0645. Michael Jackson
Thriller
At first I thought this'd be another of the Got To Gets,
making the self-professed King of Pop the first ever with two on that list.
(here comes the "but")
But as that was based on my remembrance of the album (haven't listened to it
for years) it's of course the title track, along with Beat It and Billie
Jean that colors my recollection of Thriller with a fantastic shimmer that
glosses over the lesser numbers.
But (again), those three are amazingly good - almost enough to push the
whole album into the stratosphere.
Billie Jean's also notable for being acknowledged as the video that broke the color barrier on MTV, as the channel was very restrictive in playing videos featuring non-white artists (this of course only happened after severe pressure from Jackson's label), while the video for Thriller created history in it's own way by being a short movie and probably the longest video that MTV by popular demand has been forced to ait the most times (also: dancing zombies!).
This is classic MJ, and just almost as good as Bad.
