The previous Pantera post got me thinking…
The first track or cluster of tracks on an album are very important. First impressions are huge, even in the music world, and a weak album opener can be pretty damning for the rest of the cd. I’m sure you’ve all had experiences with records you were stoked about hearing only to pop it in the cd player only to find the first track/few tracks totally sucked. Conversely, I know there are tons of records out there that have songs that come out swinging and really prepare you for the rest of the album.
That said, I’m curious what albums really do it for you in terms of starting things off with a bang. If you wanna be all High Fidelity about it, I suppose I’d be okay with everyone just listing albums with a killer first song, but lots of records have that.. I’m more interested in clusters of tunes. I mentioned that songs 1-5 on ‘Vulgar Display..’ were all classics. Similarly, Metallica’s black album began with 4 of 5 songs that ultimately became singles and just plain classic tracks.
Soo what’s your take? What records, rock or otherwise, begin with a collection of 3,4,5, etc songs that destroys the competition in your mind? Please share with the class.
one cd that i’ve always thought had an impressive opening array of songs is Norma Jean’s Bless The Martyr & Kiss The Child. The first four songs, (“The Entire World Is Counting On Me…’, ‘Face:Face’, ‘Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste’ and ‘Creating Something Out Of Nothing..’) are so awesome and probably quadruple-handedly got me into the whole metalcore genre.
Glassjaw-Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence: Pretty Lush, Siberian Kiss, and When One Eight Becomes Two Zeros…talk about three classic songs.
Gotta agree with the Glassjaw record. I was listening to this a couple weeks ago and was floored all over again. BTW, the break in Pretty Lush where everything stops and Daryl’s about to utter something crazy but stops short with ‘YOU F’NUH’… one of my favorite moments in modern music.
I agree with you Chase, that Pretty Lush break is something special. The emotion behind that record just feels so real and it’s moments like that that really make me say ‘wow’ each time