there be a pop album like that where every song is a hit? So he wanted to strive for that. And, you know, like you said, seven number one hits

from 1983 to 1904. Should have been eight. Could have been all of them. Honestly, could have been every track on here because there's some on here that were not number one hits, but top ten hits. There were some that were top ten hits that probably aren't as good as the ones that

weren't released as singles. I'm looking at the girl. And the first one that should have been a top ten hit is this one. Oh. You know? And do go. And dogo!

Come on. This one could have been on off the wall as well. Yes. This could have been a track from off the wall. Filling games, stop it! Michael Jackson makes you think you can sing and dance! You know what I'm saying? This is such a great and prototypical Rod Temperton melody too.

Yeah, down the minor nine. And Dugu's gonna catch that the next time. Check it out. Henry Hay. Oh no, the next time he gets. Jerry, sorry, Jerry Hay. Hey! Dynamics. Oh, those sense of this single...

It could have been off the wall. It could have been a trick. a Prince song yeah it could have been a Morris Day in the Time song like it has that yeah yeah a little de bar's family it could have been a bar's it could have been a it could have been a michael macdonald making machines either when we used to have bridges here nice bridges were so pretty beautiful bridges like three minutes into the tune damn how far we are i'm just a bridge 2 30 i don't little sense i feel that's got to be funny game michael jackson as a back

ground singer. Oh my God. Greatest. It doesn't get any better. You can't caught at that time. Balance. Bass drum. Oh, I know what you were waiting on.

Well, the greatest lift in pop music history is about that. Okay. We're doing now. Greatest lift in pop music, he said. Greatest lift and pot music. Yeah. Don't miss it. We didn't make a meal out of it.

We didn't have to make a big fucking deal about it, Peter. And then the horns co-signed it in such a cool way. Mike, it's like another. It's like you're on the mountain top and you just take one little step above. You know, sometimes those lifts, you feel like it's someone laughing at their own joke, which we would never do.

No. But... Good joke, by the way. Thank you. But this is just like, they just casually lift it. Yeah. Hapsed up. Unbelievable.

Yeah. It's like the opposite of the Whitney Houston bodyguard lift. It is. Which is great, too. Well, that might be the second best of all time. Let's be honest. But it's different. It's different.

They make a meal out of it, even in the video. They pull in tight on Whitney's face and her eyes open. This is just like, oh, I just dropped this lift right here. Yeah, it's almost like you trip, but you're so cool and such a good dancer. It just becomes like, oh, no, we can chromatically lift it. We don't have to talk about it, though.

Right, that's right. Oh, now it's play. I played a full chord. All right, you know what, this is a sign. We should be play. We should be enjoy the music. I'm going to plug it out. You know what's?

I'm just curious. Yeah, yeah. No, go ahead. What, no, I was just going to say, and after this, I want to make sure and get, do we talk about your history with this record? We did. We did. I want to talk about yours. Okay.

One thing on this. We've got to talk about Andugu Chancellor plays drums on a bunch of the track on a couple. He basically plays all the real drums on here. Killing, Shreveport's finest. Incredible jazz drummer.

Unbelievable. With Amad Jamal, Sonny Rawls, a bunch of cats. But is this the greatest drum intro to a pop song? I mean, it's hard to argue. The only other one I can think of

is from... Wait, I think I know what you're going to think of. Would it be this? Yeah. Oh, cool. That's not even the full one. Oh, it's not. Oh, I think it faded in, maybe.

Peter Martin. You can't do that to folks. We can sing it. Dacku. Bacca, dacu. We can't. We cannot. I won't.

I refuse to let. That's not a fair fight if one of them is partway. We are Signal Award silver medalists. Well, we're not gold medalists. Come on, man. You only get half the, just think if we were bronze, we'd be listening to a cover version of this. All right, hold on. So shout out J.R. Robinson on this incredible drum intro and Dugu Chancellor.

I mean, probably the two, they're both going into huge Michael Jackson hits, which is fun. That's not it. This is it. Oh, that's what you meant, right? That's killing. Oh, yeah. So that one's great. This one's great. So apparently this was a thing, like Quincy really challenged them to do a bunch of them. It was like, no, no, no.

Do another one. Like, they both wrote these. That's so stupid. That's crazy. But this one. Like, that's weird. That one's more like Could you imagine Quincy being like

Yeah let's put that on and this has become the best selling record of all time You know what? I'm going to say I'm going to put a line in the sand here I actually think the off the wall is better And I'll tell you why Because I think for a pop album you know where it is Yeah the other the baby line That was almost a disco record in a way

That's true But you know like it's a composition in and of itself Go can do dot com Don't go do go do go there's syncopation It takes you a minute. It's very, when you get there,

man. I know. It does feel great. One bar, buddy. Four beats, man. Are you musician shaming me here? Oh, but then when it hits.

It's just two different approaches. I mean, look, shout out both those incredible drummers, J.R.N. and Dugu, but also just Quincy for being like how, and Michael.

You know Michael was involved in this. Before we get too far away, too, from the first track. I do want to shout out Cameroonian artist, Manu di Bongo, for, who were recipients of a very nice

for the Mama Sey, Mama Sam, Sam, Maxa section. Was it sampled or was it interpolation? Did they re-record? I think it was interpolation. But straight up lifted from... And shout out to Michael Jackson and Epic or whoever, they settled.

