True legends have that one movie, television show or album that solidified their legendary status. Whitney Houston had the Bodyguard soundtrack, Marlon Brando had the Godfather movies and Denzel Washington had the movie Malcolm X. Michael's was Thriller; a album that had nine songs that produced two number one hits and seven top ten hits. Thriller was number one on the billboard charts for 37 weeks in a row and supposedly sold one million copies every week. Thriller is also the best selling album of all time in America and Worldwide. Thriller won a record eight Grammys in 1984 and eight American Music Awards that same year. This past Friday, November 30th, Thriller celebrated 30 years and when I think about that milestone, I think about how much of an impact the album made in Michael's life and the lives of his family. I think about the impact that the album made in the music business and I also think about how the album changed the way we listen to music forever. I am not going to do this entry to talk about the impact because that is well known and documented. Rather, I am going to talk about what I like from that time in his life. The Thriller album created the "eras" that artists experience during a certain time their work has been released. For example, the word, "Era" means a time period and in regards to Michael, from 1982 to 1985, that time period was known as the Thriller era.
The classic Thriller album.