Talk:Thriller (album)/Archive 5

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"First to use videos as promotional tools"

Okay, I've tried to make that sentence correct, because it most certainly was not the first album to use music videos successfully to promote an album. The use of videos in promotion was certainly significant, as it was for many artists before the debut of Thriller, and added to this, MTV in 1983 was refusing to even show the "Billie Jean" video until June of 1983, when the president of CBS Records Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all of his artists' videos from MTV if they didn't play it - the song was released in January of '83! If you MUST point an artist that was the "first" the use videos, Duran Duran's excessively expensive (for their time) location-shoot videos for their album were all over MTV in 1982, and they were the very definition of a band propelled to stardom by their music videos.

Meanwhile, there is no support for this statement in the body of the article, nor is there any citation supporting that statement. As this is an encyclopedia, the sentence should be at the very least modified, if not removed. My previous attempts have been deleted by an apparent Michael Jackson fan - Realist2 - who does not appear to have objectivity when dealing with the editing of "his" Thriller page. I am going to attempt to make it more encyclopedia-like one more time, in an effort to remove unsourced subjective phrases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.111.68.233 (talk) 04:02, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The alteration you just made is fine. — R² 04:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Great.... One wonders why the first time around wasn't fine, when it was clearly correct as well, and your revert to the incorrect original statement was, therefore, a bad undo. But whatever, glad it meets with your approval, since you appear to be King of MJ Articles on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.111.68.233 (talk) 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Most things need my stamp of approval first, yes. — R² 04:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Now I understand what Larry Sanger meant when he said "far too much credence and respect [is] accorded to people who in other Internet contexts would be labelled 'trolls'".... that's from the article Criticisms of Wikipedia, by the way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.111.68.233 (talk) 04:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you believe everything that wanker says lol. — R² 04:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

That's funny, the world's biggest Michael Jackson fan calling someone else a wanker. Point is, I made the first edit, you removed it saying because it was "unsourced". I then added a 'citation needed' on the original sentence, you removed THAT saying "leads don't need sourcing" - well, which is it? Add into the mix that the original statement was clearly incorrect and the edits were correct, and you've got that well-known wikipedia tyranny; an established editor (who is such basically because of obsession - 3000 edits to one page??) ignores objectivity in order to protect his pet project, at any cost. Apparently there's thousands of you, each defending your own little corner of the wikipedia universe, and it degrades the quality of wikipedia as a whole when someone who is not subjectively attached to an article makes an edit and you swiftly change it back. Most of these well-meaning people don't take the time to actually check back more than once, but really, it's enough already with you little dictators, stop treating these pages like personal fan pages and do your job, if that's in fact what you're interested in doing. Sanger is no wanker, he's dead-on accurate, and maybe that hit a little too close to home, necessitating your ad hominem attack on him.

Lol, chill out, smoke some pot. Nothing against Sanger (well he has issues), I just respect Jimbo as the supreme leader of the Wiki. — R² 15:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

3000+ edits to the Michael Jackson page, manic defense of everything Michael on related pages, and you're telling other people they need to chill out and smoke some pot? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.111.68.233 (talk) 23:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

That's right. Actually it's way more than 3000 plus edits, you should check out my sock puppets too. — R² 23:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Just imagine what you could do if you applied all that effort towards an actual paying job. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.111.68.233 (talk) 17:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I would rather do my bit for charity, spreading free knowledge and all. — R² 17:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No.1 in the UK and US

Have I read this correctly? It was the first album to be at No.1 in the UK and US at the same time? I'm not going to look into how many albums previously achieved this - but Sgt Peppers was No.1 in the UK and US at the same time for nearly FOUR MONTHS!--Tuzapicabit (talk) 21:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I've read the book and just repeated word for word what he wrote to avoid any incorrect interpretation. It's possible that he meant to word it in a different way but that's how he say's it. He is possibly a little vague I agree, as there seems to be a bit of confusion, I will look into a more clarified statement and if I can find one it will be altered. — Realist² 21:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You don't need to do that. Just take a look at the Sgt Peppers page - it gives the dates at No.1 in both territories at the bottom of the page. The statement just needs to be removed because other than that it's actually a really impressive article.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 22:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Since we can't use other Wikipedia articles as a source that's a no go. Like I said, there is no rush, obviously the authors text is a little unclear and we can try to find out what he meant and clarify it. — Realist² 22:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, very quickly here's citations for another example: Saturday Night Fever is an easy one - Billboard 200, 17/6/78 and UK 17/6/78. (Grease did it as well). I'll remove the statement.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 11:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, probably the best thing to do at this stage. — Realist² 12:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Background

I think the background info says a little too much about Jackson's past before Thriller. And since this is the "Thriller" article, I think thing like "his father having an affair" and "Michael feeling lonely" dosen't really fit to this article. What do you guys think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.88.5 (talk) 01:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

No, because it was the personal stuff going on in his life that affected the music of Thriller. The reader needs to understand the loneliness he was suffering at the time. — Realist² 01:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Charts

Can someone add or does someone know the first weeks sales of the album?

Michael Jackson's "drum" playing

In the article, it is stated that Michael Jackson played drums on the Thriller album. However, if you look at the linear notes, he did not play the drums. He did, however provide percussion. In "Beat It" he is credited as "drum case beater" and in "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" he is credited with playing the "bathroom stomp board." Jackson is specifically credited in the article with being the drummer on "Beat It." While he did beat on a drum case on that song (to provide for extra emphasis on the snare beats) the drummer in question was Toto's Jeff Porcaro. Check the linear notes.

Mjs3888 (talk) 04:23, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Genres

Realist, you continue to change the genre list back to the bland and nondescript ones that were used before. Regardless of if Allmusic calls genres "style" or not, you're reading in to this as if you were a robot. Funk is clearly a genre. As is all of the other genres I put up with reference. Pop music however is not a genre, it's a term used to describe music that is popular regardless of genre, and somehow it's being used as a genre these days not only on this website but everywhere else, despite the fact that it is incorrect. While Michael Jackson is a pop musician (he makes music that is popular for the most part) he does not create pop albums or music. He creates music with various different genres, such AS Funk and R&B and Rock and every other genre that I listed originally. So please... cut it out. I know Wikipedia doesn't want us listing styles. Styles in the way that Allmusic is using the word is not the way that Wikipedia intended to discourage it.