Best Opening Track
 

What is the best opening track on an album? Any album anytime...

I suggest you use these criteria

Is it the best song on the album?
Does it set the tone for the album?
Is it instantly recognizable?
Does the band open with it at live shows?

I'd say you should have three of those four at least to use it but do as you will.

Mine
Astral Weeks - Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Good Times, Bad Times - Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Baba O'Reilly - The Who - Who's Next

Shine On You Crazy Diamond immediately jumps out. More to come I think.

That's a great one! With a being a sort of ode to a fallen comrade also only makes all the more fitting.

The fact that Syd turned up during the recording gives it even more resonance.

1. Elliott Smith "Angel in the Show" (New Moon)
2. The Smiths "Reel Around the Fountain" (The Smiths)
3. Ani DiFranco "Untouchable Face" (Dilate)
4. Nick Drake "Pink Moon" (Pink Moon)
5. Bob Dylan "Blowin' in the Wind" (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan)
6. Neutral Milk Hotel "Song Against Sex" (On Avery Island)
7. The Smiths "A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours" (Strangeways, Here We Come)
8. Elliott Smith "Needle in the Hay" (Elliott Smith)
9. Patrick Wolf "Overture" (The Magic Position)
10. Modest Mouse "3rd Planet" (The Moon and Antarctica)

I disagree with "Blowin' in the wind...it is kind of a misleading track considering how original the album is beyond it. Still a good song and a great LP though.

How is Blowin' in the Wind any less original then the rest of the album? The rest of the album isn't even original, its a straight up folk album. A great one, but still from a musical standpoint, it wasn't any different from the stuff Woody Guthrie was doing.

1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat
2. Patrick Wolf - The Libertine
3. Bob Dylan - If Not For You
4. Van Morrison - Fair Play
5. Neil Young - My My, Hey Hey(Out of the Blue)
6. Elliott Smith - Son of Sam
7. Patrick Wolf - Overture
8. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
9. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
10. Leonard Cohen - Suzanne

Freewheelin' has a rather light hearted and satirical tone to it, even in Bob Dylan's Dream it's almost lounge in cheek. Maybe it's because Blowin' in the Wind is such a folk standard and I just listened to the album to review it for my top 100. I just left thinking, man I wished Blowin' in the wind wasn't the first track on this. Maybe you're right, but that was my reaction.

Fair Play?

Are you a Veedon Fleece fan?

yes

Nice to know!

Van the Man is my favorite of all-time.

Veedon is a great album.

Do you like St. Dominic's Preview?

I have like 20 Van albums I'll just list my top 7 or so, save us some trouble.

1. Veedon Fleece
2. Astral Weeks
3. Moondance
4. St. Dominic's Preview
5. Tupelo Honey
6. Poetic Champion's Compose
7. Irish Heartbeat/Into the Music

Also I like It's Too Late to Stop Now more than all of those but I don't count live albums in those sorts of things.

We could hang out, do you drink brandy and smoke pot after dark?

No but only because I've never tried to. Come on down to New Orleans and let's do some illegal things.

I was doing illegal things in New Orleans twenty years ago.

Great great town, too bad such corrupt people have run it for so long now.

Brandy is an acquired taste, and pot is an absolute delight, Van Morrison however is universal.

I've got three years before I brandy myself up legally.

Well more like 2 now.

In New Orleans it doesn't really make a difference, of course.

Also, speaking of New Orleans, I saw Van at jazzfest this year, was quite good. Would do it again.

IS his voice still good?

Have not seen him in a couple, three years.

He looks like a mess doesn't he?

Hard too believe he was only 22 when he did Astral Weeks.

He looked pretty old, but he sounded pretty good.

He certainly looked younger than Bob Dylan when I saw him. I spent half the concert contemplating what I would do if Dylan just collapsed right there on stage.

I'd steal his Harmonica and high tail it outta there.

Cygnus.........Vismond Cygnus - The Mars Volta

I Just Got This Symphony Goin'-TFOT
21st Century Schizoid Man-King Crimson

Once again,

Bright Eyes - At The Bottom Of Everything.

BND on No Doubt's self-titled. Sets the listener up for the whole cd.

What is your favorite Bright Eyes album?

Do you enjoy there early stuff or more recent stuff?

Slint's Breadcrumb Trail was the first to come to mind, Patti Smith's Gloria, Teenage Riot, Search and Destroy and DK's Kill The Poor are some other top picks.

Couldn't agree more, easily the best opening track out of all their albums.

Now That I Know- Devendra Banhart
The Wagon- Dinosaur Jr.
Spine- Page France

Fevers And Mirrors or I'm Wide Awake It's Morning. But I'm still trying to get into them properly, just never bothered to listen to all the albums.

Jesus Lizard - Then comes Dudley
QOTSA - You think I ain't worth a dollar...

And I'll second 21st by King Crimson, also the Neil Young nomination.

Guillemots - little bear

It starts of soft, it gets louder and more powerfull every moment, it's like it touches you all over, finds your soft spot, and suddenly shoots out with a beautiful, beautiful voice! This album just makes me orgasm over and over.

Pogues - The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn (Rum Sodomy & the lash)

tauto by brand new (deja entendu)
chamber the cartridge by rise against (the suffer & the witness)
miseria cantare by afi (sing the sorrow)
eh...

KJ-52 by KJ-52. Catchiest hip hop track ever..

^Haha, I remember getting into that! I had nearly forgotten him.

I'd have to agree with the consesus, Pink Floyd hands down. Even on Dark Side Of the Moon the opening track warns you to prepare for what will follow.

Whats the reasoning behind the name of the band?

I was blown away when I first heard Take A Bow by Muse. I wasn't sure what I was expecting from Black Holes & Revelations but that opening track told me that I was going to love it. I desperately wanted Muse to start with Take A Bow live this summer and they did. :p:

Two votes:

'Baba O'reily', from 'Who's Next'. This track is an untouchable classic and one of the first times a synth took a lead role instead of droning in the backround.

'I saw her standing there', the first track, on the first Beatles album. Paul McCartney counts in: "One, two, three, four..." And music is changed forever.

fucking shit yes!




<3 pogues.

The snare beat that opens LIKE A ROLLING STONE from Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited is generally classed as a defining moment in music.