22. Invisible Touch by Genesis

 22. Invisible Touch by Genesis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpmiZ7zsHXY&list=OLAK5uy_kSuRYdMa1N5VchHRcr5qSLo8AsFcXNwos

When this album came out in June of 1986, I had just returned from the heart of Sweden in Dalarna back to my beloved Sodermanland, where I was district leader in Esklistuna. Now, I have nothing against the city of Eskilstuna, but we called the area in which our apartment was located the "Concrete Jungle." It was a large section of multi-story apartment buildings with mostly immigrants and young, poor Swedes. I had both good companions and not-so-good companions during my time in Eskilstuna. And during one of the not-so-good companions, I looked for any opportunity to extract even a tiny little bit of joy from tracting for 10 hours a day and getting rejected by almost everyone we came in contact with. One steady source of joy was the local burger joint where we could get a burger and fries and sit down and eat them as slowly as possible while the MTV played on the television. One night, to my delight and horror, a Genesis video started to play. I was delighted because it was a new Genesis song that I had never heard before. I was horrified because it featured these freaky looking muppets that were satirizing Ronald Reagan and his vision of America as a nuclear superpower. 

Now, I wasn't a big fan of Ronald Reagan in 1986, but I had voted for him in '84 election because my other choice was Walter Mondale--who managed to only win his home state of Minnesota that election. (My father--a true-blue Democrat--would have been super upset if he had known how I'd voted.) However, when I went to Sweden, I started to really dislike Reagan, not necessarily because of how his policies had destroyed jobs for local truck drivers AND farmers, but because of all the angry Swedes that yelled at me at their front door because of bombs Reagan had dropped somewhere else on the planet. Swedes really dislike war, and they really disliked Reagan's policies when it came to building more and bigger nuclear weapons. 

Anyway, I knew that this new Genesis video was going to make my life more difficult. Yet, I couldn't help but enjoy watching it. I mean, it's got two things that I really love--Genesis music and freaky muppets! 

Over that summer, I got to hear many of the other songs on the album, and I instantly loved "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight," "In Too Deep," and "Throwing It All Away" because they were perfect songs for The Great Depression soundtrack. So when I got home and found out that my brother-in-law's record collection included this album, I made a tape of it. Actually, I made a tape of all the songs except for "Anything She Does," "Domino," and "The Brazilian"--the three weakest songs of the album. But the other songs were so damn good that they became an important part of my post-mission Great Depression playlist. They have a quality about them that is very similar to the Phil Collins' songs on No Jacket Required. Some music critics have said that is a problem with the album because it signals a change from the kind of music Genesis had created in the past towards a more pop-oriented sound. But in my opinion,  I think that it is a good thing. See, the band had put out the Trick of the Tail album 10 years earlier, and although the critics liked it, the band didn't see a single hit song from it. Some said this meant that with Peter Gabriel leaving the band, the fact that the album had no hit songs meant the group was headed towards obscurity with Phil Collins as the lead singer. But 10 years later, that same band puts out an album with five charting songs from an album with only 9 songs on it. So, yeah, music critics, it's okay to like earlier stuff, but lets face the fact that a lot of bands want to make music that makes them money. That's how they get to keep making music instead of having to figure out a way to make a living doing something else--like making freaky muppets for bands that know how to write a hit song.

Nardo

23. Xanadu by ELO and Olivia Newton-John

 23. Xanadu by ELO and Olivia Newton-John

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDmjEN-6ekE&list=OLAK5uy_mkHO_6VKXNhs5G5MnxG0cEprdLLB6uT_U&index=1

The summer of 1980 was a summer of "Magic." Literally. I heard that song played on the radio pretty much every day of that summer. It was released as a single at the end of May, about a week after school let out. And it spent four weeks at the Number #1 spot on the charts in August until it got knocked of by Christopher Cross (the artist) singing about how sailing takes him away. If, perchance, I didn't hear "Magic" on the truck or tractor radio while out helping Dad with all the farm work, there was a good chance that I'd hear it on the stereo when I got home, because Ruth added this album to her record collection right after it was released at the end of June. 

