Regardless of what you think about Michael Jackson, there’s no denying that 1982’s Thriller left a crater in popular culture it’s impossible to ignore. Jackson’s sixth album spawned seven globally beloved singles and scooped eight Grammys, eight AMAs and near-unanimous acclaim. Its sales smashed all previous records and before long, it was recognised as being the best-selling album of all time.
The legacy of Thriller’s extraordinary commercial success means that in retrospect, the album is essentially a greatest hits. It’s a set that includes Billie Jean, Beat It, Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, the Paul McCartney-guesting The Girl is Mine, and of course, that Halloween-staple title track.
When it came to actually making this most celebrated of albums, one of the key technical figures was the late engineer Bruce Swedien who we were lucky enough to speak to back in 2009. Bruce – who sadly passed away in 2020 – gave us a detailed track-by-track insight into how this Quincy Jones-produced monolith was made.
“Michael was never late for a session – if anything he would be early,” Bruce told us. “Also, I never remember recording Michael with the lyrics in front of him. He would stay up the night before memorising the song or songs we were about to record. I don’t think there are a lot of artists who do that.”
As Swedien recalled, the process was unbelievably smooth. “With Michael, there weren’t any difficult tracks to mix. Working with Michael and Quincy is easy as pie. They are so musical – and the passion for quality that we share has made working on these projects – especially Thriller – very easy.”
Amongst some fascinating information on the gear and practices deployed at Westlake Recording Studio, Bruce told us about one of Michael’s particularly apt studio quirks for Thriller – recording in the dark…
“Interestingly, we always recorded with Michael in the dark – he hated light,” Bruce recalled. “I mean I would have a little bit of light for him, but the studio was absolutely dark. I think one reason why he wanted this – and why it works so effectively – is that through my study of acoustics and so on, I found that the human being is primarily a visual animal, hearing is our second sense. People can be distracted by too much light in the studio to the extent that it can take away from the music.”
Swedien’s recollections on the recording of that iconic title track were particularly revealing;
“When we did Thriller the song, the opening in particular, Rob Temperton – who wrote the track – had conceived us to have wolf howls in it. At the time there was a Sherlock Holmes movie, The Hound of The Baskervilles, that had this huge dog – a Great Dane – in it that did some howling and of course I had that in my mind’s ear,” Bruce told us.
“I automatically thought of my Great Dane who I figured ought to be in showbusiness! So I tried to get him to do those howls and you know what? He never did it.
“But you know who it is that is doing those wolf howls? That’s Michael Jackson,” Bruce revealed. “We had to get Michael to do it instead, but he did it so great. There’s some library stuff in there but Michael did those wolf howls.”
Read our full interview and Thriller track-by-track with the late, great Bruce Swedien here
