Songful Style: “Thriller!”

Trigger Warning: Content contains references to child SA.

Well, Fall has well and truly come to Central Indiana, and it looks like it’s staying around for a bit. The strange thing is many trees still have green leaves, but they’re falling anyway (the leaves, not the trees). It’s a glorious time of year for me. It’s when you start to bring out all the cozy things, and the colors are just…well, glorious! I decorated the outside with a few colorful mums, some artificial pumpkins (I can use them over and over) and some fairy lights. It’s looking a bit festive here at Haus der Mitte! And, as luck would have it, we had a full moon when I took the photos! It only seemed appropriate to include a shot in the post! Anyway, welcome to the last Monday of the month and another edition of Songful Style! Suzy and Shelbee decided to riff (see what I did there) on Style Imitating Art only with music! Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, Suzy of Suzy Turner, and I make up the bloggers in this group. You can find all of us on our blogs and Instagram.  Our ensembles (pun intended) may be inspired by the lyrics of a song, the artwork of the album cover, maybe the MTV video, or even a memory the song evokes. Shelbee chose this month’s song, and it’s definitely seasonal! Last month, I gave the prompt, any song from Phantom of the Opera. That left it wide open. Surprisingly, Shelbee and I both chose “Think of Me.” Suzy went with the vibes of the entire opera (and killed it). Next month, Suzy has chosen an oldie but a goodie (can I say that about a song from the 90s) with “November Rain” by Guns N Roses. And, don’t forget! There’s a link party, too!

The artist…

Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana.  This is going to be one of those tough pieces to write, I’m going to be completely honest with you.  I loved Michael Jackson, but I have questions.  Man, do I have question.  This is going to be a short biography because, quite honestly, I could probably write a few blog posts on Michael Jackson alone.  If you want to know more, and I hope you do, click through the sources I list below.  Many of them are much more in-depth than I’m going to go. 

Early life…

The eighth of ten children (a twin brother to Marlon died shortly after birth), Michael made his debut as the lead singer of the Jackson 5 when he was six. All eleven members of the family lived in a two-bedroom home on Jackson Street. Michael once said, “You could take five steps from the front door and you’d be out the back.” His mother, Katherine, appeared to be the genesis of the musical talent in the family. She played clarinet, cello, and piano. Although she wanted to be a country western performer, she ended up working part time at Sears and raising her large family. Joe was a former boxer and crane operator at US Steel. He also played guitar for a local R & B group.

Jackson 5…

The Jackson 5, originally the Jackson Brothers, was signed by Motown Records in 1968.  The group was an instantaneous success!  Their first four singles, “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There” reached number one on the pop charts in 1970…something never achieved by a group before this.  Michael was considered a prodigy as he “handled the lead vocals, danced with energy and finesse, and displayed a degree of showmanship rare in a performer of any age.” 

Harsh childhood…

Several members of the Jackson family recall Joseph was very strict with the kids. His disciplinary methods included physical abuse. “As Michael later recounted, ‘He’d sit at home with us every day after school and rehearse us. We’d perform for him and he’d critique us. If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch.’ The brothers rehearsed for hours each day and started their careers as the Jackson 5 in clubs on the Chitlin Circuit. While in no way excusing or condoning Joe Jackson, I have to give him props for seeing the talent his sons shared and figuring out ways to get them noticed.

Early years…

Young Michael observed James Brown and Jackie Wilson from backstage, watching and learning from their performances.  In those early years, Kathrine made the loud outfits the brothers wore.  Their huge Afros as well as their snazzy choreography and “youthful, soulful exuberance” helped them to become immediate successes.  In 1972, Michael gained an early solo success with the number one hit song, “Ben” which was the title song from “a movie about a boy and his homicidal pet rat.”  He followed that up with “Rockin’ Robin.”  Michael continued to record with his brothers during this time. The Jackson 5 remained under contract with Motown through 1975 and earned two Grammy nominations.

King of Pop…

Known as the King of Pop, Jackson, as a solo performer, introduced the world to such things as spectacle and pop culture celebrity.  And then there are the street dance moves…the moonwalk, the robot, and the anti-gravity lean.  I’m not sure anyone has ever done it better, but I rarely watch MTV anymore…do they even show music videos these days?  Of course, there was also his sequined glove, the white socks with black loafers, and his (sometimes bizarre) makeup.  All of these things “became embedded in the cultural firmament.”  The release of “Thriller” in 1982 was probably the zenith of Jackson’s career.  That album has been certified 28 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Voice…