Now, normally, in the summer of 1980 I would have wielded the awesome power of the older brother song veto to keep any album off the turntable that would have taken up valuable listening time that could have been otherwise devoted rocking out to Billy Joel's "Glass Houses." However, this album also had ELO songs on it, and that changed everything. So as long as the album got played on both sides so that ELO got is fair share of listening time, I was okay with letting it play without objection.

Truth be told, I didn't mind hearing Olivia sing "Magic" and "Suddenly" at all. The other three songs on the front side were not my favorites. But listening to them was a reasonable price to pay for getting to listen to all five of the ELO songs on the flip side, including the hits "I'm Alive,""All Over the World," and "Xanadu." I thought "Don't Walk Away" and "The Fall" were also very good songs. Ruth didn't like the ELO songs as much as the Olivia songs, but she was willing to listen to the flip side all the way through because at the very end of Side 2 she got a little more Olivia and I got my beloved ELO with "Xanadu." And during a summer of "Magic" could there have been anything more magical than a song that had the power to bring about sibling harmony between brother and sister?

Nardo

24. Christopher Cross by Christopher Cross

 24. Christopher Cross by Christopher Cross

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRPtf-mxE4&list=OLAK5uy_mAmb-9kDUBKm3aiAUHnHPfBSGIWPAtGDc&index=1

Yes, dammit, I like yacht rock!

And you can't get much more yachty than Christopher Cross (both the album and the artist). The flamingo on the cover of this eponymous album pretty much sums up that yacht rock vibe--just chillin' out in the water, lookin' pretty in my pink shirt, waitin' to watch Miami Vice later tonight.

Released December 20, 1979, Christopher Cross (the album and the artist) won five Grammys, including:

RECORD OF THE YEAR--Sailing

ALBUM OF THE YEAR--Christopher Cross

SONG OF THE YEAR--Sailing

BEST NEW ARTIST

BEST ARRANGEMENT ACCOMPANYING VOCALIST(S)--Sailing

His feat of winning those first four Grammys all in one night would not be repeated for 40 years until in 2020 when Billie Eilish managed to win them all.

Christopher Cross (the album) even beat out Pink Floyd's The Wall for  1980's Album of the Year, which, as much as I like Christopher Cross (the album and the artist), I think is crazyballs! But it just goes to show what kind of gentle power yacht rock had back in 1979 and 1980. Christopher Cross (the artist) had a follow-up hit in 1981 with "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)," which won an Oscar for Best Original Song. That particular song also achieved another major milestone in music history when it got added to the Marsh Valley Pep Band playlist. With an award-strewn start like that, it seemed like Christopher Cross (the artist) was destined to become one of the most popular and successful musicians of his generation. 

Then came MTV.

And Christopher Cross (the artist) didn't have a made-for-MTV face that the youngsters liked back in 1981.

Yes, back in those days, video really could kill the radio star. But in fairness, I think his face would have faired much better with the smartphone-video-hungry youngsters 40 years later. My proof? Ed Sheeran.

Of course, back in 1979 and 1980, I really wasn't all that interested in yacht rock. (It wasn't even called "yacht rock" until the mid-2000s.) During that part of my life, I was starting to get into Billy Joel, and all my money went to purchasing his albums. So when Christopher Cross (the album) came out, I didn't buy it. But my sister Ruth did. And like all of my sister's music, I played it whenever I wanted, which turned out to be quite a bit. It was one of those safe albums I could play pretty much anytime and no one in the family would object, including Mom. That's because mom's simply can't object to yacht rock no matter how loud it is played nor the situation in which it is played. It's against the Mom rules. It's right there in Section 15--Popular Music, under Subsection 27--Music They Won't Dance To.

