On this day, exactly forty years ago, the biggest selling album of all time, Thriller was released. It doesn’t seem like it’s been forty years since the album’s debut because Thriller has never not been culturally relevant. In fact, you could very well make the argument that the album only becomes more iconic as time passes. In case you needed any proof of that statement, at the time of this writing, Thriller is currently sitting at number seven on the Billboard Hot 200, which is absolutely insane.
Some more Thriller fun facts: the album spent 37 consecutive weeks at number one on the charts, the music video for “Billie Jean” made Michael the first Black artist to be played in heavy rotation at MTV after the network originally denied the video any kind of coverage whatsoever due to the fact that it wasn’t “rock enough,” Thriller was certified 34x platinum by the RIAA in 2021, and the album was added to both the Grammy Hall of Fame and Library of Congress in 2008.
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