I think it was a million dollars, too. Yeah, sampled from a track called Sol Makosa by Manu. So incredible stuff. And it's been used by a bunch of other folks too. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Okay, I want to just play one thing on this. Like so when we You kind of

You know really astutely Let's see Baby be mine Yeah so we're gonna just sort of break things down A little bit If we go to like It's the same track Baby be mine

Bass That's definitely synth bass Yes I think that's filling games Got to be Can we do just 30 seconds on Greg Fillin games? Yes One of the great keyboard players alive

Yeah Played on all your favorite hits Absolutely. Man behind the scenes. Yeah. He's all over this record. Oh, I got some stuff coming up that you're going to love. But again, even...

I want to check out some of the... We're going to skip ahead a little. Just check out some background vocals. Guitar. Never heard that guitar before. Yeah, exactly. So this also had Lewis Johnson on the bass, too, right? Yeah, I'm not sure if that's right, actually.

I don't think he's on here. Yeah, that's definitely. Sounds like fill a game. And then check this out. There's some cool, like, check out the guitar. I know we heard it, but I'm like, yeah. Country A-F. Later on, we got some more fun of it.

Greatest left in all time. How can it get any greater? Even with the little details of it, it's fun, right? Amazing. Well, thanks for that, Peter. We're ready to kind of come back down to Earth. Okay, so before we plays, I just want to say a little bit about, like, the time. 1982, okay, this record comes out in November.

I believe it was like either the weekend before, I think it was like the weekend of Thanksgiving. So I remember coming back to school. I was in seventh grade. Ever, ever heard of it? I've heard of it. Yeah, Brittany Wood School, St. Louis, Missouri, shout out. And, I mean, like, everybody was talking about this record. They were already kind of, there was a lot of anticipation for it.

And I believe there was just one, which is what we're about to. hear one single out so far. But it was like if you had this record from that first weekend, you were doing something. But all of a sudden, this became a thing. It was like, because they were playing it on the radio. They were, the record was available. Like, I didn't have the record, but I knew someone that did. I went over to his house and was like, listen to it.

But, you know, you're jumping around and stuff. And, but this went on for like a year and a half. So I'm the seventh grade, which is a very formative time for us, right? So the singles are coming out. The thing is like growing. the videos start to come out that's when it really went bonkers you know MTV is sort of start happening

I was a little upset with my parents because we didn't have cable TV in fact we had a black and white television and so I had to go to a friend's house to watch it and you'd have to catch it what time it was going to come on by the time I got to the thriller video which was like six months later

that was like every that was appointment viewing that was like watching Roots or the last episode of Mass or something everybody was like yeah I just couldn't do it at home because we didn't have MTV but that was a big deal but it's just like this

occupied the cultural space of my middle school, which was 7th and 8th grade, but it was the whole time, for sure. Because the record was like going for... It just kept going. It just kept going and going and going. And we, you know, if somebody could bring some clothes

that they saw Mike and then he'd be on an award show. Pretty much all the way to bad. It was going all the way there, you know? But it was just, it was really a crazy thing. But this next song, which I feel is by far the weakest thing on this record, the girl's mind with Paul McCartney. Not because of Paul McCartney,

just, well, partly. Everybody's responsible for it. Everybody takes responsibility. It's just a weird track, but it was like a really big hit. Get this. Number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Yeah. Pop charts.

It came out in October. That's right. It was a whole month before, or two months before the record came out. Yeah, it came out. October 82 before the album came out. Yeah. It is, The Girl is Mine. It was written by Michael Jackson,

and it has guessed with Paul McCartney. We've got a whole thing on this. Shout on. Let's turn that down. I mean, the playing on... Listen, everything is perfect. for what it is. It has potential.

Every night she walks right in my dreams since I met her from the start. I'm so proud I am being old. I mean, this is like jazz in the park, smooth jazz. You're chilling. Summertime. You've got some white Zinfandel. The Doug Girl is...

It's just so predictable. Everything about it is so like... It goes exactly where you think it's going to go. And it's a little creepy, too. Well, for a little... several reasons. There's a couple of moments on here that are nice, for sure. Yeah.

Sir Paul. Who was like 43 years old. Okay. He's faded it out. He's faded out. I'm not even going to say that out. I want to hear you talk about that. No, no, it's just such a throwaway track.

I think it's the only thing that kind of pulls this record. I wouldn't say dumb, but it's so much of the time. And like, genius to release. This is the thing about the cultural zeit guys of that moment. This was calculated. Like it was a time of sort of innocence. Right. And look, let's be clear about this.

Let's do a track with a really popular white, kind of older pop star and Michael Jackson. The boomers love. Yeah, the boomers love. But the Gen X can be like, oh, there's nothing to see here. This is totally normal. Yeah. You know, which worked. When we were kids, it was like, oh, this is cool.

So I get it. And does this record go on to be what it is without this perfect release schedule and this being the first single? Maybe not, you know. Because it set up the radio, I mean, radio airplay. ran stuff then. Like this, the record went on long enough where it started to be MTV started to kind of be able to

define things and record sales and stuff, but it was really radio. So this was the entry point, right? It's a white radio. I actually, I don't think it's a bad track. I just think compared to everything else on Thriller, it just doesn't fit in some of the, in some way. And the idea is not wrong.

And in fact, they could have used a different version of this, of MJ and Paul McCartney, which they had and was put on Paul's album. This is another song written by Michael Jackson recorded with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney together. And this was released on Paul McCartney's 1983 album

called Pipes of Peace. And I think this is a much better fit for thriller, especially if this would have been produced by Quincy Jones, which it wasn't. But if it would have, imagine this track. By the way, this is not a new take. People have talked about this before. I haven't heard this.