And "Sailing" is, of course, the theme song for all yacht rock. There is nothing yachtier than a soft rock song about sailing on a yacht. But since the closest thing I ever got to sailing on a yacht was paddling a canoe at scout camp, it is no surprise that "Sailing" reminds me of the time I spent in the summer of 1980 at youth leadership camp at Little Lemhi. I remember one boy there saying on the first night of that camp that he really liked "Sailing," which I was surprised that anyone would admit to a group of teenage boys, but I heartily agreed with him, and we immediately became friends all through that week. Then we never saw each other ever again. Such is the nature of scout camp friendships.

"Sailing," along with the other hits on the album--"Ride Like the Wind," "Never Be the Same," and "Say You'll Be Mine"--are some of the best yacht rock you'll ever hear. Some of the other non-hit songs on the album are pretty good too. 

"I Really Don't Know Anymore" is an excellent song that, like "Ride Like the Wind," features back-up vocals by another famous yacht rocker, Michael McDonald, who in my opinion is the doobiest of all the Doobie Brothers. I always wondered why this song didn't get released as a single, because I think it's every bit as good as, or even better than, "Say You'll Be Mine."

"Spinning" is a bit of yawner, but then there's this nice little jazz trumpet solo during the bridge at about 2 minutes and 20 seconds into the song, and I'm a sucker for a nice little jazz trumpet solo.

Musically speaking, I think that "Poor Shirley" is the weakest link on the album. But the lyrics about overcoming the pain of loneliness through the hope of love are pretty damn good. Julie mentioned the other day about how she was so shy back in middle school, especially around boys. She said to me, "You just don't understand how painful it is to be that shy during middle school." I had to admit that I didn't. But I did have a super-awesome friend in middle school that was really shy, and I tried to make damn sure that whenever he was around me that he always knew he had a friend willing to go to the mats for him. I played the clown around girls a LOT during my middle school years, and sometimes I'd do it just so that he'd be able to shed the shyness a little bit and take part in the fun. And my greatest regrets from that period of my life are the few times that I poked fun at him for being shy. I just never should have done that. Also, I should have been kinder to the shy girls in school. If I could travel back in time and do things over again, I'd try to be much less of a jackass. But honestly, I don't think I could totally eliminate my jackassishness. My excuse? I'm related to Spencer, who is the King of Jackasses, so it's got to be at least partially caused by genetics. But let's not get wrapped up in talk about The Spence's many acts of jackassery. Let's get back to the album. 

"The Light Is On" is slow groove yacht rockin' song perfect for chillin' out during a light rain storm nestled all warm and comfy on the pink couch inside the cabin of your yacht. 

"Minstrel Gigolo" is a kind of tribute song to all of the early rockers from the 50s and 60s--think Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones--that would have the girls go nuts for them on the black and white telly. What I really like about this song is the guitar solo. Yes. That IS Christopher Cross playing the guitar on this song--and the rest of the album. Most people think of him as a singer because...well, that voice is so damn distinctive...but I have to give him props for his guitar playing too. He even got Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan fame) to invite him to play guitar on an album with him. 

Which leads me to an observation about my favorite song off the album, "Ride Like the Wind." It's my favorite for a number of reasons. The orchestration with strings is mighty fine--not as good as ELO, of course, but still really good. It's also got some nice trumpet parts mixed into the orchestration. Plus, it's got bongos a-plenty! If you want to hear an example of how bongos can make a great song even better, this is it. But as good as the song is, I think it could have been even better if Christopher had let his guitar work come into the forefront at the end of the song. You can hear him jamming at the end of the song, but it's in the background covered up by Michael McDonald's back-up singing, and Christopher is not letting loose with the guitar as much as I'd like. That's right. Besides jazzy trumpet solos and bangin' bongos, I also like a little rockin' guitar solo in my yacht rock! If you're wondering what I'm talking about, here's a video of Christopher playing live at the end of "Ride Like the Wind." (Yes, the guy with the white hair is the doob Michael McDonald.)

https://youtu.be/iYofDL0QnBE?t=274

See, now THAT'S some mighty fine yacht rockin'!

