The 50(ish) Greatest Albums Of All Time…
Michael Jackson & A Thriller of an NYE
Album #1 : Michael Jackson — Thriller
“Wanna be startin’ something’?” asks the first track of the first album I listened to this year. The answer is yes, Michael, I wanna be startin’ two (some)thin’s.
Actually, three. The first thing I wanna be startin’ is the correct use of grammar. The second is listening to, and writing about, some bloody good albums and the third thing to start is a new year, 2021.
Let’s be startin’ with the album.
Where do you start when trying to decide which is the greatest album ever? Musical ingenuity? Long-lasting influence? Well, let’s keep this simple. Why not start with THE BEST-SELLING RECORD OF ALL TIME?
Because that is what Michael Jackson’s Thriller is. It is the best-selling record of all time. Thriller has sold 66 million copies. That’s quite a lot of records. (Early contender for understatement of the year there). It holds the record for the longest time at #1 of the Billboard album chart, it broke the record for the most Grammy’s in a year and it holds the record for the most American Music Awards in a year.
It also set the (matched, but still unbeaten) record for the most singles from an album reaching at least #10 in the Billboard singles chart. All 7 singles reached the top #10… there are only 9 songs on the album.
Simply put, that means that Thriller is full of absolute bangers. It probably has the strongest middle order of any pop record ever. Thriller? Banger. Beat It? Banger. Billie Jean? Banger. Ask anyone to name their top 5 MJ songs and chances are at least two of those will be in there.
It also holds the record, in my opinion, for the most bizarre in-song conversation ever, as Paul McCartney and The King of Pop himself argue over the affections of a girl on The Girl Is Mine. Maybe this is my woke-liberal-leftie-feminism creeping in, but have you tried asking her for her opinion, lads? Men, honestly!
What is so brilliant about Thriller is its simplicity. It is one of the best albums ever because it is just straight-up, accessible pop music which is very, very good. Simple, but effective.
So, that’s the record then — what of the other thing we wanna be startin’? A new year! Well, sometimes you must look back to move forward so let’s have a quick look back at how 2020 went…
OK. That was an error.
I’m joking, sort of. 2020 wasn’t all bad — there are some things I learned from the last year that I am going to try and carry forward into 2021 but basically they all boil down to one quotable phrase, which is…
It’s OK not to be OK.
2020 was rough. But when asked to think about what exactly was so bad, I am hard pushed to explain beyond a vague gesture at the world around me. It was more like there was just a general veil of dread about the place and that, understandably, can really wear you down (another understatement there). It took me a while to realise it, and even longer to accept it, but now I understand that it’s ok to admit you’re not always 100% — it’s normal to feel like that and I think most people were feeling that way for most of the year too.
So, I’m going to take that forward into 2021 — the understanding, not the existential dread. I actually spent NYE on my own this year as my other half was on nightshift but I zoomed and chatted and it was nice, if not particularly wild. Then, on New Year’s Day, I went for a walk, called my mum and took this lovely photo of a bridge…
Ideally at this point I would think of a clever way to neatly tie-in my New Year’s realisation with my thoughts on Michael Jackson’s Thriller, but sometimes life doesn’t work like that.
And I suppose that’s ok.
Thanks for reading — I am trying to review 50(ish) of the best albums ever over the course of 2021. A reminder that you can get to a list of all the albums here.
