Quincy Jones told Michael Jackson to scream on a track as a joke. What Michael did next created the most recognizable sound in music history. It was April 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles. The air conditioning hummed quietly as Quincy Jones sat behind the massive mixing console, his fingers drumming impatiently on the armrest.

Michael Jackson stood in the vocal booth, headphones on, waiting for direction. They were working on what would become the Thriller album, but right now nothing was working. The track was want to be starting something. They’d been at it for 6 hours and Quincy could feel the frustration building in his chest.

Michael had recorded the verse 15 times. Each take was technically perfect. Each take was absolutely lifeless. Quincy pressed the talk back button. Michael, let’s take five. Michael removed his headphones slowly, his face showing the exhaustion that came from perfection without passion.

He walked out of the booth and sat on the leather couch in the control room. Neither man spoke for a moment. The silence between them was heavy with unspoken pressure. This album had to be massive. Everyone knew it. Michael’s last solo album, Offthe-Wall, had been successful, but it hadn’t won album of the year at the Grammys.

That loss had devastated Michael. He’d cried for days. This time, everything had to be perfect. No, beyond perfect. Revolutionary. Bruce Swedian, the recording engineer, excused himself to get coffee, sensing the tension. Quincy and Michael were left alone in the control room. “What’s not working?” Michael asked quietly.

His voice was soft, almost childlike, but there was steel underneath. He knew something was wrong. He always knew. Quincy leaned back in his chair, studying the young man in front of him. Michael was 23 years old, but looked younger. He wore a red leather jacket despite the warmth of the studio, and his Jerry curls glistened under the dim lights.

Quincy had been working with Michael since he was a teenager with the Jackson 5. He’d produced Off-the-Wall. He knew Michael’s genius, but he also knew Michael’s tendency to be too controlled, too calculated. “You’re singing it perfectly,” Quincy said carefully. But you’re not feeling it. You’re thinking about every note, every breath. You’re performing it.

You’re not living it. Michael looked down at his hands. I’m trying. I know you are, Quincy said, his tone softening. But trying is the problem. You’re so focused on making it perfect that you’re squeezing all the life out of it. This song is supposed to be aggressive, angry, raw. Right now, it sounds like you’re reading a phone book with excellent diction.

Michael winced at the critique, but didn’t argue. He respected Quincy too much to get defensive. That was one of the things Quincy loved about working with him. No ego when it came to the work, just pure dedication to making something great. They sat in silence for another moment. Quincy could hear the traffic outside on Santa Monica Boulevard, the occasional horn, the city alive beyond their creative cocoon.

He thought about the song, about what it needed. The lyrics were about gossip, about rumors, about people trying to start drama. It needed edge. It needed personality. It needed something that would make people remember it decades later. Then Quincy had an idea. It was ridiculous, completely absurd, but maybe that was exactly what they needed.

“Michael,” Quincy said, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’ve got a suggestion, but you’re going to think I’m crazy.” Michael looked up, interested. “What?” Quincy leaned forward, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Stop singing, just scream.” Michael blinked.

“What?” “You heard me,” Quincy said, starting to laugh at the absurdity of his own suggestion. “Stop trying to hit perfect notes. Just open your mouth and scream. Make noise. Be primal. Be aggressive. Hell, bark like a dog if you want. Just stop being so damn polite.” Michael stared at him completely serious.

“You want me to scream?” Yeah, Quincy said, still chuckling. I’m kidding, of course. But seriously, you need to loosen up. You’re wound so tight right now that you couldn’t be spontaneous if your life depended on it. Maybe just make some random noises between takes. Get weird. Remember how to have fun. Quincy expected Michael to laugh, to roll his eyes, to make some joke about Quincy losing his mind from too many late night studio sessions.

Instead, Michael’s eyes lit up with something Quincy hadn’t seen all day. Genuine excitement. “Make noises,” Michael repeated slowly, as if tasting the words. “Michael, I was joking,” Quincy said, suddenly worried. He knew Michael well enough to recognize that look. “That was Michael’s idea face.

That was Michael about to take something casual and turn it into an obsession.” “No, no,” Michael said, standing up quickly. “You’re right. I’ve been too controlled, too careful. What if the song had sounds that weren’t words? What if there were these moments where it’s just pure emotion, not lyrics? Michael, give me 20 minutes, Michael said, already heading toward the door. I need to think about this.

