MICHAEL JACKSON Thriller EX+ RARE 1982 Epic 1ST PRESS! PAUL MCCARTNEY VAN HALEN

Sold Date: September 29, 2020
Start Date: August 9, 2020
Final Price: $28.99 $25.49 (USD)
Seller Feedback: 1340
Buyer Feedback: 0


Vinyl:  EX+ Play Graded. Sounds Great!  Has some sleeve marks that don't affect play.  Epic Labels are Clean.  This is the 1982 Epic 1st Pressing!!  The record that made MJ the Undisputed King of Pop.  Paul McCartney, Eddie Van Halen and Vincent Price are on board...40 million record buyers can't be wrong!   Instant dance party!  allmusic gives it 5 stars!!! One of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time!!     See Review Below!
In the Dead Wax:  Side 1:  PAL-38112 - 2A     P   Side 2:  PAL-38112 - 2C    P   Both sides have the "0" glyph ((Capitol's Jacksonville, IL Pressing Plant))    Cover: EX+ (see photos) Gatefold. Includes inserts with sketches drawn in MJ's hand.  
Goldmine Standards.   I play test every album that I sell on eBay as I have found you can't rate an LP accurately by just visually inspecting an album.  I wipe the dust off of every cover with clean, unscented baby wipes.  I professionally clean the vinyl.

U.S. Shipping:  $4 Media Mail.  50 cents additional shipping per additional album, when the shipment is combined.   If you wish to take advantage of my COMBINED SHIPPING deal, simply select your records by clicking on "ADD TO CART" on the main listing page.  Do this for all of your selections and then go to your cart to checkout.  Your combined shipping discount will be computed automatically.  Free domestic shipping if you spend $100 or more!  

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Why buy a first or early pressing and not a re-issue or a ‘re-mastered’ vinyl album? 
First and early pressings are pressed from the first generation lacquers and stampers. They usually sound vastly superior to later issues/re-issues (which, in recent times, are often pressed from whatever 'best' tapes or digital sources are currently available) - many so-called 'audiophile' new 180g pressings are cut from hi-res digital sources…essentially an expensive CD pressed on vinyl.  Why  experience the worse elements of both formats?  These are just High Maintenance CDs, with mid-ranges so cloaked with a veil as to sound smeared.  They are nearly always compressed with murky transients and a general lifelessness in the overall sound.  There are exceptions where re-masters/re-presses outshine the original issues, but they are exceptions and not the norm. 

First or early pressings nearly always have more immediacy, presence and dynamics. The sound staging is wider.  Subtle instrument nuances are better placed with more spacious textures. Balances are firmer in the bottom end with a far-tighter bass. Upper-mid ranges shine without harshness, and the overall depth is more immersive.  Inner details are  clearer.  

 On first and early pressings, the music tends to sound more ‘alive’ and vibrant.  The physics of sound energy is hard to clarify and write about from a listening perspective, but the best we can describe it is to say that you can 'hear' what the mixing and mastering engineers wanted you to hear when they first recorded the music.


AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine 

 was a massive success, spawning four Top Ten hits (two of them number ones), but nothing could have prepared  for . Nobody could have prepared anybody for the success of , since the magnitude of its success was simply unimaginable -- an album that sold 40 million copies in its initial chart run, with seven of its nine tracks reaching the Top Ten (for the record, the terrific "Baby Be Mine" and the pretty good ballad "The Lady in My Life" are not like the others). This was a record that had something for everybody, building on the basic blueprint of  by adding harder funk, hard rock, softer ballads, and smoother soul -- expanding the approach to have something for every audience. That alone would have given the album a good shot at a huge audience, but it also arrived precisely when MTV was reaching its ascendancy, and  helped the network by being not just its first superstar, but first black star as much as the network helped him. This all would have made it a success (and its success, in turn, served as a new standard for success), but it stayed on the charts, turning out singles, for nearly two years because it was really, really good. True, it wasn't as tight as  -- and the ridiculous, late-night house-of-horrors title track is the prime culprit, arriving in the middle of the record and sucking out its momentum -- but those one or two cuts don't detract from a phenomenal set of music. It's calculated, to be sure, but the chutzpah of those calculations (before this, nobody would even have thought to bring in metal virtuoso  to play on a disco cut) is outdone by their success. This is where a song as gentle and lovely as "Human Nature" coexists comfortably with the tough, scared "Beat It," the sweet schmaltz of the  duet "The Girl Is Mine," and the frizzy funk of "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)." And, although this is an undeniably fun record, the paranoia is already creeping in, manifesting itself in the record's two best songs: "Billie Jean," where a woman claims  is the father of her child, and the delirious "Wanna Be Startin' Something," the freshest funk on the album, but the most claustrophobic, scariest track  ever recorded. These give the record its anchor and are part of the reason why the record is more than just a phenomenon. The other reason, of course, is that much of this is just simply great music.