Nardo

25. Zenyatta Mondatta by The Police

 25. Zenyatta Mondatta by The Police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNIZofPB8ZM&list=OLAK5uy_mctDATS-H8mOzk3RAPT9j_S0mVgjvkJVg

This was the album that is the most closely related in my mind to the time I visited Randy during the summer of 1981 in Sand Hollow. I was there by myself that visit, for some reason, so I didn't have any family members there to boss me around, but I knew that Mom and Dad expected me to help out with the chores on Aunt Elva's dairy farm as best I could. While we did chores, sometimes Randy would take off while I was doing some job, and after I finished the job, I'd look up to find that he was gone. Then I'd just be standing there wondering what to do. Having been a farm boy for...well...my entire life, I knew that standing around doing nothing isn't what farm boys are supposed to do, especially when you're supposed to be helping out on someone else's farm. You can be lazy on your own farm at times, but when you're at someone else's farm, then you've got to represent the family well and be at the top of your game. So I'd search the farm to try to find him and help out with whatever chore he was doing. After a couple days of doing this, I started to stick to Randy like glue and not let him out of my sight. When I started doing that, he started singing "Don't Stand So Close to Me." I asked him why he was singing that song. He said it was because I was standing to close to him and being a tag-along. I took that kind of hard, as I thought Randy and I were not just cousins but friends. So after that, if he took off, I'd just do what I did on the farm back home, which was to wander around and look at stuff or find a spot to sit and watch the cows. Later on in the visit, Randy and I got into a conversation about The Police, which he liked a lot.

When I returned home after that visit, I eventually saved up my money to buy Zenyatta Mondatta, and that was when I started liking The Police too. Although there were only two hit singles off the album, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo Or Group with Vocal. (Nice category. THANKS!) "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" didn't win anything, but "Behind My Camel" won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The fun fact about "Behind My Camel" is that Sting hated it so much that he refused to play bass on it. He thought it was an awful song, so I take a little bit of pleasure in knowing that it probably bothered him that it won a Grammy. (I've already talked about how "Behind My Camel" shouldn't have won over "YYZ" by Rush.) I personally think that "The Other Way of Stopping" is a better instrumental song, but that's probably because it's got the kind of upbeat tempo song that I like in running songs. Same thing with "Canary in a Coalmine"

The other songs on the album are best listened to in the same way that you'd listen to a Pink Floyd album--laying on a bed with your head perfectly positioned between the speakers. It's the kind of album that you can just listen to and space off and think about nothing and everything all at once. I ranked this album higher than Synchronicity only because of the memories it triggers of that time between 9th and 10th grade just before I started high school when my days were filled with farm work, riding motorcycles in the back 40, scout activities with the Arimo Mafia, and tubing the Portneuf River with Devon and whatever other kids we could round up for that Saturday after doing the Arimo garbage run. Also, since I had my license, I got to drive the truck all over Marsh Valley to run errands for Dad. Man! What I wouldn't give for a few days of that life again!

Nardo

26. Power Up by AC/DC

 26. Power Up by AC/DC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga5qfM2-kog&list=OLAK5uy_nE7snmTKmOsGW8oUpg3P_TcEkOHd0rxa8

AC/DC saved 2020 with their mid-November release of Power Up. I didn't think they'd come out with another album after Brian Johnson, Phil Rudd, and Cliff Williams had left the group after the 2014 release of Rock or Bust. Due to hearing problems, Brian left in the middle of the tour, and they had to finish out the tour with the lead vocals being screamed out by Axel Rose. I'd heard that AC/DC might come out with another album with Axel, but then Malcolm Young died in 2017, and I was pretty sure the band was done. 

I was wrong. Malcom's nephew Stevie Young took his place in the band, and Brian, Phil, and Cliff returned to the studio to record Power Up as a tribute to Malcolm, and this album certainly honors his memory, as it is, in my humble opinion, the best damn AC/DC album since 1980's Back in Black. 

