In Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, Brian, in 1982 an accomplished musician in his own right, was the synthesiser programmer for the album Thriller.
“We were working with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, so yeah, it was a big deal. But I have to tell you, I don’t have any photographs of me in the studio because I was working on jobs of that stature on a pretty regular basis.
He wasn’t ‘MJ’ in those days. It wasn’t like ‘Oh my God, it’s Michael Jackson’.” It was more, ‘Oh yeah, that guy from the Jackson Five is releasing another album’.
It was cool to be working with Quincy and Michael. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to be there – it was an A-plus gig and only the best of the best get asked by Quincy Jones to work on a Michael Jackson record.”
At this point, Brian leans closer and lowers his voice to emphasise his point.
“But nobody had any idea how big it was going to be. Nobody. I remember towards the end of my time working on the album the photographers brought the final proofs back for the centrefold – the ones of Michael in the white suit – and I happened to be in the studio when he and Quincy and the photographers were trying to pick the best one.
You have to remember that in the early ’80s music was in the toilet. Sales were way down, disco was dead, punk didn’t really sell a lot and there was a lot of floundering around looking for something. So music was in a bad place. And I remember Quincy saying to Michael, ‘Off the Wall sold eight million copies. If Thriller sells six million, in this market, I’m going to call that a success’. And it did 50 million in its first year. But no, nobody – even Quincy and Michael – had no idea it would take off like it did.”
The impact was not just in terms of dollars and cents. Brian, now in his fifties, remembers the shockwaves breached the racial divide in music.
“You have to remember that Michael was the first black musician to appear on MTV, and that was huge. Prior to that, it was all-white rock and they had to let him on MTV because the album was getting so big, which then helped promote the album, so it became a tidal wave.
MTV could marginalise black musicians without getting a whole lot of flack, although there were murmurings. With Michael, those days were over, and that’s not to take anything away from black musicians from decades prior, but the worldwide commercial and social equality and respect thing, he single-handedly changed it. There was a corner that got turned right at Thriller.”
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