Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ turns 40

‘Thriller’ has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

PARIS, France (AFP) -- Mixing rock, pop and RnB like never before, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” 40 years old next week, became the most successful album of all time and defined a coming era with its audiovisual ambition.

“Thriller” has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide since its release on 30 November 1982.

It consecrated Jackson as the “King of Pop” and remains a musical lodestone.

Initially, the record failed to break on to the newly established MTV channel, which refused to show the video for megahit single “Billie Jean” on the grounds that black music did not “fit” with its white-dominated rock programming.

The boss of Jackson’s parent label at CBS, Walter Yetnikoff, “threatened to publicly denounce MTV as huge racists and block their access to videos of rock artists in its catalogue,” Olivier Cachin, author of two books on Jackson, said.

Yetnikoff won that battle but then found himself clashing with Jackson over his plans for a $1 million video for the album’s last single, the title track “Thriller.”

Jackson wanted to work with director John Landis, having loved his movie “An American Werewolf in London,” while Yetnikoff thought the plan was pointless when the album was already at number one.

“But Michael had a vision, and he was stubborn,” Cachin said.

The ‘Thriller’ music video cost $1 million to shoot.

The resulting 14-minute mini-film was premiered at a Hollywood cinema before a star-packed crowd and helped re-energize sales of the album.

Not only did it see Jackson turn into a werewolf and bring the living dead out of their graves, but it launched a whole new branch of the music business — extravagant and ambitious videos that came to define the next two decades of pop culture.