I'm sure some AC/DC fans out there would argue with me about that, but they'd be wrong. This album has the highest consistent quality in its songs out of all the other AC/DC albums I've listened to, except for Back in Black. Sure they put out only three singles from this album, starting with "Shot in the Dark," which was released a month or so before the album to get the buzz going and drive up album sales.  "Realize" and "Demon Fire" were the other singles. But I'm not sure how important "singles" are anymore. What with the online music distribution being the primary way people get their music today, we don't even have to buy the music anymore. It's all made available for free on YouTube, and the advertisers are the ones that pay for it. But I'm sure that AC/DC gets paid for it all. They were one of the last hold-outs to digitally releasing their albums online because they thought it would cut into their profits. So if AC/DC is letting their songs get free play by the consumers now, you know that's a sing that the music industry has undergone a BIG change in how music is consumed and how artists get paid. 

I initially hesitated putting this album on the list because we'd already started the listing of albums, and I thought maybe I hadn't waited long enough to determine if my enthusiasm for it was due to its newness instead of its quality. But then I thought about how this band has been putting out pretty much the same music since they formed back in the '70s. They figured out their formula and haven't ever strayed from it. And when you put this album up against all of the others, it definitely holds its own musically and lyrically. It's definitely better than Stiff Upper Lip--the only other AC/DC album that I have listened to more than this one, as I had that album back in graduate school, and Ryan and I went to the Stiff Upper Lip AC/DC concert together in Salt Lake City. So, Stiff Upper Lip got taken off the list, and Power Up took its place. 

Will AC/DC record any more albums? Possibly. I mean, it's a minor miracle that they got together to record this album. But as long as Angus is still able to play, there will always be a chance that AC/DC has some more music coming. However, Power Up will be the last one with music and lyrics that were at least partially written by Malcolm. Angus took the best of Malcolm's song ideas that they hadn't already used and built a lot of the songs on this album from them. My guess is that the Malcolm well is now dry, and anything that might come out in the future will be 100% Angus.

Clearly, AC/DC is part of my Australian cognitive triad, the other two parts being my Dad's mission to Australia and the Paul Hogan show. Truth be told, I wasn't a big fan of AC/DC until after I went to their concert. But after seeing and hearing the band in person--and you definitely hear the band at an AC/DC concert--I decided that I actually was a fan, and that I needed to just embrace that fact. Of course, I didn't tell a lot of people that when I worked at BYU-Idaho. I once wore my AC/DC concert shirt to the store and I ran into someone from the Elder's quorum in my ward, and when he saw the shirt, he got a very shocked look on his face. He said that he didn't peg me for an AC/DC fan. I said that indeed I was, and that my shirt was from their concert. I then said that the concert wasn't the kind of concert I'd picture in hell because they don't swear in any of their lyrics, but it was definitely a telestial event. 

So, even though they sing about the devil and being on a highway to hell, I don't think we'll see AC/DC in hell in the afterlife--unless Axel Rose becomes the permanent lead singer.

Nardo

27. Pipes of Peace by Paul McCartney

 27. Pipes of Peace by Paul McCartney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzsxOniv0fk&list=OLAK5uy_nvt35JHEIdnpHbANiyQKjgXff6CLkIS6w

As I noted in my entry for Thriller, Paul and Michael came out with the monster #1 hit "Say, Say, Say" in October of 1983. By mid-November, either Ruth or Connie or Carol had purchased the Pipes of Peace album, so I naturally assumed I could listen to it anytime I wanted, because the stereo was in my kind-of-room/basement hallway, so I had squatters rights over anything that got left in the record storage space under the turntable. And since November of 1983 is when I began to experience The Great Depression--which like the actual Great Depression lasted for about 4 years--I spent a fair amount of time lying in bed or stretching out on the basement couch staring at this album cover and listening to the songs.

For some reason, I found the music quite comforting and, at the same time, strangely relevant to what I was experiencing emotionally at the time--especially the songs "The Other Me," "Under Cover," "So Bad," "The Sweetest Little Show," "Through Our Love," and even "Tug of Peace."

Also, "Hey, Hey" was a peppy little instrumental that I liked to play while getting dressed for school or cleaning up after chores. 

