The 22 Album Openers That Ripped Your Face Off Right From The Start
I mean, they didn't even buy us dinner first... How rude...
When Vinyl and Cassette (and to a degree, CD’s) were a thing, the order of tracks was such a key element to the artform. Record execs would often cry to the heavens : “Oh Lord of Marketing! Do we start off with the single everyone heard on the radio or leave that for track 3 to ensure we got them to listen to at least a couple more before this ends up in Cash Convertors?”
Some bands got it wrong. Sometimes so utterly fuckerly wrong. Famously, who in their right mind put “Gone Hollywood” at the start of Supertramp‘s otherwise single-ridden epic “Breakfast in America” ? Or “Army of Me” by Björk to utterly confuse anyone bought the album thinking it would be all warm and squishy.
Even metal was not exempt. Anyone remember that awful 1989-1991 trend in Thrash of having an acoustic intro? Pah… Only Dark Angel and Helstar got that right… And “Enter Sandman” as an opener? Screw that; don’t let me be disappointed to begin with. Ease me into it so the shame comes in nudges not a wave.
But metal, as a genre, is thankfully mostly barren of such examples. With such a powerful art form even the most coke-d up exec can look up from between the buttocks of his rent boy for a hot minute and get the album order right.
And here are 22 that did. And ripped our faces off in the process. Seriously, after researching this list I had to use a staple gun every 5 minutes to put that fucker back on. I think Leatherface would score better than me on Tinder right now.
Oh and why 22? Why not 25? Because it’s my list and I like ducks.*
22 : Mad Capsule Markets – Tribe
From : OSC-DIS, 1999
Mmmmm….. Japanese-y Metal. Always unique and always furiously over the top. This had been released as a single but when I heard it as track one on the album it made so much sense. “If you like this, just fucking wait ’til you see what else we got!” is exactly what it said with just a 303 and a Low Pass Filter.
21 : Eskimo Callboy – Hypa Hypa
From : MMXX, 2020
Come on you knew they were gonna be on here somewhere, right? Eskimo Callboy simply took metal and Russian Hardbass and smashed them together in the Large Heavy Collider that is their collective undercrackers. What was eventually spilt on the carpet of our collective musical experience is something we should never clean up. Yeah, I know it won’t age well. Yeah, I know it’s not going to be a style they can keep on forever with. But it’s here now so let’s enjoy it before the bleach comes out.
What about “Fast as a shark” from the “Restless & Wild” album from the German band Accept?