10 Bad Opening Songs On Great Rock Music Albums
3. Mustapha - Jazz (Queen)
From their very first album, Queen have known how to open a record.
That self-titled debut record begins with Keep Yourself Alive; a song so grand it's a miracle it wasn't outlawed in the early '70s. Sheer Heart Attack starts with Brighton Rock, A Night at the Opera with Tie Your Mother Down, and News of the World kicks off with We Will Rock You!
As for the album that came after that...
Mustapha, which is track one on 1978's Jazz, is one of the band's most interesting songs. It's sung largely in a combination of Arabic, Hebrew, and Parsi, which is a nod to Freddie Mercury's Zanzibarian heritage.
It's theatrical and off the wall, like any good Queen song should be, but it doesn't really work as an album opener. Mustapha stands out too much and feels too distant from the rest of the record. The next track is Fat Bottomed Girls - talk about a shift in tone.
Whilst it's nice to hear such a big band singing in a language other than English and incorporating other culture's sounds into their own, there was probably a better place for this oddity.