Thriller (Michael Jackson album) the opinion that he was a "musical phenomenon" and that "in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else". Jackson changed the way the industry functioned: both as an artistic persona and as a financial, profitable entity. His attorney John Branca observed that Jackson achieved the highest royalty rate in the music industry to that point: approximately $2 (US$ in dollars) for each album sold. As a result, Jackson earned record-breaking profits from compact disc sales and from the sale of copies of the documentary, "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller", produced by Jackson
Thriller (Michael Jackson album) it had something to interest everyone. He believed it showcased harder funk and hard rock while remaining "undeniably fun", and wrote that "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", was "the freshest funk on the album [but] the most claustrophobic, scariest track Jackson ever recorded." Erlewine felt it was an improvement on Jackson's previous album, although he was critical of the title track, describing it as "ridiculous" and "sucked out the momentum" of the record. In "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), Jon Pareles wrote that Jackson had "doubled his ambitions and multiplied his audience ... "Thriller" had extra musical help in