Thriller 25

Spotify has the Michael Jackson Thriller 25 Super Deluxe Edition.  It contains the original tracks plus remixes, interviews, unreleased tracks, demos, and interviews.  For those of you who have enjoyed listening to this masterful album over the years, it is worth a listen.

One of the tracks I had never heard of was a grammy-winning track for th E.T. soundtrack called "Someone in the Dark."  It is a touching, slow ballad that reminds me of the artist's 1975 hit "One Day In Your Life." The soft tracks like this are characteristic of Jackson's younger years.  When he got older he had bigger beats with edgier, more grating vocals.

A softer song that has a swing to it that did not make it on Thriller was the song "Carousel."  It is a very short song of 1:50.  It did not make it on the final album because producer Quincy Jones said it did not fit with the other tracks.

Everyone in the world knows Billie Jean.  This story was written by Michael Jackson from a real life experience he had where a crazy woman he had dated accused him of being the father of one of her two twins!  Thriller 25 has a home demo of Jackson singing and humming the unfinished lyrics.

The interviews with Quincy Jones are particularly interesting because he explains in a very straightforward, casual fashion how he got Eddie Van Halen to play guitar for "Beat It," how Paul McCartney got into "The Girl Is Mine," and how the album broke down many barriers and had such mass appeal.

The most interesting part of the whole album to me was the explanation of Vincent Price's poem in the middle of Thriller.  Songwriter Rod Temperton had written the entire song Thriller.  He had always envisioned a talking portion at the end.  He thought of having a "famous voice in the horror genre to do the vocal."  Since Quincy Jones' wife knew Vincent Price they automatically tried him.  Temperton did not have the vocal part written, even the night before the session where Price was supposed to come to the studio! Temperton hammered it out at the very last minute the day of the session and Price did it in two takes, a remarkable achievement according to Quincy Jones because the cadence had to be right and you could not stretch tape back then.  There were three verses written for Price but only two were used in the final product.