After much pondering over my favorite albums I’ve noticed what I guess you could call “classes” of opening tracks for all albums. “The Litmus Test” was what got me going here, and here are four that I’ve thought of for the time being:
The “Best Foot Forward”
A tried and true method to open the album is to lead with the best song. This is a nice choice when you consider that the first track is obviously the most accessible on the album, and that first impressions are always vital. Unfortunately it also may leave the listener with nothing to look forward to, prompting a loss of interest further into the album. Still, this is better than the possibility of the listener losing interest before even hearing the better songs.
The “Intro”
So called because pretty much all of these go by the unassuming title of “Intro” and are most often found on hip hop albums. These usually are a total waste of roughly one minute of your time, and why these throwaway intro tracks are so prolific across hip hop in general is a fad I think we could do without. See the recent Gorillaz album Demon Days for a sample of a completely useless intro track (with annoying scratched voices too, awesome!). Even Illmatic has a pointless intro track that would be better left out. Think of how much better it would be if the album kicked off immediately with “NY State of Mind.” Furthermore even when the “intro” is good, it’s bad, because if a good beat is wasted on a brief intro, you’ll wonder why it wasn’t used for a full song.
The “Overture”
Fairly uncommon, this is a concept that goes all the way back to the 17th century. The idea here is to distill the band’s entire array of sound into a single song by bits and pieces, sort of like a sampler tray as an appetizer. One obvious example is the opening track “Overture” from The Who’s “Tommy” which does exactly that, composing a medley of bits from later songs on the album.
The “Litmus Test”
This is surely unintentional by the artist but still one that deserves to be mentioned. This would be where the first track is a trial for the listener to see if they will like the rest of the album. One of my favorite albums and certainly my favorite emo album (unless you consider Cap’n Jazz emo) is, Mineral’s “End Serenading” and it is the perfect example. The opening track “Lovelettertypewriter” is by far the slowest and most repetitive song on there, but has a nice steady build-up and sets up the rest of the album perfectly. If someone can appreciate that trying first track it’s a good sign that they’ll enjoy the rest of the album.
Well that’s all that I can think of for now, but if I think of more I’ll add them. Can anybody think of one that I missed?