By Rashod D. Ollison , Sun Pop Music Critic|February 12, 2008
Although Michael Jackson's career as a hit maker flatlined years ago, Thriller, his crowning achievement and pop's biggest-selling album, lives again.
An expanded 25th anniversary edition is in stores today. It includes a CD of the original nine-song album, pristinely remastered, with six new remixed songs by current pop stars will.i.am, Akon, Fergie and Kanye West. The album's groundbreaking music videos and Jackson's career-defining 1983 performance on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever are on a DVD.
Both discs are housed in an attractive casebook with 48 glossy pages of Thriller song lyrics and nostalgic pictures of Jackson before his skin turned alabaster and his face morphed into an expressionless mask. There are also several ghoulish shots from the awesome "Thriller" video.
But ultimately, the 25th anniversary edition offers nothing fans haven't been able to obtain for years. And the new remixed tracks are hardly worth getting excited about, as the modern pop stars, especially will.i.am, muddle up songs that have managed to stay fresh-sounding after all these years.
Although the music is still vibrant, charged by Jackson's rhythmically expressive vocals, it's hard to detach the '80s from Thriller, especially if you were around then. The album encapsulates a long-gone era when everybody heard new music on the radio or saw breaking acts on this new thing called MTV.
A skinny guy with a Jheri curl and a fresh nose job single-handedly brought black music back to the mainstream, polishing and fusing elements of styles that were in limbo during the late 1970s and early '80s. Glints of disco, R&B, new wave, punk and rock suffused Thriller, which CBS Records (now Sony-BMG) brilliantly mass-marketed. Jackson, who had long been refined by the Motown machine during his years as a child star, became the era's most important artist.
Thriller's iconic status has been well-documented over the years. It remains pop's biggest-selling album with more than 100 million copies sold worldwide. It still sells about 60,000 copies a year. Everything about Thriller - Quincy Jones' surreal, stylish production, the videos with the Broadway-style choreography, the red leather jacket, glittery glove and socks Jackson sported during that time - forever changed the sound and look of pop.
