1982 – Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

I used to think I wanted to write professionally about music. The Rewind Button project helped me discover that I don’t want to do that. I’m enjoying this; however, I prefer listening to music rather than deconstructing it. The Great Twenty-Eight by Chuck Berry is a perfect example of this feeling.

Listening to this album makes me want to dance. It’s fun, and my foot can’t stop tapping. Sure, some of the songs have the same beat, but I don’t care, because its energy overwhelms any stagnation. The piano trills, that stand-up bass, those blues-based chord progressions…this is rock-in-roll to me. This album should be in the top 10 of Rolling Stone‘s list.

We’re halfway through our list, and I’m not going to stop reviewing the albums. But I am going to stop beating myself up for not offering an intellectual discussion of the albums. Some of these don’t warrant that. Some of them are pure emotion. The Great Twenty-Eight is one of those.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

Musicqwest
Be a River With Me

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The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

Michael Jackson’s Thriller album brings up so many memories that an objective critique of it is impossible. So, instead of a proper review, I thought I’d list some of those memories.

I named my pet Siberian Husky dog Thriller, because of the album. He was a good dog who had a love of eating toads. I buried him in my backyard.

I begged my grandparents to buy me a faux red-leather Michael Jackson jacket (the kind he wore in the video for “Thriller”) at J.C. Penney. I wore it a handful of times, and it still hangs in a closet at my grandfather’s house.

I stayed glued to MTV to watch the “Thriller” video, the short movie version. It was an event that proved music videos could be much more than people standing around singing in a studio.

To this day, the moonwalk is one of my better (maybe only) dance moves. Though, I can do the leg shake thing kind of well, too.

“P.Y.T.” was a track that my friends Jonathan and Hank and I use to sing along to all the time in a field out behind my house.

My friend, Matt, played me Weird Al Yankovic’s parody “Eat It” for me on a blue cassette tape. You mean you can get blue cassette tapes?! My middle school mind was blown.

To this day, I still like to say “I’m a lover, not a fighter” from the single “The Girl is Mine.”

On my own Rolling Stone list, Thriller is a Top 10 album. Any album that can generate so many memories for you should always be in your top list.