At the risk of courting controversy, we’re going to take a stand on this one: Thriller—which, to this day, maintains its place as the best-selling album in the history of recorded music—is really good, and picking it up gratis sounds like a pretty good deal. Since there’s not much more to say about that, then, let’s turn our attention to a related, but far more important topic: How weird is it that Thriller came out right around Thanksgiving?
November 30, specifically, but still: Halloween was so close! (Meanwhile, the John Landis-directed video for “Thriller,” which came out the next year, landed closer to Christmas than anything else.) Was the decision to eschew the ghoul-based holiday in favor of Turkey Day a reflection of production schedules? Jackson’s Jehovah’s Witness beliefs? His fraught relationship with his family, which might have transformed Thanksgiving into the more terrifying of the two holidays? We’ll probably never know; but hey, at least we can enjoy our uncertainty in the company of free copies of “Beat It” and “Billie Jean.”