Before Quincy could respond, Michael was gone, walking quickly down the hallway. Quincy shook his head, half amused, half concerned. He’d worked with dozens of artists over his career. Most took direction literally. Michael took direction as a starting point for innovation. It was what made him brilliant.

It was also what made him exhausting. Bruce Swedian returned with coffee. “Where’s Michael?” “Gone to figure out how to scream musically?” Quincy said, taking the coffee gratefully. Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Should I be worried?” “Probably.” 20 minutes later, Michael returned to the studio. He walked past the control room without a word and went straight into the vocal booth.

He put on the headphones, adjusted the microphone, and pressed the talk back button. I’m ready. Let’s go again. Quincy and Bruce exchanged glances. Quincy pressed the button. Okay, Michael. Take 16 from the top. The music started. Michael began singing the verse. His voice was smooth, controlled, hitting every note perfectly. Quincy sighed.

Here we go again, he thought. Same problem, same lifeless delivery. But then, as Michael transitioned into the second line, something happened. Instead of singing the next word, Michael made a sound. It wasn’t a word. It wasn’t even really a note. It was somewhere between a grunt and an exhale, sharp and rhythmic.

Shimone. Quincy sat up straighter. Bruce’s hand froze on the mixing board. Michael continued singing. But now there were these punctuations, these vocal exclamations. He he came next, high and sharp, almost like a laugh, but more percussive. Then another one. Ooh. This one lower, more aggressive.

By the time Michael finished the verse, Quincy was leaning forward in his chair, his coffee forgotten. The entire energy of the song had changed. It was alive now, dangerous, unpredictable. Those sounds, those non-verbal expressions, they added personality. They added Michael. Michael took off his headphones and looked through the glass at Quincy.

His expression uncertain. Too much. Quincy pressed the talk back button slowly. His mind was racing, processing what he just heard. Michael, he said carefully. Do that again. Exactly like that. Don’t change a single thing. Michael’s face broke into a huge smile. He put the headphones back on.

They recorded take 17, then 18, then 19. Each time, Michael refined those sounds. The shimone became sharper, more precise. The hehe found its perfect pitch. New sounds emerged. A sharp intake of breath, a whispered chamon, a guttural da. Each one placed strategically, adding rhythm, adding flavor, adding pure Michael Jackson.

By take 23, they had it. Quincy played back the recording, and all three men in the control room knew they were listening to something special. The song wasn’t just good, it was infectious. Those vocal sounds were hooks by themselves. You couldn’t unhear them. They burrowed into your brain.

“Michael,” Quincy said into the talkback, “come listen to this.” Michael walked into the control room, and Quincy played back the take. They listened in silence. When it finished, Michael looked at Quincy with an expression of pure joy. “It works,” Michael said simply. “It more than works,” Quincy replied. “It’s brilliant, but here’s my question.

Was this a one-time thing, or can you do this on other tracks?” Michael thought for a moment. “I think these sounds are part of my voice now. They’re how I feel the music. They’ve always been there, but I was holding them back because I thought they weren’t professional or polished enough. Use them, Quincy said firmly.

Use them on every track where they fit. This is your signature. This is what makes you different from every other vocalist on the planet. Over the next several months, as they worked through the rest of the Thriller album, those sounds appeared everywhere. On Billy Jean, Michael added sharp vocal hits between verses.

On Beat It, his aggressive vocal punctuations amplified the rock edge. On Thriller itself, Vincent Price’s rap wasn’t the only memorable vocal moment. Michael’s sounds throughout the track created atmosphere and tension. Bruce Swedian later told colleagues that the hardest part of recording Thriller wasn’t Michael’s singing.

It was capturing those sounds. They were so spontaneous, so in the moment that Michael rarely did them exactly the same way twice. Bruce had to be ready at all times recording everything, knowing that the perfect Shimone might happen on a random take when they weren’t even officially recording. When Thriller was released in November 1982, the industry noticed those sounds immediately. Some producers loved them.

Others thought they were gimmicky. Radio programmers debated whether vocal ad libs that weren’t words would confuse listeners. The listeners didn’t care about the debate. They loved those sounds. Kids in playgrounds started imitating the hehei. Dancers incorporated the shimone into their routines.

