The first tape I ever owned was Michael Jackson's Thriller. My parents bought it for me as one of my gifts for first communion. I had been asking my parents for that tape for quite a while. I am sure that the other gifts I received that day were sufficiently religious.

So, that was about 1983 or 1984, which means at the time my parents were about the same age as I am today. It must have been kind of cool to buy a tape for your kid of an artist you yourself had listened to growing up.

Just about every song on Thriller was ubiquitous on both the radio and on burgeoning MTV. One really did not need the LP or the tape to hear the music. It got to the point where Weird Al's "Eat It" seemed just as popular as "Beat It." Yet none of the pervasive Michael Jackson media saturation ever became annoying. The music was just too good - too perfect in light of what had come before it. You could tell that the music was real in a way that future pop acts attempting to follow the Michael Jackson Off the Wall/Thriller template were not.

Also, Michael Jackson was a truly odd and interesting character at this time. Eccentric, but not creepy. The creepy stuff came later.