Your pops statement sounds dumb as fukk. I mean there were trash songs MJ recorded for thriller that he thankfully left off. One of them was called carousel where the first line he is talking about ponies and unicorns or some shyt.
But the songs on the official album ?

how were they not hit singles? What kind of dumb rationality is it to say the chemistry was the only reason it was good
Speaking of Mike. These are some random ass points but i wish he had named the Bad album "Smooth Criminal". Do u agree? I mean I love Bad but the title seems corny in hindsight.
Also Prince released like 7 albums in the 80s, Mike should have released more. I understand waiting a while after thriller and i know his reason besides wanting to take his time was that he didnt wanna overexpose himself.
But he should have at least released 2 albums at the very least.
One thing i will say that i think you will agree with is that overtime i think mike focused more on music videos than he should have did on actual content.
Like when he said after thriller sold all those copies, he wanted to sell 100 million with bad. That is a dangerous mindset to have.