40 Years Ago - 1982 Michael Jackson released his sixth album Thriller.
Jackson wanted to create an album where "every song was a killer." (I think he succeeded.)
Seven singles were released and all went top 10 which set a record. Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time, with sales of 70 million copies worldwide. It is the best selling non-compilation album and second-best-selling album overall in the United States and was certified 34× platinum. It won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, while "Beat It" won Record of the Year.
The singles:
"The Girl Is Mine" duet with Paul McCartney (#2 #1 R&B and AC) (personally, this is a terrible song.."Say Say Say" is a much better duet (#1 #2 R&B and released before the "Thriller" single but it's on Paul's album..so that's next year)
"Billie Jean" (#1 Hot 100 AC and R&B)
"Beat It" w/Eddie Van Halen on Guitar solo. The engineers were shocked during the recording of Van Halen's solo to discover that the sound of his guitar had caused the monitor speaker in the control room to catch fire, causing one to exclaim, "This must be really good!"(#1 Hot 100 and R&B #14 Mainstream Rock)
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' " (#5 Hot 100 and R&B)
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