To say that our band spends a significant amount of its time trying to copy Michael Jackson’s Thriller would be quite accurate. There are two reasons why. First, the songs. Thriller is a pop music masterclass. Each song is a musical iceberg–on the surface sits deliciously effortless ear candy, but underneath lies a brilliantly crafted layering of extreme musical sophistication. As a young pop band, our goal is to make musical complexities seem easy, and no album has ever done it better.
Our second reason is, of course, Michael himself. Listen…we’re talking about an album cover where the guy threw on a white suit, lounged on the ground, and took pictures with a tiger. I mean, come on! I have no idea whose idea that photo shoot was, but I’d like to think that after hearing the album, someone walked into a meeting and said, “well, I think it’s pretty obvious what needs to happen here. Someone call the zoo.”
Joking aside, as good as these songs are, they’re nothing without someone to deliver them, and Michael does that and more. He elevates them. He embodies them. And we’re not quite sure how he was able to do that. But it’s worth noting that just over thirty years later, we, an up-and-coming pop band, are still looking to Thriller for the answers.
Thanks for reading, and in the words of the ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu, “mamma se mamma sa mamma kusa.”
-The Shadowboxers
