I really want to know who sequenced Thriller and what flavor of crack they were smoking when they did it. I mean, seriously. Wanna Be Starting Something is a good, if obvious, way to start (imagine how much more compelling Beat It would be as an opener with the gong and such a clear break from Off The Wall’s disco), but then, on a record that has both Billie Jean and Beat It, they put Baby Be Mine second? Seriously? Seriously? Maybe the most forgettable song on a record that had what 4? 5? number one singles. Any child can tell that Billie Jean should be the second song on this record.
Also, I understand that The Girl Is Mine was supposed to be the breakout single, what with having Sir Paul and all, but it’s really a pretty lame piece of fluff to have in that spot. It wouldn’t be quite so badly setup for failure sitting somewhere in the middle of the second side.
Finally, Thriller is so obviously a last track. How do you follow that? Once you go off into that weird zombie world, there should be no coming back. And the Vincent Price cackle is such a great last note.
It’s truly amazing that a record with such impossibly strong material could be such a wreck in this regard. I guess they really just were thinking of these as singles that happen to have to be thrown together onto a record. I’d be totally cool with that if I wasn’t totally sure that someone got paid a lot of money and spent a lot of time to come up with the utter farce that is this sequence.
