I liked Off the Wall better. I recall being contrarian and getting into a drunken argument with a college buddy in 1983 that Thriller was a better record than Murmur, or some such. I said something like REM was marginal alternative music. Funny thing is, I was a big R.E.M. fan, and of course they became fairly huge themselves, if not Thriller huge. I still have a copy of their first single, on Hib-Tone.

Jackson had a fairly tragic life, stage-managed from his earliest days. Incredibly talented, unfortunately seemingly a, well, i guess it goes without saying and not to speak ill of the newly dead. But not like he gets a pass on that.

Come to think of it, I don’t know that anything topped I Want You Back.

I haven’t seen it.

RIP Michael Jackson.

Moonwalker, the Sega Genesis game? Incredible. Kill your enemies by dancing.

was more my speed (hmm, at the time I guess Jodie Foster may have been more my speed, or at least my age), but I may have been intimidated. The famous poster, if yoy look at it, the teeth really jump out at you now. She didn’t have an amazingly voluptuous figure, but thin cocaine chic was in (or so I hear, since I was only 12). Girls my age did her hair, or, the mousey brunettes did the Dorothy Hamill bob. About the same time.

Farah did become a fairly successful serious actress. Not my cup of tea, but decent careerism, better than say, Bo Derek, her seventies sexpot sucessor.

I just liked it. Rock With You. Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.

I don’t think I’m sui generis here. Thriller itself isn’t my favorite song. Billie Jean was very good, and Thriller was a bigger hit and cultural touchstone.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/popmusic/2008/02/blog-battle-off.html

This was just a kinda funny argument I just googled on Thriller v Off the Wall.