Paul put out a 1993 reissue of the album that had three additional songs. All of them are worth a listen, but only about one. They just don't have the same vibes I got from the original song list. The original songs just seem to belong together, and there's an underlying theme in the album that I don't think is reflected in these other three songs, so I wouldn't say they would have been worthy of inclusion in the original album. However, I do think that "We All Stand Together" would be a video that most young kids would be delighted to see. Paul started work on that film back in 1981, but it took him a while to finish it.

Twice in a Lifetime

https://youtu.be/DMqRPjL-3GE

We All Stand Together

https://youtu.be/gVfaf43W9cM

Simple as That

https://youtu.be/klPJzmflOrc

The 2015 remastered version of Pipes of Peace had a bonus disk with some other tunes that really don't fit well with the original album's songs. And I'm not sure if they even deserve a listen, yet I feel compelled to put the links below anyway.

Ode to a Koala Bear

https://youtu.be/AoI85vQaI7A

It's Not On

https://youtu.be/594XcO9TbVk

Christian Bop

https://youtu.be/otKN-XHHmnk

But there is one song on the 2015 bonus disk that I think is worth a listen or two. That is the remix of "Say, Say, Say." It features Michael's voice a lot more with him singing a lot of parts that Paul did on the original version.

Say, Say, Say

https://youtu.be/Hq5KAdWJiWY

I definitely prefer the original version of the song. Like the vast majority of remixes, they just don't sound as good to ears that are used to hearing the original. But since I just covered Thriller, I thought it would be worth including here, as its from that same time period.

Of course, Paul and Michael did have a second duet on this album with "The Man." You might be thinking that since they had such big hits with their other two duets that they would have originally had plans to release "The Man" as a single. And you'd be right. In fact they did in some countries with different B-side recordings, but it didn't take off in them. The U.S. single of "The Man" was supposed ot have had a recording of "Blackpool" on the B-side. I've included an accoustic version of Paul singing it below. 

Blackpool

https://youtu.be/fl6P21M7mPo

But when it comes to marketing singles, timing is everything. And by the time they were considering releasing "The Man" as a single, Michael had already been on the charts with Thriller songs and "Say, Say, Say" for over a year, and there was a sense that people were getting burned out on Michael's songs. And since you don't want to follow up a duet that was a huge #1 hit with a duet that sits on the discount rack like another can of beans, they passed on releasing "The Man" as a single. So that's why the titular song "Pipes of Peace" was the only other single released from the album. And yes, I'm enjoying using the phrase "titular song" very much these days.

Now, having recently reviewed HondoJoe's #31 album Flaming Pie, I would like to make an observation about how it compares to my #27 Pipes of Peace. George Martin was a legendary music producer--there's just no doubt about that at all. He worked with some of the greatest artists on some of their greatest hits. And I think he did a fine job on Pipes of Peace. Also, he produced two very nice acoustic guitar songs on Flaming Pie with "Calico Skies" and "Great Day." But when I hear the songs produced by Jeff Lynne on Flaming Pie, I think they are simply better. I think that's because even though George did play instruments and write orchestration for many of the songs he produced, he wasn't ever the leader of his own rock band like Jeff Lynne was. And I think that gives Jeff better instincts when it comes to producing hit music. So while I do not have Flaming Pie on my Top 60 list, I really think that in terms of music production, I think that if Jeff Lynne had produced Pipes of Peace, it would be a much better album that it is. 

So as you listen to Pipes of Peace, think about how it would have sounded if Jeff Lynne had produced all the songs. When I did this little thought experiment, I first listened to a few of the songs on Flaming Pie that were produced by Jeff. Then I started listening to the song "Pipes of Peace," and I was shocked at how I immediately noticed things missing from the song that I know Jeff Lynne would have added. It was the same for all of the other non-Michael songs. 

Anyway, my point is this, I think Pipes of Peace may have made it onto the HondoJoe Top 60 album list if Jeff Lynne had produced it instead of George Martin.

Just sayin'.

Nardo

28. Thriller by Michael Jackson

 28. Thriller by Michael Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y&list=PL135553AD7F1D0ABF

This album was released on November 30, 1982--just in time for all our junior year high school Halloween parties.

