Album Openers

The opening song of an album is more important than you might think. It's the first thing you hear when you stick it on the stereo and it often decides whether someone will listen to the rest. Essentially it's got to hook the listener and get them to leave the album on. But what makes a good opening track? Here's a list of a few songs that I think work really well as album openers and I'll explain why in each case.

Kill the Rhythm - Gallows

The crushing first song from their debut album Orchestra of Wolves, Kill the Rhythm is fast paced and fierce. The listener is immediately drawn into the catchy song and can't help listening to the rest of the album. It's easily one of the best songs on the album and is my second favourite Gallows song, after London is the Reason from their 2009 album Grey Britain. Recently Frank Turner, who had fronted the band for both their albums, announced that he was leaving the band. He has since been replaced with ex-Alexisonfire singer Wade MacNeil. A third album is in the works and their latest Twitter post says:

"Drums and guitars for the new songs are tracked and sounding huge!"

I'm really looking forward to the new album and to see what the new singer produces. They've released one track with their new singer (available from www.gallows.co.uk) called True Colours, and it's rather good but at only 37 seconds long it's way too short. Whenever they next hit the UK I'll be there, I've seen them twice already (the most recent being Sonisphere 2011, the day after Frank's announcement of his imminent departure) and they were fantastic.

Since We've Been Wrong - The Mars Volta

The Mars Volta are renowned for their individual brand of music full of mesmerising intricacies and complex melodies. One result of this however is that their music isn't all that popular in the mainstream musical community, and I think that this is because people find it hard to connect with it. The good thing about Since We've Been Wrong, the opening song of their latest work Octahedron is that although it has many of the features typical of the band, it has a consistent vocal part that reappears throughout. This repeated chorus has the effect of bridging the gap and as a result I think Octahedron would be a good album to start with for anyone looking to get into The Mars Volta. Another element of the song that I like is a piano trill which has a nice effect.

Aces High - Iron Maiden

If this isn't a classic then nothing is. Having stood the test of time Aces High remains popular today with millions of people. This fast paced, action packed song is the first track from the 1984 album Powerslave which also contains the famous Maiden songs: 2 Minutes to Midnight and Powerslave. Centring on the Battle of Britain and the pilots flying the Supermarine Spitfire planes the song makes you feel like you're in the cockpit as the music twists and turns like a plane in a dogfight. For years the band opened with this song, only changing it recently for their tours where they're playing more songs from recent years. I predict however that it'll return to their performance at its rightful place: the first song on the setlist.

New Born - Muse

Even if you don't know Muse at all you may well have heard this song. The first track of their 2001 album Origin of Symmetry, it has appeared on television advertisements in the UK at least. The riff to this song is fantastic, and Matt Bellamy's vocals are great as usual. Like Aces High it's fast paced, a quality I think helps create a good album opener. The band played the album, Origin of Symmetry all the way through at their shows at Reading and Leeds Festival 2011 and I've heard it was a fantastic gig (sadly I couldn't be there). I prefer this, their second album, and Absolution, their third, to their newer material as it's less produced. I feel their current genre, especially their latest release, The Resistance, has too many effects and that this obscures the music.

One More Time With Feeling - Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

The opening song from his debut album Get Cape's One More Time With Feeling is a masterpiece. Featuring the picked guitar melody technique that Sam Duckworth (the man behind Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly) is so good. It's a short song like most of the rest on the album, but it's a really lovely piece. The lyrics are thoughtful and make the listener think. This is true throughout the album. Overall the album is my favourite of Get Cape's releases.

Duckworth has also released an album under his real name which came out at the end of August. I quite liked it, it's has many parallels with the work on The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager, the album that One More Time With Feeling features on. You can read my review of it here: http://malfunctioning-musical-madness.blogspot.com/2011/09/mannequin-review.html

Enter Sandman - Metallica

This is a really interesting choice of album opener. It works very well, its fast, powerful and extremely catchy. It's debatably the band's best known song. However I think that's a problem. An album opener should be a hook, but having the album's main hit right at the start is risky. It means that the rest of the piece may not live up to the opening track. For me this isn't an issue with this particular album because it isn't my favourite song. My album highlight (and in fact my favourite Metallica song full stop) is the eighth track (out of twelve) on the album: Nothing Else Matters. Enter Sandman has a fantastic riff and a chorus that demands crowds' to sing along with no regard for the condition of their vocal chords. A really good song.

So there you have it, a selection of my favourite album openers. Out of that list I'd say Aces High is the best at introducing the album. In my humble opinion it's the best album opener of all time. A good album opener is important and if a band gets it wrong they can lose a lot of potential fans that won't listen to the rest of the piece. Musicians, take not,