As expected, Jackson’s voice and vocal style changed as he aged.  Between 1971 and 1975, it “descended from boy soprano to lyric tenor.”  He was also known for both his intonation and vocal range.  After the release of Off the Wall in the late 70s, Rolling Stone compared “his vocals to the ‘breathless, dreamer stutter’ of Stevie Wonder, and wrote that ‘Jackson’s feather-timbred tenor [was] extraordinarily beautiful.  It slides smoothly into a startling falsetto that’s used very daringly.  When Thriller was released in the early 1980s, Rolling Stone wrote that Jackson was singing in a ‘fully adult voice’ that was ‘tinged by sadness.’ With the release of the introspective album Dangerous, The New York Times wrote that on some tracks ‘he gulps for breath, his voice quivers with anxiety or drops to a desperate whisper, hissing through clenched teeth” and he had a “wretched tone”. When singing of brotherhood or self-esteem he would return to “smooth” vocals. Of Invincible, Rolling Stone wrote that Jackson still performed “exquisitely voiced rhythm tracks and vibrating vocal harmonies. Joseph Vogel noted Jackson’s ability to use non-verbal sounds to express emotion.  Neil McCormick wrote that Jackson’s unorthodox singing style ‘was original and utterly distinctive’”.

Fifth studio album…

In 1979, Jackson released his fifth solo album (and first as an adult).  Off the Wall “marked his transition from the bubblegum pop of his youth to more complex sounds.”  The album reached number three on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.  He won the Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance with “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”  He continued to win more awards over the next several years.  Jackson, however, was not happy with the performance of Off the Wall and decided his next album would surpass expectations.  In 1980, he was paid the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37% of wholesale album profits.

Thriller…

That next album was Thriller!  It was released on November 29, 1982 and became the best-selling album worldwide in 1983, the best-selling album of all time in the US and globally, and sold an estimated 70 million copies.  It also topped the Billboard 200 for 37 weeks and “remained in the chart’s top 10 for 80 consecutive weeks. Thriller became the first album to generate seven top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including the number-one hits, “Billie Jean” and “Beat It.”   When NBC aired Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever on May 16, 1983 (with an audience of 47 million), Jackson’s solo of “Billie Jean” earned him his first Emmy nomination.  Three years prior, Jeffrey Daniel taught him the moonwalk which he debuted, wearing that famous rhinestone-studded glove.  “His performance received widespread acclaim: Rolling Stone‘s Mikal Gilmore called it ‘extraordinary’, and The New York Times critic  Anna Kisselgoff praised the timing and technique of his dancing, while Gordy said he was ‘mesmerized.’”

Awards…

In 1984, at the 26^th Annual Grammy Awards, Jackson received 12 nominations and won eight awards.  Thriller got 13 nominations, the most for any album, and won eight awards.  Jackson received seven awards related to the album, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for “Beat It.”  At the 11^th Annual American Music Awards, he won another eight awards and “and became the youngest artist to receive the Award of Merit. Thriller’s sales doubled after the release of an extended music video for its title track! 

Later life…

During the next several years, Jackson would produce several more albums, win more awards, get married (first to Lisa Marie Presley, then to Debbie Rowe), have two children with Debbie Rowe, get divorced twice, and have a third child by surrogacy.  Also during that time, he co-wrote (with Lionel Ritchie) the song, “We Are the World,” to raise funds for the severely drought stricken country, Ethiopia.  The song and video resulted in $80 million ($235 million in today’s dollars).  The song was “created explicitly for non-profit relieve under the organization USA for Africa, all commercial proceeds went directly toward combating the devastating 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia and supporting domestic hunger programs in the United States.”

Controversy…

Of course, no biography of Michael Jackson could be written without the controversies surrounding his appearance and his association with young children.  In the early 80s, Jackson’s skin began to change as the result of the chronic autoimmune condition, vitiligo.  His dermatologist, Arnold Klein, observed this in 1983 and also identified discoid lupus erythematosus. Vitiligo created patches where his skin had lightened considerably.  In order to mask the condition, Jackson began to wear lighter makeup.  In 1993, he talked about his condition on the Oprah Winfrey Show.  He began to use a depigmentation medication.  Dermatologists refer to this as medical depigmentation rather than cosmetic bleaching.  I’m assuming there were many more patches of lighter skin than darker so it made sense to try to even out his complexion with lightening the darker patches.  Jackson only ever confessed to three cosmetic surgeries…two nose jobs and a cleft chin.  His mother, however, said he became addicted to cosmetic surgery.  I often wondered if he’d looked back at videos and thought, “There, right there is when I should have stopped.”  I feel sad when I think about this.  How sad to look in the mirror and think what you saw was so bad you’d have surgery to correct it…over and over again! 