It is difficult to overstate the impact that this album had on not only the music industry in the '80s, but on the culture of the entire world. Other artists in the early '80s credit this album for their own success. That's because so many people went into the record stores to buy this album, it drove up sales for all artists across a range of musical genres. The album sold 32 million copies in its first year, making in the best selling album of 1983. But the sales didn't stop there, because it became the best-selling album in 1984 too. But even with the 32 million copies of the album playing on turntables and boom boxes around the world, this 9-song album still managed to get 7 singles to chart in the top ten, including the titular song "Thriller," which was released on November 2, 1983--just in time for all our senior year high school Halloween parties.

My sister bought this album in December of 1982, but I commandeered it away from her using my authority as the school dance DJ--a position I shared with HondoJoe but ultimately gave up in 1984 when I determined that I no longer wished to go to any school dances. During the school dances, my favorite thing to do was play "Pretty Young Thing" and turn up the volume to full blast on the two big grunts in the bridge. I played this album a lot in my basement during the two times that I fell in love during my senior year. And I played it a lot after I was rejected by both girls during my senior year. It was a form of self-torture, what with my memories of slow dancing with the girls to the Paul McCartney duo "The Girl Is Mine." (Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover not a fighter.)

Of course, my favorite memory of this album comes from the general uproar experienced by the entire Marsh Valley religious community when the drill team performed a scary-makeup-and-hair-with-super-tight-pants routine to "Thriller" during the half-time show of a high school basketball game. I remember thinking to myself as the girls marched out onto the basketball court and before the first note of the song was even played that this dance was going to be the topic of the next homily I would hear from the Arimo church pulpit, and that I could look forward to watching our seminary teachers go into apoplectic fits on Monday as they tried in vain to decry the sexual nature of the performance without making all the boys spend the entire class thinking about how sexy the girls really were. I was not wrong in either prediction.

What about the B-sides? Did Michael release any other Thriller-era songs not on the album? Well, MCA wanted to use those single sales to drive sales of past albums from Michael (Off the Wall) or The Jacksons (Triumph). For "The Girl is Mine," which was the first single released because it featured a duet with The Walrus, and they wanted all of The Beatles fans to rush out and snap up the singles, MCA decided to rehash stuff Michael did for "The Wiz" movie. Michael and producer Quincy Jones changed the lyric "Can't get outta the game" from "The Wiz" to "Can't get outta the rain" and slapped in on the b-side. 

Can't Get Outta the Rain

https://youtu.be/QqtwXhfzIRs

You'd think that with Thriller being such a popular album that the record company would want to milk a little more out of Michael's fans by issuing some kind of re-release of it that featured some new songs that were somehow related to the original album. And you'd be right. The 2001 re-release featured two additional songs. The first is "Someone in the Dark," which is from the audiobook and soundtrack combo recording to the 1982 film "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial."

Someone in the Dark

https://youtu.be/N5Fq7COf0-0

This audiobook/soundtrack was originally released by MCA two weeks before Thriller was released, but because this pissed off some folks at Epic Records that thought it might cut into the Thriller album sales, they got it pulled off the shelves and released it later after Thriller came out, which was a really stupid move on Epic's part when you think about it because the soundtrack mostly featured music by John Williams, and this song "Someone in the Dark" is about the least danceable song Michael ever produced, so there was no way anything off the audio book/soundtrack was going to be played in dance clubs or on American Top 40. Still, it got Michael a Grammy in 1983 for Best Recording for Children. (Insert your favorite Norm McDonald Michael-Jackson joke here.) So I'm sure a few folks at MCA threw a party when that trophy got handed out. But it was probably a much smaller party than the one at Epic Records when "Thriller" won the Grammy for Album of the Year and Michael won a bunch of other Grammy's for the songs "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and "Thriller." The best part of the audiobook is when Michael narrates the scene in which E.T. dies. I've cued it up in the video below for your listening pleasure, because apparently in 1982 nothing was more pleasurable to listen to than Michael Jackson talking over movie dialogue.

https://youtu.be/VB9v_BBi6Cg?t=1495

The other Thriller wannabe song on the 2001 re-release was "Carousel," a song that had been recorded for Thriller but got replaced with "Human Nature."