A long time. a great song. I mean, it's a good song. But it's better than that's mine. Michael. This could have been all bad. I'm saying, right? This feels more like off the wall or thriller. Yeah. This is on Yeah, but I understand

why, like, as, like, this was a thing, Paul McCart, like, you know, we were talking about Stevie Wonder and... Well, there's another version of this that's even worse. Okay. Do you want to hear the version that's even worse? Does it have Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopal by any chance? Oh.

What the fuck? Do you have the Eddie Murphy, Paul, Joe Pistop over it? Because that one's good. Yeah, I mean, okay. Paul and Stevie, Ebony and I. But there was something about, am I overplaying my hand on this? I don't know. You might be.

No, like the white star and the blacks are two guys with a creepy song fighting over the girl. Is the girl? Why did she mixed race? We don't know. But it's getting you thinking, right? At the time, it's getting you thinking. Somebody was thinking about that.

Someone was thinking. This is when people started to say, I don't see color. That's what I'm saying. This was like the I don't see color. And you know what? It was kind of a little golden age for that. I'm just, I agree with all of the hot takes out there.

I said this is the ultimate Jet Exor record. For sure. This is the ultimate Gen X record. But I agree with all the hot takes that I really think say, say, say should have been the one on thriller. And the girl's mind should have been on pipes apiece. Right. But it was a weird time that I wouldn't say that Paul McCartney had to, he had to do a duet with him. First of all, that's weird.

Why? I mean... Well, you know, the other thing that came out of this duet, right? Yeah. Is that like... Michael Jackson loved it, too. he was like, this is my favorite part of making this record. I remember him saying that.

He was a huge Beatles fan, and Paul was a huge Michael fan. Yeah. And they actually wrote these songs or recorded these songs. Or maybe say, say, say they recorded at Paul's mansion. And Michael stayed with them for like a week with Paul and Linda. Yeah. this song anytime, and these aren't Paul songs, these are other people songs. He's like, anytime someone plays

this song, I get a check. And anytime someone uses this in a commercial, I got to check. So Michael immediately went out and outbid the Beatles for their publishing. Right. And it caused Well, it was a couple years later, right? It was a couple years later, but not that much. Not that long

after Michael bought the rights to all the Beatles publishing. Yeah. Outbid Paul and Ringo and George. And Paul was apparently pretty pissed about that. Well, you know, as you would be. So, okay, this has me thinking. This is another kind of hot take I'm making. I'm calling an audible.

I've got four people identified. I hope I didn't miss someone that are crucial. I mean, not to say, so many great news, Louis Johnson, killing it on here. Filling Gaines. Yeah, David Foster playing since. Yeah, shout off, friend of the pod. But I would say this.

I got four people that I'm going to say, Thriller isn't Thriller without it. Okay. Michael Jackson, of course. Obviously. Quincy Jones. Obviously. Rod Temperton.

Obviously. And Greg Phillygains. I agree. And that's it. I would also... Not Paul McCartney. He's not... Thank you for your service, but not needed.

I would add Jerry Hay. But, of course, he's great. But is he in that... I was going to say, Trinity, that quartet, if everybody's necessary, then nobody's necessary, right? Like, are we gonna... What about the other? What's the trombone player's name?

Can you name me him? Come on, quick. I mean, that's a bit flippant. But I get you. Jeff Piccoro, a lot of killing drums on here. Steve Pecoro. I mean, you know, human nature, we're going to get to that. Most of to to-dos are in some way, yeah.

You could even say Vincent Price, you know, does this record, you know, but I think musically and conceptually those four, and that's a lot, actually, because normally you talk about the artist and a producer maybe or one writer or something, especially from this era, or you look at like Marvin Gaye, what's going on, it's Marvin. I mean, there's so many people contributed, but, like, he was his kind, like, his whole thing. But this really feels like a team effort, although I always think that Michael, like, people underestimate the amount of, like, precision and drive and concept he had on how this, I mean, everyone's like Quincy's telling, I think, like, Michael Jackson, just a renegade

perfectionist, you know, legendary and, like, specific. And when we hear some of the demos, or if you can check those out, you're here from his original concept, especially on his tunes. Like, it was kind of already all there. For sure. For sure. Okay. Fourth track on the album, we're here, Peter. Good. We're about to hit sort of like the murderers row of the big hit singles. And they're all right.

right next to each other. I got a quiz for you. Pop quiz. How many weeks did this stay on the Billboard Hot 200? This track, not this album, just this track. So the track is Thriller that is up next, right?

The single. I don't know. Like a year? 122 weeks. Two years. That's crazy. Over two years. Over two years.

Damn, you're good of math. Yeah, that's crazy. That's insane. Yeah. That's insane. But it's not surprising. It's a great track. This is another Rod Temperton track.

We actually, when we did our off the wall, album episode, we listened to the title track from Off the Wall, which was off the wall. Also, Rod Temperton, and we noted how it had like a similar creepy thriller vibe. He was a novelty guy. He liked a little bit of a novelty thing. He liked the theater. Thriller is an incredible, weird pop hit.

Yeah. Has there ever been a weird pop hit than Thriller? It's weird. Are we going to start at the weird novelty part or get right into the music? Because there's about a minute and a half of, which is fine. Sound effects. This was a thing at the time, though. Yeah, we'll lay it under.

But yeah, so obviously driven too by the John Landis directed video. I mean, even the behind the scenes video of how they made the video was a huge hit. It was a movie. It was a movie. Remember the credits rolled at the end? You could see how they made it. It was so incredible. The choreography, when people do this, everybody still knows what it is.

