It is July 22, 1982. A recording studio on Beverly Boulevard in Hollywood. Michael Jackson, already a global superstar, already a musical genius, not yet the most famous person on the planet is three quarters of the way through recording what will become the best selling album in history.
Nobody knows that yet. Not the label. Not the producers. Not Michael.
What they do know is that they need a cover.
The Photographer
Dick Zimmerman had been referred to by the media as an artistic genius. Known as The Image Maker, he was considered one of the most accomplished portrait photographers of the twentieth century. In 1982 he was commissioned to shoot the Thriller cover.
During the two weeks before the shoot, Zimmerman had various meetings with the creative heads from CBS and Michael's manager Freddie Demand. The purpose was to create a visual direction for the album that everyone agreed on. Art direction on the finished cover went to Tony Lane and Nancy Donald. The vision was simple: clean, elegant, Michael front and centre. Nothing too complicated.
They had absolutely no idea what they were creating.
The Suit
The day of the shoot arrived. Zimmerman had hired one of the best fashion stylists in LA to gather a large variety of wardrobe. After about an hour of weeding through the clothes, Michael couldn't find anything he was crazy about. Zimmerman started to panic, then noticed Michael looking at the white suit he was wearing. Michael asked if they had anything like it. They didn't. So Zimmerman asked him if he would like to wear his own suit. Considering his choices, this was exactly what Michael wanted. Fortunately for the shoot and the time involved, the suit fit.
Read that again. The white suit on the cover of the best selling album in history, the suit that Michael Jackson wore on a cover that over 100 million people now own, belonged to the photographer. It was not planned. It was not styled. It was a last minute decision born out of an hour of rejected wardrobe choices.
Jackson later added brown fur to the suit. The final look was relaxed, elegant, and effortlessly cool. It came together in minutes.
The Tiger
Now for the detail you actually came here for.
They had decided prior to the shoot that Michael would have a tiger cub in the shots, so they had a selection for him to choose from. Jackson had suggested the idea himself.
And then things got complicated.
According to Zimmerman, Jackson kept the tiger cub away from his face, fearing he would be scratched. Jackson was so focused on playing with the baby tigers that it was hard to get his attention to the camera.
There is something wonderful about that image. The most famous entertainer in the world, in a suit borrowed from his photographer, so distracted by a tiger cub that the photographer couldn't get him to look at the camera. The cover of Thriller very nearly featured Michael Jackson staring at a baby tiger instead of the lens.
The gatefold sleeve reveals the tiger cub at Jackson's leg. The front cover crops it out entirely. Another picture from the shoot, with Jackson embracing the cub, was used for the 2001 special edition of Thriller.
Jackson later had tigers of his own at Neverland Ranch. One of them was named Thriller.
The Camera That Made History
Here is the detail that most people don't know.
In November 2023, Zimmerman auctioned off a group of original one of a kind Polaroid test pictures from the Thriller shoot, along with the Hasselblad camera that took the photos. The test cover shot offered in the auction marks the first ever image captured of Michael Jackson wearing the now iconic white suit, taken only seconds before the photo ultimately chosen for the cover.
"The cultural importance of this collection of images, as well as the camera, truly cannot be overstated," said Edwin Bailey of Blackwell Auctions. "The Thriller cover is one of the most widely distributed and immediately recognizable photographs ever taken."
One hundred million copies. A borrowed suit. A distracted tiger. A Hasselblad camera. And a photographer who happened to be wearing the right suit on the right day.
What The Cover Actually Says
The Thriller cover is, on the surface, one of the simpler covers we've looked at on Art Before Noise. No pulsar data. No working zip. No screaming woman emerging from the earth. Just a man in a white suit, reclining, looking directly at you.
And yet it works completely. Because Michael Jackson at the peak of his powers needed nothing else. The confidence in that pose; relaxed, assured, entirely at ease, tells you everything about what you're about to hear before you've dropped the needle.
The suit was borrowed. The tiger kept wandering off. The whole thing came together in a few hours on a July afternoon in Hollywood.
And over 100 million people bought it.
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