Thriller: My Introduction to Pop Culture

By Laura L.

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years since the release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It’s even harder to believe it’s been almost as long since I listened to it for the very first time. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, and I don’t even remember whether it was the very first tape my dad bought me, but I know it was one of the very first. To go with this gift was my older cousin’s brown, hand-me-down cassette case, featuring some hand-me-down tapes. Thriller fit right in the collection.

Oddly enough, I did not get this album because I begged for it. For, at this moment in time, I was diagnosed with a language delay, and my folks were desperate for any sort of sound to come out of my mouth. Even after seeing a slew of specialists, my parents were still at their wits’ end. One night—and I don’t know if this is before or after the tape purchase—my father came home from work, singing to me in his tone-deaf voice the tune of some classical piece, “How’s my girl, oh ho-ow is my girl?”

I responded, singing, “I am fine, oh I am really fine!” According to my dad, that was the moment he knew I was going to be okay. And once I got the Thriller tape, I further assured him of that notion.

Once that tape was in the tape deck, it was rarely let out for the next couple of years. While the Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones collaboration churned out quite a few gems (“Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” “P.Y.T.,” [featuring a teenage Janet Jackson on backup vocals] “Billie Jean,” and the title track), there was one particular song I played over and over again. Why it struck such a chord, I don’t know, but at three and four years of age, I couldn’t get enough of “Beat It.”

Was it Eddie Van Halen’s guitar riffs? Was it Michael Jackson trying to prove his badassedness? Or was it simply my guilty pleasure love of showtunes beginning, since the video reminds me of the Jets and Sharks in West Side Story? I don’t know, but for some reason, every time I played the song, I’d shout along with the chorus, probably adding some misheard lyrics along the way. I don’t know how my mom dealt with hearing a single song over and over for the good part of two years, other than thinking to herself, “Well, at least Little Laura can emote!”

Around the age of four, I saw the video for “Beat It” on MTV for the very first time, thanks to my babysitters, who watched the channel every time they sat for me (and later, my brother). At that moment in time, MTV was like a gateway drug to the rest of pop culture. After Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” there was Madonna’s “Material Girl,” then Cyndi Lauper, and so on.

If Dad had only known the day he gave me the gift of Thriller just where it would lead me to. And yet, twenty-five years later, it fits just as well in my music collection as it did back in the eighties. Are you listening, Men at Work?