The choreography, Michael's dancing. Amazing. Michael's acting. I think great. A lot of people, you know. The wolf eyes at the end, the cat eyes, the yellow cat eyes. Scary A.F. But I was in middle school side to pretend like I wasn't scared.

but I was. That cute actress, whoever that was, playing the girl. Yeah. I think she passed. Downer, Pete. Damn. Groove. Is this a disco track?

Like a straight-up disco track? Well, one other thing I want to note about this whole album, I think it is. I think... Have you noticed how many tracks on this album are based around Austinados in the bass? Yeah. All of them. Want to be starting something.

You know, the ones that we like don't have. happen. Right. But want to be starting something. Beat it. Billy Jean. All of these ostinados thriller. Yeah. With the bass line just repeats and repeats and repeat. And it's hard to hear if you can hear on this. That bottom.

The little froggy bass. Ding dig, dig, dig, do. Oh. David Williams. Killing it on guitar. Filling Gaines on bass. We all know it's thriller, right? So, you know what? What I love about this is the Laura Goose that Rod Temperton wrote this, the original lyrics were, because this is

Starlight, Starlight, Love. Oh, love, right. Yeah, which is hilarious because we know it so well for Thriller. But yeah, incredible. So one thing that's kind of hidden in here, I want you to check this out, because, like, Thriller, we could be like this isn't like his, it's kind of disco, it's great Rod Teperton, it's a great story,

but when you kind of peel it away from the video and the time and everything, it could feel a little bit like a novelty pop act. But there's some serious music, so check this out. This is... You like a 40 eyes girl Life inside of Get a breath in the dance

You like bridges This is just horns And vocals Gaping the jaws of the alien This time Background Here we go They're out to get you

As demons I think it's okay I think it's just fine I don't love it now I love that as a kid because of the horror movie aspects? Well, I think I'm going to turn you around. Well, I don't know if I can be.

There's a gentleman by the name. We've already mentioned it 17 times, Mr. Greg Philling Gaines. This might turn you around a little bit. I want you to listen closely. Tell me what. On bass. This is just guitar. Bass.

Check this out. It's gone. Check it out. What? I never heard that. I know. I love when he hits that. I mean, you know what?

Like, b'am, but do you know, though? If it's Jeff Percaro in here, maybe I love it more. You know, if it's not the program drums. Right, right. We can get to that in just a second. Well, but we can argue about this, but they, ultimately, Michael and Quincy were right. Yeah. Like, this became such a, you sell yourself.

That was the sound at the time. 122 weeks because the drums just go, yeah. I mean, it's like fantastic program drums, but when you hear that with Phil, and Philly and, talks about this, we'll link to some really great, there's so much great resources behind the scenes and, you know, Philly Gaines talking about this. Like, he played that baseline

straight through. This was no, there was no cutting and pasting at that time. We were talking about this was Stevie on Intervisions. All those great synth baselines on Intervisions played straight through with all of that, like, you know, the imperfections and little ad libs or whatever. I haven't heard any of that, and that's fantastic.

Okay, I got to hear it just one part again. Sorry. Assume. He's like, bha-a-dip-a-d-do-dot. Right, he snucked that in on the greatest solid record of all time. Okay, now we are on to this. I mean, it's just hit after-hit. For the rest of the album, pretty much, it's just hit after hit after hit after. And the next two tracks, I would just say, like, this is what's, you got the quartet, Trent, this is the dual.

Like, this is the real bangor. Well, these are the trinities. Thriller, beat it. That's true. And Billy Jean. But I would even say beat it and Billy Jean. I mean, this is when it really was like the apex of superstardom. I mean, Thriller with the video, with the video.

But in terms of rate Beat in Billy Jean with the videos The videos were like You know Just baked into all of our memories Just beat up First of all Sinclair

Incredible opening to a song It's so weird Incredible Like the like Before true video game Fighting games Yes This is a call to fight

Yeah this is sound design I mean this is like This is some Hollywood level It's killing Six I think Yeah five Six That

I want a glove with no fingers Peter. I want a glove with no fingers. Little Lacey. I want a headband. Right. Skid Row, Los Angeles. Film, though. I want to tie a bandana around my knee.

I want to be hardcore, but really dancing, too. Another Asanato. Yeah. Yeah, who is this on... Woo! I think it's Steve Lukather from Toto and Paul Jackson on guitar. Jeff Bacor on drums.

But a lot of program drums. Obviously. Beat. I mean, yeah. Again. Is this the strongest song on the record? No, it's not. It's fine.

It's always been a little weird. Like, I just don't think Michael Jackson plays very tough in general. He's such a great dancer and sings so high? I mean, it's a little bit of... It can improvise so well. It's a little bit of a West Side Story-ish situation. Yes. ...that he was influenced by that.

Where there's, like, you know, tough guys dancing. All of those guys were actually bloods and cribs, apparently. What? Yeah, that's the legend of it. Like, they... Michael wanted it to be, like, real. But they were literally the softest bloods. is what I meant to say.

Totally believable. Famously, though, like, for what stands out for me with this, besides, like, the amazing, this might be the best sounding song in the whole album. Like, with that sound design intro, the layering of the guitars, the distorted guitar, which was still relatively new in a big pop track like this. You know what I mean?

And this is interesting to say pop, because I always think about, like, even before the Eddie Van Halen thing, which was kind of, it wasn't covered up, but no one talked about it at first, And then all of a sudden people talked about it. It was like, did you know that's Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen playing on that?

