“Thriller” – the single – turns 40

It’s arguably the most fiendish, most famous Halloween song of them all, yes, the title track of Michael Jackson’s 1982 album, “Thriller”, turns 40 years old as a single this month. The track, with it’s lengthy video, has been captivating hundreds of millions of fans for decades now, which is surprising, as the song was the seventh and final release from the album, which itself came out in Novemeber 1982.

Although “Thriller” may never have happened as we know it from the song Rod Temperton (1949-2016) originally composed, which was titled “Starlight”. It was producer Quincy Jones (b.1933) that took things to another, creepier level, moving the title from “Starlight” to “Midnight Man” and eventually, “Thriller”. Temperton jumped on board and even managed to work in a ghoulish bridge to the song as well as obtaining the services of legendary horror actor Vincent Price (1911-1993) to perform it, although this was criminally lost on the edited verion of the single.

Both Tempterton and Jones, along with Jacko himself, then began to conceive “Thriller” as a mini movie with the intention of filming an epic visual for the single release. In the end, film director John Landis (‘An American Werewolf In London’) shot the 13 minute piece for the five minute song at a cost of $500,000 ($1.5m in today’s money), then the most expensive promo ever made for a Pop song. MTV, Showtime and Vestron all chipped in to make it happen, while home cinema giants VHS and Betamax (remember them?) also jumped on board to market and sell the video to consumers.

“Thriller” was bound to be a smash hit upon released, despite many people having already bought the album a year earlier. MTV showed the video 24 hours a day for weeks and it also saw cinematic release, clawing back the massive budget spent on it in no time at all. “Thriller” peaked at No.4 in America and has gone on to sell, including downloads and streaming, nearly 11 million copies. Internationally it was a similar story with the single charting top ten in thirty countries worldwide and although it only made it as far a No.10 in the UK, it has shifted over 1.7 million copies.

“Thriller” is a product of its time and its scope, sound and presence could never be replicated or even attempted again by any artist even big enough today to even try. For all those young and old in the 80’s, this was and still is a ‘big deal’ and a song that, perhaps, only comes out once a year for an airing…if you dare!

“Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorise y’all’s neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse’s shell“

Happy Halloween!