MICHAEL JACKSON - Thriller

Item Description

CD, , JVC
Album Reissue Repress

[On back]
℗ 1982 CBS Inc./© 1982 CBS Inc

[On insert]
©1982 Mijac Music (BMI) Administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. [1, 3, 5, 6]
©1982 Rodsongs (PRS) Administered by Almo Music Corp. (ASCAP) in the U.S. and Canada; In the remaining territories by Rondor Music (London) Ltd. (PRS) [2, 4, 9]
©1982 Porcara Music and John Bettis Music (ASCAP). John Bettis Music administered by WB Music Corp. [7]
©1982 Eiseman Music Co., Inc., Hen-Al Music, Kings Road Music (BMI) and YellowBrick Road Music (ASCAP) [8]

2nd pressing; manufactured in Japan, for sale in the US.
DIDP 20022 located under catalog # on the right side of the CD.

There is a note regarding the country of manufacturer on the insert and back cover: "Record manufactured in Japan by CBS/Sony, Tokyo, Japan". However, although **most** of the discs manufactured the US as part of this 2nd pressing **were** manufactured by CBS/Sony in Tokyo, a very small number were farmed out to JVC in Japan. (CBS/Epic/Columbia/etc. were notorious for not editing insert information on their early compact discs.) The white strip along the left of the back tray card contains a Compact Disc Digital Audio logo, and a UPC code.

Along with the unique DIDP 20022 2 E11 matrix, one other distinguishing feature of this disc is that the disc hub is clear & blank, with no embossed lettering in it.

So why is this particular disc in such demand? Due to a mastering error, most of the first-pressing "Thriller" discs have incorrect pre-emphasis flags in the disc's coding, which meant that the resulting sound of the CD was noticeably "thin" by comparison, containing much more treble than was intended by the album's creators. These 2nd pressing discs corrected that error, resulting in CDs that have a much more "natural" sound, considered by many collectors to be the closest to the original analog LP pressings. We would caution of course, that one should make their judgements about this issue. Completists will need to seek out his variant disc in any event, however, due to the small number of CDs that were manufactured by JVC for this press run. This is considered to be the hardest "Thriller" CD pressing to find.

As a final note, the original jewel cases for this JVC pressing are smooth-sided-- none of the edges are ribbed, or even "frosted" (as most early CD cases are), and are noticeably heavier than latter-day CD cases.