But like, I remember when this, like when I got to this song or when it hit the radio, I was like, and not just me, I was like, damn, this is a rock song. And we think about it now like rock, pop, R&B, hip hop. There wasn't a lot of overlap when you got away from like, you know, Stevie Wonder or somebody like that, who did have some pop, big pop hits around this time, some big records, but not like this.

Not like this. But again, remember, this was planned to be this. Exactly. Right. This was a brilliant move from Michael and Quincy. Yeah. First of all, to just make a track like this that could possibly be on a rock station?

Yeah. Like, they're like, and they were playing it. Yeah. And like, we can play this because there's distorted guitars. It was in December. There's Eddie Van Halen, which was a brilliant move

and just kind of happenstance. Right. It was December. And Eddie Van Halel's on the video, which is interesting. That's right. But it's a freaking knife fight. Before the video,

maybe even before the single came out, this went into rotation. I know in St. Louis, like, on KWK, 106, like the rock station, and a bunch of, stations around the country just this. Like this was the only thing on the record that they put

in a rotation first. And that was like a big deal. That's when it was like, damn, the floodgates are opening. Because it was on Magic 101.8. It was on like the, whatever easy listening station here. But then when that hit hit, it was like, what? Michael Jackson's on that? Think about what we have here. So far, what we've listened to. This is track five.

So far we've had, want to be starting something, which is somewhat of like a, it's a very Michael Jackson, dancey. It's kind of disco, too. It's kind of disco. We got Baby B Mine, which is definitely like R&B hit, even though it was released as...

Bubblegum, Bobblegum, Pop. Well, Baby Bine is... Oh, no, Baby, I'm sorry. The girl is mine. Bubblegum Pop hit with a beetle, no less. Then we've got a freaking horror movie, essentially, that they just released as part of the album. It's a horror movie.

It's kind of disco also. It's kind of also disco. And then you've got this rock track, which is, like, it's definitely a pop track that has, like, rockish elements. But you got... Well, because of the house... Because of how it starts, like, it's hard.

Yeah. Even before the solo, it's like... This is right after Van Halen has a... has released his diver down. Right. And none of that other guitar is Van Halen, I think, until the solo. No. This is only the Zetti.

It's crazy. Yeah. It's so killing. I mean, the technical stuff is like geekery for a guitarist. Unbelievable. But it's got that blue stuff in there. It's got that minor Dorian thing. It's very much rooted in, like, the American guitar.

horror style, right? It's got fireworks galore on a huge number one hit. I mean, it's really unbelievable. And, you know, to Quincy and Michael's strategy of, like, breaking down these barriers and just taking over the world, essentially,

like having Eddie Van Halen, which just had a huge critical and commercial hit and Diver Down from Van Halen. He was like, they were riding high, Van Halen. They were about to explode, partially because of this,

smart for Eddie Van Halen to do this. Yeah. Because now, like, whole new audience discovers him. Right. But also, it gives Michael some street cred with the rock musicians to have Eddie Van Halen playing a guitar solo. Like, oh, this guy knows who Eddie Van Halen is.

He seems cool. You know what I mean? Like, that is really smart. Yeah, Quincy's probably in the labels like MTV, rock radio. We're going to conquer every format. And then it's all going to come to an apex with the Grammys. And then it's going to happen again the next year. It happens again and again.

To me, beat it is a really good track. But until it gets to the Eddie solo, it doesn't really, like, if it didn't have that, I would kind of be like, you know, it's cool, whatever. Like, but that kind of makes it like a great track, I think. And we can't mention Beat It without just giving a little bit of a shout out to our just, I hope he's a friend of the show someday, but he's still around doing it. Greg Filigames? Well, him too.

And Eddie, R-I-P. But Weird Al, Edith. Oh, that's true. Eat it. That's a great. Eat It is classic. That was big. That was huge.

That was really weird Al's big breakthrough, too. That was his big breakthrough. And just an unbelievable masterpiece of satire. Man, the long tales of this, of the greatest selling album of all time with the spinoffs, the spoofs, everything. It's big enough that, you know. Shout out, Al. All right, let's move it along.

Billy Jean, ever heard of her. Fictitious, but based on some real chicks, apparently. Lewis Johnson. And Dougo! Again. Most iconic synth intro ever, ever, maybe. I mean, Michael's, his rhythmic conception with a... every little thing he does.

I mean, the little vocal rhythmic things that are happening. Yeah. Man, he's just stuck up in the pocket. It truly is special. There's no other vocalists like him. Honestly, there's no one else who can come close. And what would you call that groove there, my friend? Wasn't that taken from another MJ hit from Off the Wall?

I feel like that was from... It might have been. Do I have this? I'm off the wall, actually. I just want to talk a little bit of the video for this was huge. It was directed by Steve Barron, who went on to direct the videos for Take All. on me from Aha, classic video,

and Money for Nothing by Dyer Stras. I remember watching live, Michael performing this, I think this was before thriller came out on the Motown 25 yesterday, today, forever. It's on YouTube, go check it out. We might link it here in the description.

It's a video of Michael Jackson unveiling Billy Jean to the world with the moonwalk for the first time. And I remember watching that live with my parents. I can vividly remember being... It was like the world is different now.

I was like, what? It's like, I got classes. I can see color. It's like, did he just do a magic trick? Yeah. And then I remember very vividly just all throughout elementary school, kids attempting the moonwalk on the playground. Ankle's been broken. Every day, no one could nail it until high school.

