Conventional wisdom dictates that when sequencing an album, you want to lead off with a strong track, something to get the listener excited while keeping them in front of the stereo/computer/whatever and playing the album.
Imagine dropping the needle on Highway 61 Revisited and not hearing “Like a Rolling Stone.” Or, from more recent days, Elephant not starting with “Seven Nation Army.” You get the idea.
What albums, in your experience, violate this dictum? What albums begin with a duff track?
The one that comes to mind for me is an obscure one: Hothouse Flowers’ Songs From the Rain. It begins with a mid-tempo, rather characterless ballad called “This Is It (Your Soul)” that I never fail to skip. I’m sure the band doesn’t agree, given that “This Is It” is the only track from that album included on their best-of. Be that as it may, to me the album begins with the second track, “One Tongue.”
So what first tracks do you all tend to skip?
(Exception should perhaps be made for concept or narrative albums, where the first track serves a dramatic role and isn’t necessarily meant to be catchy. Tommy, The Wall, and so on.)
A number of compilations come to mind, where they tossed in a few new tracks at the beginning to appeal to long-time fans. But I suspect that’s not what you had in mind, and I can’t think of any real examples at the moment.
In one case it works: Star Struck One at the beginning of the Smoking Popes’ Destination Failure is so lame that it makes No More Smiles seem great in comparison, and that song’s just a grunge-era hard rocker. When I play that album I always start with that, (actually its genuine lameness combined with its slowness do impart a better feeling to the following song, so it’s not all on its suckitude.)
The most obvious one is another Dylan album–Blonde on Blonde. It opens with “Rainy Day Woman” (the “everybody must get stoned” song). It’s a cheesy “wink wink nudge nudge” type thing that doesn’t fit the emotional richness of the other tracks. Hell, it’s not nearly as funny as “Stuck Inside Mobile With These Memphis Blues”.
A more obscure is Rilo Kiley’s “It’s a Hit”, the opening track off More Adventurous. It’s your standard slam at politicians and bad artists, with an aimless melody. Everything else is much better written, with much more intensity from the band.
It doesn’t help when there’s a particularly strong second track. “Once” isn’t really a horrible Pearl Jam song, but I always skipped straight to “Even Flow”.
My definition of a lame first track is any first track on a record album that features a gradual fade-in.
I’ve made digital recordings of a lot of used vinyl, and usually have to spend a lot of time cleaning up those first tracks that start very softly, because that’s mostly where the worst scratches are (from the careless and drug-addled dropping/manipulating the needle on the record).
The Moody Blues’ Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. I typically skip track 1 (“Procession,” which isn’t really a song) and start with track 2 (“The Story In Your Eyes,” which rocks).
This is the sound of me pounding you. I happen to disagree, but YMMV, what have you…
I am trying to think this through - I am trying to think of CD’s where the big hit single is the second track so the first song feels disappointing when you get the CD in the player…
U2’s Achtung Baby starts with the choppy, flat “Zoo Station” instead of the warm and romantic “Even Better Than The Real Thing” or the inspired “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.”
Alice Cooper’s best (IMO) album, Billion Dollar Babies, starts with the clunker “Hello Hooray”, which is poor not just in context to the great other songs on the album, but poor in general for Alice’s whole catalog. I usually hit skip if it comes up on my iPod. Looking at the credits, it is the sole song that was not penned by the band.
“Hello, Hooray” (Kempf) – 4:15
“Raped and Freezin’” (Cooper, Michael Bruce) – 3:19
The O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack album opens with Po’ Lazarus, as the movie did. I always skip it and go straight to The Big Rock Candy Mountain.
IMO it would be on par with the rest of the album, despite being more reminiscent of their early work, if that part of the song hadn’t been driven (NPI) into the ground by Oldies Radio traffic breaks.
I don’t know if I’d classify it as “lame” as much as I’d call it an in-joke, but First Circle by the Pat Metheny Group opens with “Forward March”, which is basically a joke song where the band plays out of tune and time with one another and tries to sound like an incompetent marching band. Then the albums lurches into “Yolanda, you Learn” and the rest of the songs, all of which sound nothing like “Forward March”, thankfully.
I happen to disagree, but YMMV, what have you…