Accusations and trial…

During the 80s, Jackson faced public scrutiny for his associations with younger children as well as his lifestyle.  He was accused of SA with a child in 1993 and settled out of court in 1994.  In 2005, he was tried and acquitted on other child SA charges.  In May 2002, Martin Bashir led a documentary film crew around Jackson for several months.  The documentary was broadcast in February 2003.  It showed Jackson holding hands with a 12 year old boy as well as talking about sleeping arrangements with that child.  Jackson “discussed seeing nothing wrong with having sleepovers with minors and sharing his bed and bedroom with various people, which aroused controversy. He insisted that the sleepovers were not sexual and that his words had been misunderstood.^”   On December 18, 2003, Jackson was charged with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of intoxicating a minor with alcoholic drinks.  He denied the allegations and pled not guilty.  The People v. Jackson trial began on January 31, 2005 and lasted until the end of May.  He was acquitted of all counts on June 13, 2005.  FBI files, released in 2009, showed the FBI found no evidence of criminal conduct.  The experience and knowing conviction could mean up to 20 years in prison took its toll on Jackson’s health. 

Money troubles…

Jackson moved to Bahrain and never returned to Neverland.  He was one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with “estimated sales of more than 500 million records worldwide as a solo artist.”  But, somehow or other, he was pretty much broke and had to put up a piece of his ATV catalog stake (no idea what that is but it was worth about $1 billion) as collateral against his many loans.  It’s all a complicated mess to me.  It’s another of those cases of mismanagement by someone, right?  Jackson was still out there, including a residency in London with record-breaking sales.  These concerts were to run from July 13, 2009 to March 6, 2010. 

Death…

I will never forget June 25, 2009.  We were in Charleston at our daughter’s house, and our son and his wife were there, too.  It was their fourth wedding anniversary.  I remember a news break reporting Jackson’s death.  He was only 50 years old and died from cardiac arrest, caused by a propofol and benzodiazepine overdose, administered by his personal physician, Conrad Murray.  A 911 call was placed 12:21 pm.  Medical assistance arrived four minutes later.  Jackson was not breathing, and CPR was performed.  This continued while en route to the hospital and for more than an hour after arriving at the hospital.  Those efforts were unsuccessful, and Jackson was pronounced dead at 2:26pm.  The public was informed at 2:44pm.  Websites actual crashed as people rushed to discover more.  His memorial service was held on July 7, 2009 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.  It was preceded by a private family service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park’s Hall of Liberty.  “Over 1.6 million fans applied for tickets to the memorial; the 8,750 recipients were drawn at random, and each received two tickets.  The memorial service was one of the most watched events in streaming history, with an estimated US audience of 31.1 million and a worldwide audience of an estimated 2.5 to 3 billion.^” I wonder if those tickets cost money and who got that money. 

The sources…

Wikipedia

Rock Hall

Billboard

Biography

Michael Jackson Legacy

Britannica

History

OK Magazine

Yahoo News

Rolling Stone

The lyrics…

What it means…

“Thriller” was written by Rod Temperton and produced by Quincy Jones.  Usually, I can figure out the meaning of a song or find something on the internet.  This time, however, everything seemed to center around the music video rather than the song itself.  So, begrudgingly, I used the AI generated answer.  It’s a “playful date song and horror metaphor…using campy horror sound effects, a pulsing synth bassline, and Vincent Price’s spoken-word rap to mimic a classic B-movie experience.”  In addition, “The Romantic Twist – Lyrically and narratively, the scary midnight setting acts as a setup.  As the terror peaks, the singer reassures his date that there’s ‘no second chance against the thing with forty eyes,’ turning a ghoulish scare into an excuse for them to hold onto each other tightly.”  Further meaning could include: “Ambition and Cinematic Pop Music.  Turning Music into Cinema: Michael Jackson was deeply inspired by film. He hired Hollywood director John Landis to turn the track into a nearly 14-minute mini-movie because he wanted to push the boundaries of storytelling in the young MTV era. Reviving Album Sales: Released as the seventh single from the Thriller album when sales began to slow down, the blockbuster video transformed the track into a cultural phenomenon that cemented the record as the best-selling album in history.  Cultural and Societal Interpretations: Bridging Divides: Scholars and music critics note that Jackson’s accessible, high-energy theatricality allowed him to cross racial and demographic barriers on television and radio.  Playful Subversion of Fear: By turning zombies and werewolves into synchronized dancers rather than truly menacing threats, the project converted societal dread and monsters into clean, stylized pop-culture fun that defined Halloween and pop history.”

The video…

A live (shortened) version…

I had never seen this, but look at the passion in his face as he’s dancing. There’s no doubting the man loved what he did…everything! I do wonder, though, when he puts that mask on, if he’s been lip syncing the whole time. There doesn’t seem to be any difference in the sound of his voice. Wouldn’t it be a bit muffled? Of course, the mic may have been underneath the mask which would explain that.