Yeah. That's such a great thing. Okay, so check this up. I just want to. Take it to me. It's so percussive, like his little lines. This is a lot. blues too kind of

where's the guitar oh this I think it's okay David Williams no check this out by far that's the best part Yeah Hold up

We gotta highlight the guitar It's like a bunch of guitar on here I think it's fine Really? I know I'm not I think it's fine. Wait. Wait for it.

Yeah, that's amazing. Best part of the song. Best part of the song, by far, by far. All right. So now we're moving along. Ooh, now we're getting into some... Ooh. Deep onto the B side.

He said, ooh, no, I mean, but how could this be a B-side? In that it's just one of the greatest tracks ever. Yeah. And it's this. Playing little chicks on us. I like it. Not MJ. M.D.

Miles Davis. Is this the version off Tutu? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. How great is that? Yeah. I've ever seen Miles do that live. Yeah, Miles covered human nature, but there's nothing that can replace the original.

How great is that synth production there? This is by John Bettis for the lyrics and Steve Piccaro. Jeff's brother. Oh, the Miles Davis is from You're Under Arrest. You're under arrest. You're under arrest, that's right. It's a red out. Paulino de Costa killing percussion on here.

Man, the guitar Again, Steve Lukather Jeff Baccaro on drums That's the total Yeah, the total drummed David Pai etch on the Sims This is a great song from Michael This is one of my favorite songs of all time

Yeah, I think it's brilliant I think performance combination of the song and Michael's performance on it The production is my favorite Probably my favorite production on the album It's fantastic. It's so smooth and rich and radiant and like just, it's compressed in like the most beautiful way.

You know, it's just the way he... Like, how he performs reaching, like a lot of breath, you know, and his voice. Yeah, and this is one track that, this is the most intimate track on here where you don't feel like, even when we separate things out, which we're not going to do on here,

you don't feel like you're missing as much. You know how like when I was playing that? You're like, damn, I never heard that feeling game thing. Like, everything else is so epic. It's a mosaic. It's a beautiful, it's a beautifully arranged production. Yeah, yeah. Gorgeous. So this came, it was an interesting thing.

It kind of came by accident. The story's been told a lot. I won't go into the whole thing, but basically, Steve and Jeff Percora were working on some of the tracks, playing on some of this stuff for Quincy and Michael, and they were actually mixing Africa at this time, and they had this song, and they had decided not to use it, but there was another song Quincy was interested in getting from them

as possible as one of those whatever, 700 you said that they did and i guess steve piccoro had put it on a cassette the demo but he didn't have any you remember you used to have cassettes you're like i want a new one oh i don't have a new one i got record over something so he recorded over on the one side you would take a screwdriver and take off that little thing that means you could yeah exactly so he put it on one side but the the demo for human nature was on the b side and so the song they put on the first side that thought quincy and michael would like quincy was like i don't think so but he let it play to the end and remember they used to have auto repeat then it would switch to the other side and this is what was on

there. That's the total demo. That's the total demo. It's not that far off. I mean, it's like a third down, minor third, major third down. They moved up the key for Michael. But it was kind of all there. You know what I mean? So, yeah, they thought it was kind of too soft for the project they were doing. You need the... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, whoever out of that. And then Michael's phrasing in the lyric is a little different, which is better.

Okay. Dude, it's Michael Jackson, man. We are now on to I think this is maybe jazz musicians favorite song This is in like some of the real books Kelly Martin's favorite song I found out last night As we listened to this album again

It's friggin' incredible PYT You know I just Sometimes I Classic Michael intro Endugu! I love you and Dugu Every time real drums comes on here

I'm like yeah I just wanted to you know Paul Jackson Rhythm guitar extraordinary Yeah way to cover up Indugu Programmers What's Johnson Funkin

Voice leading. Yeah. James Ingram wrote this with Quincy. It sounds like a broad temperature. We're trying to figure out the words to this. Listen on the radio. Honestly, man, I feel like I'm five years old. It's so great.

It just takes you back. I remember this would come up on the radio. We'd be like, wait, wait, because we were always trying to figure out the lyrics to it. It was like, what are they saying? Unbelievable. Yeah, James Ingram and Quincy Jones composition, amazing. Yeah. Fun stuff.

Do we want to listen? Do we want to break a little bit of that down just for fun? Oh, by the way. And Dugu. a voice overtaken by the program drums. That was Louis Johnson playing like, who's he probably? Spark of my knee, just sugarfly with me.

Don't you know now it's the perfect time. We can make it right near the city lights than nine. He's from love and pain. Let me take it to the max. So the PYT's are credited as Janet Jackson, Latoya Jackson, Becky Lopez, and Bunny Hall. But I heard, I guess I saw a short that Natalie from Facts of Life and Tudy from Facts of Life are also.

One of the PYT backgrounds, BGs. Yeah, one of BGs, yeah. Maybe at that end part where they're doing this stuff at the, that kind of gets kind of crazy at the end where they do. They're like, I'm using their character's name because at the time the Facts of Life was a big hit. Lewis Johnson Okay It's like some Jackson 5 shit there too Yeah I want to just take back

Man the guitar playing It's so off point on this record Oh That's da Costa Man and do go Good stuff Okay We got one more track

Just put that out there We're gonna talk about that a little bit Especially on that track This is not A lot of this is not aged well In hindsight It was a time So we close out the album

with easily the most underrated track of the album. Best track of the album. And it is probably the best song on the album. Can we get to, let's move right into Desert Island tracks? We might as well. Yeah, so your Desert Island track is? The Lady of My Life. I would like to listen to this whole thing.

