Okay, so let me start by saying that I totally understand that for a lot of people Michael Jackson is off the menu, and I get that. I am not going to have a long discussion about what he may have done and why he may have done it, so if you want to bail on this post now, I do not blame you; there will be another song tomorrow, and I hope you'll swing back by then.
Having grown up in the 80's and 90's, Michael Jackson is as much a part of my youth as VHS players and the NES, and I would say that the song "Thriller" (or more specifically, the video) was as influential to the direction my tastes would take as "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or Stephen King. They actually showed us the "Thriller" video (and the accompanying Making-Of) in school. I must have been in the first grade and they absolutely sat us down in that brightly lit, yellow painted classroom and showed us the full length video for "Thriller".
I think that part of the point of showing it to us in school was to show us that movie monsters were all fake, and showing us a (honestly still quite interesting) documentary approximately twice as long as the actual mini-movie it was about would demystify how monsters like those are created.
It is my memory that everyone pretty much liked it (everyone whose parents signed permission slips anyway, it may have been the 80's, but there were stills standards), but I know I did, and it totally set me on the road to my love of zombies to this day (you may have noticed a few zombie themed tunes on my list). Without "Thriller" I would likely have never become interested in "Of The Dead" films, or even the (IMO) lesser "Return of the Living Dead" films, would possibly have never read comics like "Zombie World" or "The Walking Dead", and may never have been inspired to write "Mallville: A Journal of the Zombie Apocalypse" a decade ago. As you may be able to tell, this song is important to me.
What more could you really ask for in a song? It has a fantastic sound and beat, creepy lyrics, and even Vincent freakin' Price (although that "terrorize y'alls neighbourhood" line has always bugged me). Add to that a video directed by John Landis (another figure with some serious controversy on him, actually) stuffed full of fabulously choreographed zombies and a perhaps less fabulous wolf transformation for Michael Jackson, and you have a song that is still a Halloween classic going on 40 years later (unless of course who are someone who has taken MJ off your personal menu).
Here is that full length video that I watched as a wee child in that classroom oh so many years ago:
And here is the making of video:
And here is Vincent Price performing (a perhaps slightly rushed version of) the "Thriller" rap for Joan Rivers on The Tonight Show:
That laugh though... man.
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