Interesting covers…

I give them props for the whole vibe of the video, and the singer does a good job with the song. But, there’s a passion lacking for this song, don’t you think?

A very different take on the song, and I don’t know exactly how I feel about it. No spooky vibes, nothing scary at all, but I love the jazz aspect.

Hmmm….nice try on the singer’s part, but this leaves me a little cold. I do have to say the addition of the brass is interesting. But, c’mon, guys! This is “Thriller!” You’ve got to do something beyond having one dude with black nails and a funky ‘do!

If you need a little giggle…

I knew my buddy, Leo, would have this covered! Now, one would never claim Leo can dance (well, he’s better than I am), but this is a fun cover. It’s heavy metal as one expects from Leo, but it’s definitely different!

My interpretation…

OK, now I rarely buy something for a style challenge, and I didn’t for this one. But, it just so happened I bought this Crepe Sari Pixie Duster from Kantha Bae. Lately, they’ve been tie dying everything so I try to find things that are the original fabric. This one, however, needed no second thoughts! I pounced because I knew someone else would soon buy it. And, isn’t it perfect for this song? The black, the red, the prints? I added a black lace Halftee and tulle skirt for some extra Goth effect. Because these dusters run long and wide, I used my ever faithful black leather obi belt to draw everything together.

The Lewk!

I didn’t have a pearl studded glove or sparkly white socks, so I decided to add the sparkle in my jewelry. The necklace and earrings are from J Crew a few years ago. The two bracelets are from Brighton. And, I’m sure you’ve recognized my black leather Miz Mooz Leighton boots. Y’all, I have been so impressed with every single pair of footwear I’ve bought. They are beautiful, comfortable from the get go, and just downright beautiful…IMHO.

Wrap it up, Marsha!

As I said at the beginning, I loved Michael Jackson. I loved his music; I loved watching his videos; I loved the kookiness he seemed to live with. But, what I can’t wrap my head around are the allegations against him. I think, at its core, Michael Jackson never grew up. He never had the chance to grow up and have a normal childhood. He was out there working when he was just five years old. Think about that for a moment. When he got older in years and in body, I don’t really think, in his mind, he did. I don’t know what to make of the allegations. The payouts seem to point to guilt, don’t they? My youngest son was a huge fan, but he won’t listen to Jackson’s music anymore due to the allegations which he believes to be true. So, can we talk? What is your favorite Michael Jackson song? Do you believe an artist’s (of any type) behavior then cancels out the catalog of what they’ve created? Do you believe Michael Jackson was guilty of SA? Please leave me a comment or two, and we can talk. I promise to respond as quickly as I can.

Thank you!

Thank you so very much for reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed it. I also very much appreciate those of you who comment, email and/or subscribe. It’s what keeps me going! If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, you can find me here.

Affiliate links, discount codes, and such:

Just a reminder that Marsha in the Middle may use an affiliate link. Those links are usually italicized. If you click or make a purchase from an italicized link I provide, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.  My April Cornell code, MARSHA15, now works, but it’s good for only one use. You can get $15 off $100. I’d wait and use it during a really good sale! Use Marsha12 for 12% off any order of $65 or more at Buykud. I have also become a Halftee Partner. Use the code, MARSHA15, for 20% off any purchase. I am also an affiliate with Clara Sunwoo. You can use my code, MARSHA10, for 10% off your entire order. Use MARSHA15 at Katia Designs for 15% off your order. I now have a code for Tulip Clothing. Use the code, MARSHA20, for 20% off your order. I’m proud to say I also have a code for Lintico. Please use LINTICOMBK for 10% off your purchase. In case you didn’t know, bloggers must disclose the use of affiliate links. That’s why I include this in each post.

Where you can find me:

Linking up with Nancy’s Fashion Style,  Is this Mutton, and Shelbee on the Edge. I also link up with I do deClaire, Mummabstylish, Style Splash as well as the Senior Salon Pit Stop and Slices of Life. Please check out these wonderful ladies and their blogs! I also am a co-host for Ageless Style on the third Thursday of the month and Songful Style on the last Monday of the month as well as the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday. I now co-host Fashion Files with Amy at Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa every Tuesday. I co-host Traffic Jam Weekend every Thursday with Melynda, Lisa, Cat, and Rena. I also host 10 on the 10th on the 10th of the month! I do hope you’ll check out all of these blogs and link parties!

And, now, it’s your turn!

Please link up your favorite posts, DIY, baking, gardening, fashion…you name it…as long as it’s family friendly! Link up with me, visit a couple of others, and leave a comment or two! No worries if you don’t have a blog, just look around! You may find a new blog just waiting for you!

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