• 'Thriller' cost $750,000 to make and earned Michael Jackson $100 million
Forty years ago this week, the whole world was busy starting something that would end up being huge.
We were all buying and listening to what would become the biggest selling album of all time, 'Thriller'.
In the process, we all made Michael Jackson an incredibly wealthy young man. The statistics say the album cost about $750,000 to make and earned Jackson at least $100 million. It sold 70 million copies worldwide.
One of my favourite memories of this album, which I am listening to now as I write this, was a classroom incident in which my now late lamented dear friend Tony Kimende Kuria, or TKK as he preferred to be known, led the whole English class into pulling the wool over our teacher’s eyes.
Our Form 1 English teacher was another great character who has also since shuffled off this mortal coil, Cedric “Ceddie” De Souza.
For our homework, we had each been asked to write an original poem to be read to the class. For whatever reason Tony, who was a bit of a brain box coming top of every class, had been unable to come up with an original poem.
Never fear, however; TKK had an outrageous plan, and like all such crazy schemes, it would either be a rip-roaring success or an abysmal failure.
The lesson bell rang and we filed into class with our poetry homework at the ready, and Ceddie started going around the class, calling on us to share our (mainly pathetic) efforts.
When it came to TKK, some of us who knew he had not done his homework turned around to see how he would wriggle out of this one.
It was one thing to be one of Ceddies’ favourites, but we had all been warned that anyone who did not have a poem would face some sort of sanction. I can’t remember what exactly; after all, it’s been 40 years.
You could have heard a pin drop in the silence, and then TKK cleared his throat and began:
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand…
Ceddie, who had never heard of 'Thriller' and who realistically probably only had a very vague idea who Michael Jackson was, was completely mesmerised and ended up scoring TKK very high.
The rest of us were doing our damnedest to keep from smiling or even laughing outright at the con TKK had pulled and gotten away with. In fact, he didn’t just get away with it; he got a pat on the back for it.
Meanwhile, 1982 was a phenomenal year for music. 'Thriller' was released on November 30, just a month after the greatest musical genius of our age, Prince, released his album, 1999.
The first of his albums to be released with his then new band, The Revolution, Prince’s 1999 may not have sold as many records as MJ’s 'Thriller', but it was no less memorable for his fans.
Wikipedia reminds me: “1999 was Prince's first top 10 album on the Billboard 200, peaking at number nine, and was fifth in the Billboard Year-End Albums of 1983. 1999, a protest against nuclear proliferation, was a Billboard Hot 100 top 20 hit, peaking at number 12.
“It has since become one of Prince's most recognisable compositions. 'Delirious' reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, while 'Little Red Corvette' peaked at number six, becoming Prince's highest-charting US single at the time.”
The album also earned Prince the first of very many Grammy Award nominations.
Meanwhile, the world didn’t know it then, but the future Queen of Pop Madonna was busy hustling for a record deal and playing the clubs.
That October she released a single 'Everybody', which eventually reached number 3 on the Billboard chart in January 1983, thus setting her on the road to world domination, her once stated goal.
It was also the month when Lionel Richie from the Commodores took on what was meant to be a little side hustle project away from the band and released his self-titled album, which shot him to superstar status and a brilliant solo career.