bboy87 said:

I think the Thriller video came out just as the album sales were starting to slip.There had been a big wave of sales after Motown 25 -- which alone would have made the album a gigantic seller-- and then 7 months later the Thriller video came out and that brought a second big wave of people buying the album.The timing was right because if the Thriller video had come out right after Motown 25, it could have been too much at once.And each new release showed sides of Michael that were new to the public. No one had seen or expected a performance like Billie Jean. Then with Beat It, no one had seen Michael do a guitar-rock video with formation dancing choreography. All this happened at once. I think the Beat It video was so important for its time though it is usually overshadowed by Thriller. Then the Thriller video was unlike anything that anyone was doing on MTV. It amazes me to see Michael performing with The Jacksons the following year as if they were really still a group. By that point he had far surpassed them and could have gotten out of doing the tour if Katherine had not persuaded him. He could have done anything he wanted to at this point.

duggalolly said:

That's because they still were a group They started writing songs for Victory in '82 and had done photoshoots in '83

bboy87 said:

Did they actually write songs FOR Victory? I've always heard that the songs on the album were songs that the brothers recorded separately and just tossed them on the album.

ViintageJunkiie said:

Nah, they began writing songs for it together (Michael wrote a song with Marlon called Doing Dirty, for example) but as time went on, there was tension between the brothers

bboy87 said:

Has any song leaked from the Victory session?