Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 7, 2009



Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. The album was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall. Thriller explores similar genres to those of Off the Wall, including funk, disco, soul, soft rock, R&B and pop. However, Thriller ' s lyrics deal with generally darker themes, including paranoia and the supernatural. With the release of the second single "Billie Jean", the album topped the charts in many countries. In just over a year, Thriller became—and currently remains—the best-selling album of all time. Seven of the album's nine songs were released as singles, and all reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards at the 1984 Grammys. The album was one of the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools—the videos for "Thriller", "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" all received regular rotation on MTV. Thriller ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003, and was preserved by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry, as it was deemed "culturally significant". (more...)

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