The biggest-selling album of all time began with a potential pool of 700 songs. Seven hundred. Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson methodically whittled down the list. Dozens of songs were recorded, only to then be canned. Billie Jean was on the chopping block at one point, but Jackson loved the bass line too much to let it go. Relentless focus whittled the record down to a mere nine songs. And then… they replaced four of those tracks. A last-minute replacement was Beat It. Jackson & Jones stuffed the final product with hits: Thriller. P.Y.T. Human Nature. The Girl Is Mine. Wanna Be Startin’ Something. All Thriller, no filler. How’d they do it? How do you set aside 98% of an album’s tracks? And — more importantly — what can other bands learn from Jackson’s selection process?

Let’s start by looking at not one, but a pair of outcasts. Despite their differences, they’re the same song deep down. The first version was Slapstick. It’s up-tempo and, even for Jackson, high-pitched. His voice strains to hit the notes in this version, and I assume that’s why it got binned.

A year or so later, Jackson picked the song up again. This time around, its hook changed from “Slapstick” to “Hot Street”. The latter has more adult and contemporary lyrics. This version’s about a man picking up a prostitute! Combined with Billie Jean and Beat It, it’s clear Jackson was toying with some mature themes for Thriller. Hot Street is faster than its predecessor and — this bit’s important — pitched lower. Jackson’s voice scales the chorus’ daring vocal heights with effortless abandon now. The speed increase is interesting: presumably this helped the song seem more ‘danceable.’

Now we’re familiar with the tracks, let’s deep dive into why they might have been rejected. Hot Street was a serious contender, but its rejection can teach us a lot about how to structure our own albums. The next few paragraphs will be structured around individual lessons. While the details are Thriller-specific, the high-level lesson is applicable to all pop records.