Thriller

After some research, i see that Michael Jackson's brilliant "Thriller" album was release worldwide on November 30th, 1982. So that means that I must have bought it before "Now 1". I was 7 when Thriller was released and it was the first time I really got into listening to a full album. A friend of mine had got the album and I really wanted it. He had an older brother. I find that people who had older brothers or sisters often got into "cooler" music earlier than the rest of us like me who were the eldest.
Anyway, this friend's brother proved instrumental in getting us to see the video for the title song - "Thriller".
The video is quite tame by today's standards but back in the day it was pretty scary stuff and caused all kinds of uproar. It was shown in full on MTUSA, an excellent MTV style music program on RTE television. I recall that my friend's older brother videotaped the show, which was on very late at night, and we watched the video of it in his sitting room hiding behind the couch.
I recall that the video was also shown on "Anything Goes" over two weeks, with warnings for the kids to look away if they were easily scared.
incidentally, here is a clip from MTUSA (1986) that i found. It's well worth a look. Vincent Hanley, the presenter is in New York and he cuts to a reporter in Belfast for the big Irish music news of the day. The publisher of this video puts it well -
"Ivan Martin's round up of the local music news in Belfast during MTUSA, the 1980s Irish music show presented by Vincent Hanley. In this clip the freakishly hirsute Ivan tells us, amongst other things, that Billy Ocean won't be coming to Belfast because of "prior commitments". It was tough news for all of us at the time"