Michael Jackson’s Thriller Rules Halloween 2025 — Inside the Massive Stream Count
Forty years on, Michael Jackson’s Thriller still owns Halloween, leaping to No. 5 on Spotify’s global chart with 5.677 million streams.
Halloween is over, the fake cobwebs are shedding, and like clockwork, Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' is back terrorizing the charts. Not exactly a shocker, but the numbers are still wild.
'Michael Jackson's "Thriller" rises to #5 on the global Spotify chart with 5.677 million streams following Halloween.'
- @chartdata, Nov 1, 2025
Why 'Thriller' still owns October
MJ dropped the 'Thriller' album in November 1982, and it camped out on the Billboard 200 for months. After that initial run cooled, the team rolled the title track out as a single, and the rest is the kind of pop history that just refuses to sit still every October.
Part of the magic is how the song was built. Rod Temperton wrote it, Quincy Jones produced it, and it layers creaks, howls, and that slinky baseline under Jackson's voice in a way that still feels like a funhouse trap door. Then there is the music video: John Landis directed a 13-minute mini-movie that basically fused a horror short with a pop promo. It blurred the line between cinema and music video, and set a new standard for how ambitious a video could be. Decades later, 'Thriller' is still the Halloween anthem — the benchmark everyone else measures against, and almost no one actually catches.
The annual jump-scare on the charts
Every spooky season, streams spike, the song barges back into the global conversation, and we all agree to do the zombie dance again. This year, that meant a leap to #5 on Spotify worldwide with 5.677 million streams right after Halloween. It is a neat reminder that a great pop record can thrill, spook, and pull multiple generations into the same playlist without breaking a sweat.
Other MJ tracks that keep the lights flickering
- 'Ghosts' - Full-on supernatural theme, with MJ leaning hard into the macabre storytelling lane he helped popularize.
- 'Is It Scary' - Creepy-cool introspection with a haunted-house vibe that pairs perfectly with late-night listens.
- 'Dirty Diana' - Not horror, but darker, more dangerous edges that fit the season's mood.
- 'Blood on the Dance Floor' - Danger, desire, and menace wrapped in a club beat — classic MJ tension you can dance to.
Jackson's best storytelling flirts with shadows, pursuit, and moral gray areas, which is probably why he still dominates every Halloween. If you are queuing up a late-night playlist, what is your go-to MJ track?