features in: Album Chart of 1982 → ● Album Chart of the Decade: 1980s → ● 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die  |
The seventh album from the 24-year-old was delivered in November, 1982, and it'd be fair to say it was a game changer for him, spending THIRTY SEVEN WEEKS at the top of the Billboard 100 over the course of the next 14 months, a phenomenon. 32 million copies had been shifted worldwide during that period, easily making it the best-selling album of all-time, an accolade which it holds to this day. Incredibly, they were able to lift seven singles from the nine (the world was spared “Baby Be Mine” and “The Lady In My Life”), and all of these made the Top 10 stateside. Ok, so it's quite good fun to do the “ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa” funky chicken, and giving it your best Vincent Price (“and whosoever shall be found, without the soul for getting down, must stand and face the hounds of hell, and rot inside a corpse's shell”) is hard-to-beat at Halloween. I'll even admit that the juicy goss of “Billie Jean is not my lover, She's just a girl who claims that I am the one, But the kid is not my son” keeps things interesting in a nosey-parker sort of way. However, when you drill right down into it, the amount of pop drivel within, not to mention the occasional false rock God, make this an album which is impossible to love. Don't believe the hype.
The Jukebox Rebel
31–Jul–2007
| Tracklist |
| A1 | [06:02]  Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ (Michael Jackson) Disco / Funk |
| A2 | [04:20]  Michael Jackson - Baby Be Mine (Rod Temperton) R n B |
| A3 | [03:41]  Michael Jackson featuring Paul McCartney - The Girl Is Mine (Michael Jackson) Pop Ballad |
| A4 | [05:57]  Michael Jackson - Thriller (Rod Temperton) Disco / Funk |
| B1 | [04:18]  Michael Jackson featuring Eddie Van Halen - Beat It (Michael Jackson) Pop |
| B2 | [04:54]  Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (Michael Jackson) Pop |
| B3 | [04:05]  Michael Jackson - Human Nature (Steve Porcaro, John Bettis) Pop Ballad |
| B4 | [03:58]  Michael Jackson - P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) (James Ingram, Quincy Jones) Disco / Funk |
| B5 | [04:59]  Michael Jackson - The Lady In My Life (Rod Temperton) Pop Ballad |
