He and Quincy Jones worked their way through more than seven hundred demos for his next solo studio album, Thriller. They consciously brought in a mix of musical genres, looking to transcend radio format boundaries and reach the broadest possible audience. When they got to “Beat It,” Jones encouraged Jackson to work with a rock icon. After Pete Townshend turned down the request, Jackson tapped Eddie Van Halen, who agreed to play guitar on the track and ended up assisting Jackson on the arrangement. Whether or not Van Halen’s blistering solos set a monitor speaker on fire during the recording sessions, as legend has it, his contributions did stamp “Beat It” as legit for rock stations.
It’s notable that Van Halen wasn’t paid for his work, nor did he initially take credit for it. He’s said to have asked for only a case of beer and a dance lesson from Jackson as compensation. This has often been described as an expression of his modesty, or, more practically, his desire not to violate the terms of his band’s noncompete agreement. But it’s at least as likely that he was reluctant to be seen as crossing the line into R&B.
Van Halen could not have known then that after its November 1982 release, Thriller would go on to be the first major label album to debut worldwide, the first to be marketed to multiple radio formats simultaneously, and the first to be worked for a marathon stretch of two years, with seven songs being pushed as singles rather than the usual two or three.
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