Michael Jackson Releases Thriller

On November 30, 1982, Epic Records released Thriller, the sixth solo studio album by American singer Michael Jackson. Produced alongside Quincy Jones at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, the project carried a production budget of $750,000. Recording began in April 1982 with the duet The Girl Is Mine, featuring Paul McCartney, before resuming in late summer and wrapping in early November. Jackson and Jones were unhappy with the first mixes, prompting them to remix every track before release. Jackson sought to assemble a release where every composition could stand on its own as a viable commercial single.

Musically, Thriller represented a deliberate transition away from the disco-heavy textures of Jackson's 1979 release Off the Wall, incorporating post-disco, synth-pop, funk, and rock. Members of the band Toto contributed significantly to the instrumentation, while Eddie Van Halen contributed the guitar solo for Beat It, an intentional crossover into rock. Jackson composed four of the album's nine songs himself, including Billie Jean and Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', dictating the arrangements into a sound recorder from memory. Thematic elements shifted markedly toward darker subjects, touching on public gossip, obsessive admirers, and paranoia, while the title track incorporated spoken-word horror narration by actor Vincent Price.