Category Archives: The Tube

Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ Video Premiere: 40 Years Ago Today

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“‘Thriller’ made MTV. ‘Thriller’ created the home video business. ‘Thriller’ created so many things.”
John Landis

It’s hard to overestimate the cultural impact of the ‘Thriller’ video. Frequently parodied and ripped-off but still powerful, it premiered on Channel 4 and MTV 40 years ago today.

In the UK, it was shown (without any end credits) during a special late-night edition of ‘The Tube’ just before midnight on Friday 2 December 1983. I recall being allowed to stay up and watch it. It was one of the most exciting things I’d ever seen on TV, and also one of the scariest… Here’s how the special ended:

Let’s rewind to July 1983. The Police’s Synchronicity had just bumped Jackson’s Thriller album off the top of the Billboard charts. Jackson’s label Epic quickly formulated a plan to reinstate Thriller, reluctantly suggesting that its title track be released as a single (executives reportedly believed it to be a ‘novelty’ record!).

The catalyst for the groundbreaking video, which was part-financed by MTV, was Jackson phoning director John Landis in August 1983. He professed his love for Landis’s ‘An American Werewolf In London’, told him about the impending single release of ‘Thriller’ and then uttered the immortal words: ‘Can I turn into a monster?’

The rest is history. The video helped double Thriller’s album sales almost overnight, arguably broke down racial barriers in popular entertainment and helped raised the music-video format into a serious art-form. It also has to be said: it’s probably the last time Michael seemed relatively ‘normal’ (though his line ‘I’m not like other guys’ still raises a titter…).

“The only video we ever paid for was ‘Thriller’. We were playing it every hour, and announcing when it would next air. It brought people to MTV for the first time, and it made them stay and watch it again and again. Now everybody was into MTV.”
Bob Pittman, MTV executive

“When MTV started, it wanted nothing to do with Black artists. I thought, Wow, are we gonna miss out on this? But then I gave them ‘All Night Long’ after Michael had broken down the door. And from then on I was on MTV.”
Lionel Richie

“Michael Jackson had taken hold of the video form and shown everyone what you’re supposed to do with it. We all thought: Oh, OK – dancing!”
Rick Springfield

Let us know your memories of watching ‘Thriller’ for the first time.

All quotes are taken from the excellent book ‘I Want My MTV’.

Check out Anthony Marinelli’s YouTube channel for lots of great muso stuff on the making of the Thriller album.

The Tube: The Best ’80s Music Show?

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Paula and Jools

Paula and Jools

My favourite music show still is and probably always will be ‘The Tube’, which ran on Friday nights between 1982 and 1987 and was presented mainly by Jools Holland and Paula Yates.

Though Jools has found his niche presenting the very successful ‘Later…’ series for BBC1, I preferred the more youthful, risky, ‘uncut’ Holland (who was given a hefty slap on the wrist when he famously trailed the show one week by saying people who watched it were ‘groovy f***ers’!) and he had a great chemistry with the intelligent, funny and sexy Paula.

From week to week, you could never guess what you were going to see. There were live bands, star interviews, specially-filmed videos, on-location featurettes and weird bits of alternative comedy usually involving Rik Mayall in various degrees of drunkenness.

Some of it was great, some of it was OK and some of it was crap, but you couldn’t take your eyes off it. It helped launch some careers (Twisted Sister, Fine Young Cannibals, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Terence Trent D’Arby) and relaunch others, and you could see every type of music on the show – Metal, Goth, Funk, Fusion, Indie, Pop, Soul – all in the spirit of discovery without any pandering reverence or bourgeois pretension.

And though the show featured many huge names, it also embraced up-and-comers: if your band was any good, had some fans and a decent plugger, you were on. And there was a bar on the set too. Here are a few clips from ‘The Tube’ that have stuck in the memory:

5. The Bangles – ‘Manic Monday’

Check out the creepy guy at the front staring straight at Susanna Hoffs throughout, almost blocking the camera. Full marks to the girls for giving the (Prince-penned) song their all despite a dumbstruck Newcastle crowd. Tight harmonies.

4. Billy Mackenzie interview, 1985

One of those great, weird, un-PR’d interviews that popped up now and again. A post-‘Party Fears Two’ Billy is clearly taking the piss throughout, in the nicest possible way, and it also shows how The Tube wasn’t scared of going out into the ‘provinces’ (Dundee in this case).

3. Cocteau Twins – ‘Pink Orange And Red’

Great haircuts, great voice, great guitar sound and underwater bass. The golden age of goth/pop.

2. Blancmange – ‘Living On The Ceiling’

Good hair again, and someone or something is making singer Neil Arthur struggle to keep a straight face throughout.

1. Prefab Sprout – ‘Cruel’

This little Bacharach-influenced bossa nova was my first glimpse of the marvellous Prefab.