Another Rod Temperton classic. A Quiet Storm. Classic. Holy Quiet Storm. Almost smooth jazz-esque. We got some more Greg. I mean, the band here is insane. Jeff Picora's drumming on this.

Greg Philan Gaines, Paul Jackson, Jr. on guitar, Jeff Baccharo on drums, David Paiach on Since, Steve Bacchro on Since, Louis Johnson on Sons. Yes. Unbelievable band. And this is easy for them. This is easy. Hey. Man, those lines. Man, this is such a romantic.

I remember when I heard this song, I was like, I'm a romantic. I'm a romantic. I've tried to write this song at least 30 times. I've heard it a couple times. But the balance of the arrangement is so great. And it's kind of... Oh, it's that one to four. That's the smooth jazz, major one to minor 11-4.

You're like a bridge. Imagine there's just rain on the road. It's nighttime. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're heading down through the loop. Yeah, 1984. It's so epic.

And we're only halfway through the track, but we're about to vamp the second half. The whole melody is almost over. Yeah, we're all good with that, though. Yeah. Like that's the end of the thing. It's like a George Benson track. I mean, I know Rod wrote for George Benson, too.

The rest, he's just jamming. Oh. Paul Jackson. Hold up. I'm about to give you some perfect rhythm guitar. Bam! You got it. Louis John.

Two minutes of heaven here. Oh. Oh. Yes. Man, the ultimate reward. just that organic climaxing of it and the breakdown shout out to Jeff Baccaro too on the drums

It's unbelievable perfectly controlling percolating filling gays feeling gays knows what's to do unbelievable man it's a three minute vamp it's three minute melody

and a three minute to me this blows Billy Jean away like this is so much better than that sort of murderers row the Trinity of the hits here

not that they aren't great for pop songs they're great What are you like better? This track or girl is mine? A girl is mine. It's close. It's so different, man. It's like the... Oh, what he's singing as is fading out.

He goes back. He's like, I've been in the mountaintop. I'm going back. I could also see their... Open? Again, this goes against the plan of going, you know, mass appeal. Yeah. It's too nerdy.

It's too good. It's too beautiful. But it is such a great love song. But what a great reward you make to the... You know what I'm saying? This was the age of, like, you could... They didn't even sneak. this thing, because to me this is classic MJ.

And actually, a lot of people look, we're not the first ones to notice that this track is kind of in a league of its own, I think, even for all of Michael's stuff, and even for this record as great as it is. It doesn't really fit on Thriller, but I mean, maybe off the wall, but it doesn't really fit on that

either. It's kind of its own thing. Actually, it sounds a little bit more like something he would do off dangerous. Yeah. You know? I don't know. I mean, it's just, I don't know. I think this is Apex moment for Michael. and actually this is my desert on track but if you were to say anything from Michael

even above like I can't help it or something his emotional depth I mean he's he's all over this record killing it but this is the one where there's like an organic connection with the band it sounds like I mean I know this was probably it sounds like they're playing live yeah and it's like the greatest

studio band ever and it's very like there's a direct connection from this actually to like some later on you know adult can what is what they called not an adult you know, quiet storm, kind of adult contemporary stuff of that really set the tone for the 80s.

100%. Anita Baker. Anita Baker, for sure. Hello, sweet love. Sweet love. Ouse it to this for sure. The lady in my life is your Desert Island track. Mine is Baby Mine.

Now, those are the two that were not the singles. You know what? We're going against the grade jazz pianist, yeah. But they are the best tracks on the album. I think so, man. Apex Moments. You have MJ's solo at the end. Yeah, and it's really the last three minutes, man.

Mine I've already talked about, it is the, it is that moment of, well, there's the, there's two. I've got the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Mousa, Maka-a-Makusa, and I have the lift on baby, me, mine. Yeah, that's incredible. Those are great. Bespoke playlist title, what do you got? Um, I got album goats, like, as in, like, the greatest of all time albums just for, like, massive, you know, you're talking about, like, AC, D,C, back, and black, bodyguard, we talk about Whitney Houston, rumors, which

which we cover Fleetwell, my, massive albums, massive budgets, massive budgets. It's massive voodoo. You know, voodoo's not in terms of sales, but in terms of like just iconic, like album goats. You can argue about it if I like this, I don't like this, but like the world has spoken. Truly the greatest. And this is there.

It's the Mount Rushmore, but above the Mount Rushmore is thriller. Yeah. Everybody knows that. Mine is canceled classics. Quibble bits. Is it, no, no, let's double click on that. I'd rather that.

Right click on this. This is not, if this is canceled, we're canceled. No, no, no. It just doesn't, A. There's a difference between canceled and doesn't, but it's ages nicely. I don't know, man. Tenderoni? Come on, man.

We can't say Tenderoni. Can't say anything. Quibble bits. Okay, quibble bit. Well, I've talked about it the whole time, the program drums. Yeah, the program jumps is a quibble bit. Yeah, and I remember even at the time I was like,

because I was playing, like, we had a band actually at this time. We played Billy Jean. Shout out Chris Thomas playing it on the acoustic at first, then he got electric. And in C-sharp minor, which I think it was in, right? Yeah. Like it was a hard key. But it was like,

you know, I just love the drums and there's a lot of great drum I mean, and Doogu chants, every time he comes on here, I'm like puts a smile on my face. The program drums is my quibble bit. I agree, the program drums got better on bad. Oh, for sure. Like, the way the drums are used on bad, I think is peak Michael, like with that big gated snare sound on all those tracks.

