"Thriller" Added to Library of Congress' Registry

Michael Jackson's 1982 classic Thriller was among this year's class of twenty-five recordings added by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry. Not that we needed Congress to tell us how important Thriller is, but the distinction means that Thriller is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" to the history of American music. Other recordings making the Congressional cut was Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman," Joni Mitchell's For the Roses, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' "Tracks of My Tears" and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters. Audio recordings of speeches by Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan were also included in the eclectic mix. Every year, the Library of Congress adds twenty-five recordings to the Registry, compiled by the preservation board and suggestions from the public.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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