Philadelphia Weekly

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Want to get real depressed? Try explaining the one-time greatness of Michael Jackson to your 12-year-old cousin. Talk about boatloads of blank stares.

"Billie Jean," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," "Beat It."

Blank stare, blank stare, blank stare.

"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough," "Rock With You," "Workin' Day and Night."

Blank stare, "Isn't that guy, like, really weird?" blank stare.

Desperate, you pull out the laptop, YouTube Jackson's performance at Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever.

Your cousin watches, turns to you and says, "It's all right. But Chris Brown dances better."

Perpetual war, the government all up on your phone line, corporate greed, recession: these things are very short stops at Depression Depot by comparison.

Thing is, yes, Jackson is, like, really weird. Hyperbaric-chamber weird. Tried-to-buy-the-Elephant-Man's-bones weird.

But remember when he wasn't?

Epic Records hopes so. They've just (re-) (re-)rereleased Thriller, this time for its 25th anniversary under the name Thriller 25: The World's Biggest Selling Album of All Time. They've added a couple halfassed extras/remixes and a DVD to sweeten the deal, although I'm not sure whom they intend to sell this thing to. Maybe they want to teach a generation of young kids where Chris Brown, Usher, Justin Timberlake, et al. found their groove.

I mean, you already own this thing, right? Hell, if you're of a certain age, you lived and breathed it. Let's go inside the numbers: eight Grammys, 80 weeks in the Billboard Top 10, 104 million sold.

Thriller wasn't just an album--it was a cultural milestone. When it dropped a quarter-century ago, it hit like an asteroid. Not since the Beatles on Sullivan before it or anything after has America been so consumed by a singular musical moment.

In fact, the sales figures tell only a fraction of the tale. It was Thriller's influence that was most substantial and impressive. It turned the entire earth into its plaything, and we all walked the streets like a billion zombie Corey Feldmans; all dressing the same, dancing the same, switching from Coke to Pepsi.

More numbers: one bedazzled white glove, one red leather jacket, approximately 1,295 zippers.

Thriller was the music industry's apex, and it's been a steep slide down ever since. That point, oddly enough, is made abundantly clear when you buy Thriller 25: The World's Biggest Selling Album of All Time.

The album's first nine tracks are the great-as-they-ever-were originals. These songs could and still can turn any social gathering into a dance party on a dime. But lost is the grandeur that originally accompanied the album, the shared experience of being a clone in the Michael Jackson army. The feeling that everyone--your friends, your parents, your grandparents--was tuning in to MTV to watch the premiere of "Thriller," (still, without a drop of hyperbole, the scariest damn video ever), or having Michael Jackson-themed birthday parties.

When Thriller came out, Jackson could walk on the moon. Then gravity hit.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: accusations of child molestation; countless plastic surgeries that left him looking like a freaky Crypt Keeper/Eartha Kitt hybrid; a creepy obsession with all things Peter Pan; a ranch called Neverland to prove it; a son named Blanket; a daughter named Paris; a fake marriage to Elvis' daughter; a faker marriage to a fat nurse.