SPIN Staffers Remember Michael Jackson

 

I didn't have MTV when I was a kid, so I hadn't seen the "Thriller" video even though it was all everybody was talking about when it first aired. Our family was spending a weekend in Boston, at my parents friends the Spackmans' house and -- god bless them -- they had cable. All I could think about and all my brother and I cared about that weekend, was making sure we watched that video, which, at 14 minutes long, seemed like a full-on horror movie. I was nine years old and watched most of the beginning and then the part where the girl is in the house at the end through my fingers, but I watched it. And it scared the hell out of me. And I made it my goal in life for the next week to memorize the Vincent Price monologue.
Eli Neugeboren, digital imaging manager

In the fall of 1991, when I was seven years old, I acquired my first piece of music: Michael Jackson's "Black or White" single. My best friend Francesca and I shared a godmother, Helen, and after taking us out to lunch at Mel's Drive-In on Geary Boulevard one day, she let us drag her across the parking lot to Warehouse Music, and agreed to buy us each one thing. Francesca was the first to spot the cardboard case holding the black-and-white diamond-patterned cassettes. "This one!" she cried, recognizing Michael Jackson's dramatically-outlined eyes and rushing over to the display. "No! That's what I want!" I countered, scrambling after her. When we arrived back at Francesca's house we raced up to her sister's bedroom -- a small space filled with a large flowery bed, a.k.a. our trampoline -- and shoved the cassette into its slot. Jumping and twisting, we yelled along what we could, "hmn nuhma na my baby IT DONT MATTER IF YOU'RE BLACK OR WHITE," and spent the rest of the afternoon learning the entire chorus and half the lyrics, too. For the next week (our harried mothers commiserated over the phone), "Black or White" blasted nonstop from both our rooms. Even as its pop novelty began to wear off, I remained captivated by the song's earnest, childlike moral sentiment. Abigail Everdell, editorial assistant

Of course I had all the old Jackson 5 stuff growing up, but "Thriller" really was an event. All the cinemas in England were doing midnight showings of the video on the day it came out. I think Channel 4 got the rights to show it on TV. I was 13 and watched it at home with the rest of the family. My mum, who was working the evening shift at Texas Instruments, even called saying everyone had stopped work to watch the video. So if you had a fucked up Speak & Spell from that year, now you know why. Ian Robinson, art director

When I was five, my family took a road trip down the West Coast. Just me, my parents, my sister and her copy of Bad on cassette tape that remained in the car stereo for nearly the entire duration of the trip. Not much older than I was, she insisted that the person singing on the tape must be a woman. Her logic was based on the simple facts that men can't dance as well as the person she had seen on TV, nor could they sing at such a high octave or be as pretty as Michael Jackson undeniably was in 1989. Despite assurance from my parents that MJ was, in fact, a man, she wasn't convinced. A few days later we reached the only destination I cared about on this trip: Disneyland. To settle the matter of identity my parents took us to see Captain Eo in 3D. I can't remember what effect it had on my sister. All I can recall is the sheer terror I felt thinking that at any moment MJ or one of the many backup dancers spewing translucently out of the screen was going to moonwalk their way over and vaporize me with their cataclysmic sound and lights. After that his music took on new meaning and I started to really love that album. In one week Michael Jackson went from a guy singing catchy tunes during a family vacation to an intergalactic superhero with magical powers who penned and performed his own theme music. How much cooler could you possibly be in the eyes of a five-year-old? Eric Nowels, online producer

For me the "Thriller" dance will be forever tattooed in my memory. I was really young when that was blowing up, but I remember my aunt taking my brother and I to watch a break dancing contest in the Bay Area. It was held in some old youth center with a parquet dance floor surrounded by bleachers packed with parents and friends of the dancers. Rival dance crews held battles and pulled off some amazing acrobatic maneuvers. But what I clearly remember from that night was when the bass line for "Thriller" dropped. All of the dancers knew exactly what to do. I was mesmerized. Later on, my brother Andy somehow got his hands on a knockoff red MJ coat. I sweated that pleather coat so badly! Unfortunately I never got a chance to wear it. He was very protective of it. I think he even slept in it. Gavin Stevens, deputy photo editor

 

On very special occasions my parents would take my brother and me to Pizza Hut in Charles Town, WV. The Pizza Hut had a jukebox with Michael Jackson's Dangerous on it. My younger brother was obsessed with "Black or White" at the time -- it was 1991 and he was eight and I was nine -- and I remember begging our parents for quarters so we could put it on and dance around the restaurant screaming the words at the top of our lungs.
Jennifer Edmondson, associate photo editor