Thriller - "Michael's Masterpiece" / Trevor Nelson / Radio 2 / T25

[zinniabooklover]

BBC Radio 2 documentary from Dec 2007 celebrating T25. 56 minutes.

Trevor Nelson is a Black British DJ on Radio 2 focusing on R&B, soul, funk etc. He was one of two BBC DJ's who covered Michael's memorial and got a fair bit of flak for that, IIRC. But I really liked this documentary and think it's a pretty good piece of work. I usually don't like these radio documentaries celebrating artists or important albums but this one is worth a listen, imo.

Time stamp - approx 51m - the 2nd verse of Vincent Price's 'rap' is played in full. I've heard the last couple of lines of this before but never the whole thing so I was stoked about that.

13m - Melody Maker (British pop paper) reviewing the album under the headline 'The thrill is gone'. I had forgotten that.

39m approx - snippet of 'Carousel'.

44m - record company guy getting confused about the Thriller choreography. Was Paula Abdul heavily involved? I'm sure it was just Michael and Michael Peters.

 

[filmandmusic]

13m - Melody Maker (British pop paper) reviewing the album under the headline 'The thrill is gone'. I had forgotten that.

A bad thriller review? Imagine being the writer of a bad thriller review in 1982.
I mean it has happened before in history and then decades later in retrospect those same reviewers suddenly praise an album because they don’t wanna look bad.

What I wanna say is that I don’t see any value in an album review. Luckily album reviews usually don’t have any effect on sales.

 

[DangerousGal91]

A bad thriller review? Imagine being the writer of a bad thriller review in 1982.
I mean it has happened before in history and then decades later in retrospect those same reviewers suddenly praise an album because they don’t wanna look bad.

What I wanna say is that I don’t see any value in an album review. Luckily album reviews usually don’t have any effect on sales.

Lol yeah, I have to agree. I never read/watch/etc. album reviews because for the most part, musical taste just is a very subjective thing. There are of course some objective standards that an album has to follow to make it sound at least passable, but those are usually universally agreed upon even by the public. For the rest, I think we should just trust whatever our ears react positively to. There are plenty of songs and albums out there that I can't stand, but they all have an audience in the end. I don't need a reviewer to tell me any of that, lol. If I wanna get a prior indication of an album's sound, I'll just listen to the singles.

 

[83magic]

this confirms yet again that ‘thriller’ was already the biggest selling album by a solo artist, before the short film was created.

rod temperton really outdid himself with the writing of that song. it’s so impressive that he wrote that speech at the last minute, in the limo on the way to the studio.

interesting that ‘human nature’ was what replaced ‘carousel’ on the album track list..

I’m glad that it was acknowledged that every event during that time extended the life of the album; Motown 25, the short films, the Grammys, the ‘victory’ tour, etc..

 

[83magic]

cbs boss Walter (forgot his last name) was wrong about Paula Abdul choreographing ‘thriller’. that was done by both Michael Jackson and Michael Peters.

 

[zinniabooklover]

cbs boss Walter (forgot his last name) was wrong about Paula Abdul choreographing ‘thriller’. that was done by both Michael Jackson and Michael Peters.

Agreed. At least he had the sense to say she 'allegedly' was heavily involved.

this confirms yet again that ‘thriller’ was already the biggest selling album by a solo artist, before the short film was created.

rod temperton really outdid himself with the writing of that song. it’s so impressive that he wrote that speech at the last minute, in the limo on the way to the studio.

I loved the story from Michael's MTV 1999 interview but hearing the story from Rod and getting so much more detail - I loved that. Creative people just blow my mind every time. That he could rattle out the script for Vincent Price in the space of a taxi ride is insane!

interesting that ‘human nature’ was what replaced ‘carousel’ on the album track list..

Indeed. And knowing that even just a snippet of Carousel was on the radio - wow! I was so excited.

I’m glad that it was acknowledged that every event during that time extended the life of the album; Motown 25, the short films, the Grammys, the ‘victory’ tour, etc..

Yes, I loved that. That came across so well, I thought.

 

[zinniabooklover]

I’m glad that it was acknowledged that every event during that time extended the life of the album; Motown 25, the short films, the Grammys, the ‘victory’ tour, etc..

I think the thing I loved the most about this programme is it felt like a proper celebration of Thriller. In all of its aspects.