Huge sound, unbelievable. We'll get more to that later because my quibble bit is, this is not as good as the other albums around it. Why is that a quibble bit? Well, we just said it at the beginning. Because it's talked about as if it's the iconic M&J album, but I think off the wall is a better album, and I think Thriller, or I think,

I think bad is a better album. I would agree. I think the songwriting is stronger on both those. I think the production overall is stronger. I think they went for mass appeal, and they got it, and I think they sacrificed some things that I like. Mission accomplished. Like, it's great.

And listen, when I was five years old, I loved all the mass appeal. Like, beat it was amazing because I didn't know what it could. If you hadn't have been born at the time you were, and me too at the time I had and heard that record, especially you hearing at that dancing in the kitchen.

Would we be here right now? No, of course not. So that's saying something. For sure. But I think as with some time passes and if I can try to take a little bit of the sentimentality out, which is almost impossible.

I think bad is even better than this. I agree. Man, I would almost put possible, what's the... Stop. Dangerous is not as good as. Does that remember? Remember the time is an amazing track. There's some other good track.

But dangerous is not as good as through. Okay. Better than KLB. No. Snobometer? One? Bigger than KLB. Yes.

Bigger than KLB, not better. Acutraman's. Oh, synomometer. I said one. I said one. I mean, the greatest selling album of all time

isn't... This is the first time we've agreed. We're clapping all over. Finally, we agreed. But look what I put. I put, or possibly five, just in case I was confused on it.

I'm not even going to validate that. Acutchevants, 10. This is an incredible... 10 out of 10. Maybe 11. This might be the greatest, like... Listen, we've all had it on vinyl.

We've all had it on CD. We bought the iTunes of it. Even on cassette. Right? There's a tiger. There's a baby tiger involved. The white suit. Not so you get to the inside.

So the album cover and press photos were shot by Dick Zimmerman. He says that the day of the shoot, he gathered the best outfits he could find and would let Michael choose what he wanted to wear. But Michael wasn't drawn to anything. Then he looked at Dick and remarked on how much he liked his white suit. Without time to go out and grab one, Dick said Michael could wear his. That's the suit on the album cover was the photographer's suit, the white suit, the iconic white suit. little baby tiger. That's so great.

And then the videos I would put as part of the accoutrements, which we don't usually talk about, especially for jazz albums. But the videos are, obviously, a million out of ten, world class. Greatest music videos ever.

Billy Jean, beat it. Never to be top, probably. Thriller. Even the girl is mine. Is it fun video. You know what I mean? Like with Paul and Michael and they're like,

I don't believe it. You know, like, I'm gonna own her and possessor. No, you are going to owner. Okay. I mean, that did not age one. But the thing with the accru, you know,

what was funny about the suit thing. There was a bunch of as calculating as this record was and as much budget and like care and attention to detail, especially with Michael just being control freak and having a vision of what he wanted and then layering Quincy. There was a lot

of kind of weird random things like Rod Temperton apparently wrote all those words that Vincent. We didn't even play the Vincent Price or name him really. That's a little side part of the novelty but all that stuff he says at the end which I always forgot. I always thought that was only in the video. That's on the album version too. He wrote that like on the way of the studio in the cab in LA

because he was like, oh, they wanted some talking stuff. And he's like, if I let somebody else write this, I'm not going to have the rights to this entire tune. So he scribbled that down like on a napkin as he's in the cab. No way. Yeah, all that. Good for him. Yeah.

Good for him. Up next, Peter, what do you got? I got off the wall. That's a great choice, man. That's a really great choice. Because it'll be, no. Can I tell you what was in my little four, five-year-old brain as this was a hit? Yeah.

Another album that stuck out, another video. that stuck out was from Lionel Richie's 1983, can't slow down. This was 83? Yeah, so this is, well, it's coming. What an optimistic time we were in. Oh, come on.

You know what I mean? Should we be doing Can't Slow Down 2? Is 83 our new 71? World music. What's the accent? Put in Mayo. In the ocean, where's he from? We don't know either.

This is all night long, obviously, from Lionel Richie's. Can't slow down. Mayo. Putamayo. Remember those from Starbucks? Putumayo. I like the accent. How good is this, though?

So great. This is very Toto-ass, very Jeff Pecora drumping. Fiesta. We respect all cultures. Come on and sing he long. I don't know why we're listening to it for so long. Because you know what? If you've made it this far, the pie, we love you.

We love you. You love us. Well, we don't know that. This is big in. This snuck in. Killing. Somehow in between. 100%. 120% killing.

I mean, as much as like Michael dominated, there were other hits that, 82 and 83 and 84. Well, this was fun, man. Thank you, Peter Martin. Did you guys press record that time? Fun fact for everyone who stuck around, we did the beginning of this podcast,

and then we were stopped. We thought for poor performance, but it turns out it was our tech team's poor performance of not pressing record. But it's all good. It's even better this time. Do we got a gala today? Yeah, didn't we have,

some kind of, I didn't print it out. Oh, you know what? Here's your gala. Here's your gala. Folks. Look at that. Got dog magic. If you know someone who likes MJ, who loves Thriller, but maybe doesn't know about our podcast. I mean, any of the billion people that have bought that record? That's right. Yes. Go on your phone right now. And you can go wherever you're listening to this,

whether that's YouTube, whether that's Spotify, whether that's Apple Podcasts. And you can click a little share icon. And you could share it and text your friend who loves Michael Jackson. Messaging rates may apply. We're not responsible for that. But text them this episode. So send them and ask them. Share to someone you love that loves MJ

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