Those vocal signatures became as recognizable as Michael’s moonwalk. Maybe more recognizable because you could make those sounds yourself. You could be Michael just for a second by making that noise. Other artists started trying to add similar signature sounds to their music. Prince had always had his own vocal quirks, but after Thriller, they became more pronounced.

Madonna started adding breathy spoken words to her tracks. New Edition in Bobby Brown incorporated vocal punctuations into their R and B songs. The entire sound of pop music shifted, becoming more personal, more idiosyncratic, more willing to embrace the human voice as a percussion instrument.

But nobody could replicate Michael’s sounds exactly. They were too tied to his voice, his energy, his unique musicality. When other artists tried, it sounded like imitation. When Michael did it, it sounded like innovation. Quincy Jones watched all of this unfold with a mixture of pride and amazement.

He’d been joking when he told Michael to scream. He’d been trying to get Michael to loosen up, to stop being so precious about perfection. He never expected Michael to turn that throwaway comment into a signature style that would influence decades of pop music. Years later, in a 1993 interview, Quincy recounted the story.

“I told Michael to scream as a joke,” he said, laughing. “I was being sarcastic. I was frustrated.” But Michael, being Michael, he heard something in that joke that I didn’t even know was there. He found the permission he’d been looking for, to be himself, completely and unapologetically. Those sounds weren’t manufactured.

They weren’t calculated. They were pure Michael. The sounds he’d been making his whole life when he was dancing alone in his room when he was lost in the music. He just finally let the world hear them. The impact of those sounds extended far beyond thriller. Every album Michael released after that included them.

They became expected, anticipated. [snorts] If you listen to a new Michael Jackson song and didn’t hear at least one Shimone or he he, something felt missing. They were as much a part of his music as his voice itself. Music producers began teaching the concept in studios. It became known as vocal signature moments.

The idea that an artist could create non-verbal sounds that became as recognizable as their name. James Brown had done it decades earlier with his grunts and screams. Michael elevated it to an art form. After Michael, it became a standard technique. If you listen to modern pop, hip hop, or R&B, you’ll hear vocal adlibs everywhere.

Travis Scott’s adlibs, Young Thug’s unique vocal sounds, Ariana Grande’s runs and whistles. They all trace back in some way to Michael saying Shimone because Quincy told him to scream. The thriller album went on to sell over 70 million copies worldwide. It won eight Grammy awards, including album of the year. Michael finally got the recognition he’d cried about missing with Off-the-Wall.

Those vocal sounds were featured in every single that became a hit. Billy Jean with its sharp exhales. Beat it with its aggressive punctuations. Want to be starting something with the original Shimone that started it all. In 2009, when Michael Jackson passed away, tributes poured in from around the world. Musicians, dancers, actors, fans.

They all had their favorite Michael moments, and almost every tribute included someone doing those sounds. Shimone, he he’d become more than Michael’s signature. They’d become the sound of joy, of dance, of pure musical freedom. Quincy Jones attended Michael’s memorial service.

He sat in the audience at the Staple Center, surrounded by thousands of mourers and millions watching worldwide. When Usher performed Gone Too Soon, Quincy thought about that night in Westlake Recording Studios. The frustration, the joke, Michael’s face lighting up with possibility. After the service, a journalist asked Quincy what Michael’s greatest innovation was, Quincy thought for a long moment.

Michael innovated in a hundred ways, Quincy said slowly. But the thing that always amazed me most was how he took the smallest moments and turned them into something eternal. I made a sarcastic comment during a frustrating recording session. Most artists would have laughed or ignored it.

Michael turned it into a signature that changed music. That was his genius. He could find magic anywhere, even in a joke. Today, if you listen to any compilation of influential pop music from the last 40 years, you’ll hear Michael sounds within minutes. They’ve been sampled, remixed, referenced, and honored in thousands of songs.

Music students study them. Vocal coaches teach them. Impressionists perform them. But it all started with a joke. A frustrated producer telling a perfectionist artist to just scream. And an artist taking that joke seriously enough to create something that would outlive them both. The most recognizable sounds in pop music history exist because Quincy Jones was being sarcastic and Michael Jackson was being literal.

That’s the beautiful accident at the heart of Thriller. That’s the moment when Michael stopped trying to be perfect and started being unmistakably himself. And the world has been making those sounds ever