OMG The Night Michael Jackson’s Thriller LITERALLY Broke MTV and Changed Music Forever
By: koalafriend
Y'all, let's spill some major tea. Gather round because we need to talk about the moment pop culture had a full on main character moment and was never, ever the same again. We are talking about the night the world stopped turning to watch a music video. Not just any music video. We are talking about the one. The only. Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Before we dive into the iconic zombie dance and that legendary red leather jacket, you have to get the picture. It is 1983. MTV is the cool new kid on the block, but its playlist is, let's be real, a little basic. It was mostly just videos of rock bands standing on a stage, looking kinda bored. They were basically moving commercials for songs. And let us not forget, the channel was facing serious criticism for barely playing Black artists. It was a whole thing.
Then came Michael Jackson.
The King of Pop had already started to crack the code with the videos for Billie Jean and Beat It. He proved that a Black artist could not only be on MTV but could completely dominate it. The Thriller album was already a monster success, but MJ was not satisfied. He was an artist with a vision bigger than a three minute song promo. He wanted to create an EVENT. A short film. A cinematic masterpiece that would snatch everyone’s wigs. And OMG did he deliver.
Instead of just grabbing any old music video director, Michael made a power move. He called up John Landis, the genius director behind the horror comedy classic An American Werewolf in London. MJ saw that movie and was so obsessed he knew Landis was the only one who could bring his spooky, cinematic dream to life. The record label thought he was completely insane, especially when they saw the budget. At an estimated 500,000 dollars, it was the most expensive music video ever made at the time. The label literally refused to pay for it.
But Michael knew. He and Landis were so confident in their vision that they financed the project by creating a behind the scenes documentary, The Making of Thriller, and selling it to Showtime and MTV. This was a totally unprecedented move. They were not just making a music video; they were creating an entire media package. A pop culture takeover.
And the video itself. It was pure magic. A 14 minute epic that starts as a sweet 1950s date movie before turning into a full blown horror flick. We get the movie within a movie, the iconic transformation into a werecat, and that unforgettable moment when Michael turns to his date with those glowing yellow eyes. Chills. Literal chills.
Then comes the masterstroke. The dead rise from their graves, and Michael, now a zombie himself, leads them in the most legendary dance routine in history. The choreography was sharp, spooky, and so incredibly cool that kids all over the world spent the next decade trying to copy it in their living rooms. To top it all off, they brought in the master of horror himself, Vincent Price, for that creepy, goosebump-inducing voiceover. It was not just a music video. It was a blockbuster movie that you could watch for free in your own home.
On December 2, 1983, MTV premiered Thriller, and the world collectively lost its mind. It was not just played. It was an event that MTV hyped for days. When it finally aired, it was so popular that the network started playing it twice an hour just to meet audience demand. People would literally plan their nights around when Thriller was going to be on. Can you even imagine that today.
The impact was immediate and earth shattering. The Thriller video singlehandedly turned music videos from a marketing afterthought into a legitimate art form. Suddenly, every artist wanted a cinematic, high concept video. Budgets soared. Storylines became essential. Michael Jackson had raised the bar so high that he created an entirely new industry standard. He cemented MTV as the cultural center of the universe for an entire generation.
And the album sales. This is where it gets truly wild. The Thriller album was already a hit, but the video sent it into a completely different galaxy. It shot back up to number one on the charts more than a year after its initial release. The video was a cultural phenomenon so massive it propelled the album to sell an estimated 70 million copies worldwide, making it the best selling album of all time. A record that still stands today. That is the power of a game changing video.
Today, the Thriller video is more than just a pop culture moment. It is a historical artifact. It was the first music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, recognized as a work of art that is culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant.
So next time you see that red jacket or hear that spooky opening bassline, remember it is not just a great song or a cool video. It was a revolution. It was the moment Michael Jackson looked at the rulebook, threw it out the window, and rewrote it himself, creating a 14 minute epic that changed music, television, and pop culture forever. And honestly, we are all still shook.
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