Carousel

https://youtu.be/_a4qEtVi0O4

What probably kept the song from inclusion in the original album release was when Quincy sat down and thought about everything he really knew about Michael as he read these lyrics.

She's from a world

Of popcorn and candy

Pony rides for a dime

Little children laughing

I'm from a world

Of disappointments and confusions

But I want her to be mine

(Insert your second-favorite Norm McDonald Michael-Jackson joke here.)

Another Thriller era wannabe song is featured on yet another re-release in 2008 of "Thriller 25." This this song was only on the Thriller 25 albums sold in Japan.

Got the Hots

https://youtu.be/3BkQJacXnmA

Michael also recorded some other songs that were in contention for inclusion on Thriller, but they got nixed by Michael or Quincy because...well...they just weren't as good as the nine songs that made it. But they definitely have a Thriller vibe on them, versus the more disco sounds of Off the Wall era songs.

Hot Street

https://youtu.be/XJEY94VX50E

There was an earlier version of "Hot Street" called "Slapstick" which was inspired by Michael's love of The Three Stooges.

Slapstick

https://youtu.be/NPr3AlUsDYo

I think Quincy did some deep thinking once again, but this time about whether or not they were going to get a top-ten hit out of any song with lyrics like this.

Give me some Slapstick (turnin' me on)

Bring out the magic (your number one)

I want some Slapstick (makin' me high)

Because the Slapstick love, will make you smile,

(Everytime, He He, He He)

But I don't know if Quincy made the right move. I mean, everyone knows that the sophisticated women of the 80s got super turned on by watching grown men hitting each other over the head with pots and pans, slapping each other's faces, tearing out each other's hair, yanking each others' ears and noses, and poking each other's eyes out with their fingers. And Michael really showed how tuned in he was to what women liked in the '80s by recording these next two songs that I'm pretty sure are (a) about a woman that's a dominatrix and (b) another woman that calls him up every night to have phone sex. (Because sometimes a fantasy is all you need.)

She's Trouble

https://youtu.be/AA3rOYsIlzo

Nite Line

https://youtu.be/WLrQpX8bwtg

Michael wrote one song for Thriller called "Spice of Life" but then shelved it. The song got recorded and released later by Manhattan Transfer. If you listen to the song, you can hear how it sounds a little like "Baby Be Mine."

Spice of Life

https://youtu.be/VBF9AUPDa3E

There is one other #1 Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney song that was recorded before the release of Thriller that was released in 1983 on Paul McCartney's album Pipes of Peace, and it charted at the same time that "P.Y.T. Pretty Young Thing" and "Thriller" were on the charts. And that song is, of course, "Say, Say, Say."

https://youtu.be/aLEhh_XpJ-0

I could go on and on and on about this album for ages and ages and ages. There's just so much interesting trivia about it--like how "Billie Jean" was knocked out of the #1 position on the charts by Dexie's Midnight Runners' song "Come on Eileen" only for that song to be replaced at #1 a week later by "Beat It." But I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'd just like to close this entry on my Top 60 list by saying that radio stations that cut off the end of "Thriller" before Vincent Price performs his dramatic lines should not be allowed to broadcast a single song ever again. Their entire staff should be sent into exile on an uninhabited island off the coast of Antartica, the broadcasting studio should be demolished, and their radio towers should then be burned to the ground to ensure that they can never repeat such a vile musical atrocity. And after the staff loose all their limbs to frostbite and eat each other one-by-one as they slowly die of starvation, they should be judged and found to be without the soul for getting down. Then they should stand and face the hounds of hell and rot inside a corpses shell until they transform into grisly ghouls that are forced for eternity to roam the underworld in uncomfortable super-tight pants that reek of the funk of forty thousand years! Yes, that should be their ultimate fate, for no mere mortal can resist the evil of The Thriller!

Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! AAH-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Nardo