So, I figured this would be the best place for it, although the likelyhood of the idea getting a little swamped is fairly high... However.
Album openers. They're important to me. As much as I tend to try and not judge a book by it's cover, unless the first track on an album grabs me by the head and repeatedly pounds my face into it's musical awesome, I'm far less likely to enjoy the record as a whole.
In the words of a good friend of mine...
"I’m not a fan of having to sit through a whole track of fuzzy feedback noise (i.e. all John Frusciante records), annoying tinkling of bells or the noise of lawnmowers (i.e. all prog-rock bands) or old men talking about weird religions for ages (i.e. Bright Eyes) before the tunes actually begin."
So after a good deal of internal debate, and some external debate with the person who wrote the above quote... I present Joe's Top Five Album Openers.
This song was a fairly big wake-up call for me. When I first heard it, I was deep in the depths of progressive rock hell, firm in my belief that for anything to be good, it had to be played in a time signature nobody but the musicians themselves could understand. The idea that Mr. Homme was only going to play a mere two chords through the majority of the song was astounding to me, and taught me the virtue of simplicity and tension in music. This song not only opened an album, but opened a whole band. They've been riding high on waves of sheer awesome since.
Just a flat-out rockin' tune. Nothing more and nothing less. Sets the rest of the album up in style. Matt Cameron's drums on this record are superb from start to finish and Rusty Cage is fine example.
Wailing sax, guitar, fuzzed out sound, and a level of musical complexity that astounds me. It manages to sound tightly reheased and yet largely improvisational at the same time. A near perfect peice of late 60's prog.
If any band knows how to open an album, it's Rage Against The Machine. I had a hard time picking which Rage album-opener I would put in this list, but settled for this. Morello's riff and Wilk's drums set the entire album up perfectly. A brilliant opener.
Not chosen so much for it's awesome qualities (although it's still a fine tune) but more for the associations I have with it. This song was a major part of my musical development, getting me into blues, funk and so on... The rest of the album wasn't quite up to the same standard as this song, and while I could have put countless other songs in it's place which I regard as 'better', this song has some meaning for me in terms of waking up to good music.
So that's the five... There were plenty of other songs I wanted to post in that list, as choosing between say... Bombtrack and Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones, isn't an easy call to make. I expect if I did this again tomorrow it would be somewhat different. I'd be interested to see what five album openers you guys would pick...
Album openers, huh? To me an opening song doesnt have to be a fantastic song on its own so much as a moodsetter for the rest of the album. That said, I agree with you in that it shouldnt be five minutes of annoyance (Bright Eyes is a perfect example).
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