What do you think is the worst song that opens an album that was released during the LP era?
I’m going to say Within you, Without you, which opens side 2 of Sgt. Pepper. I really like most of George’s work, but the heavy Indian music he was into at the time just never did it for me. I’m not sure what my reaction would have been if I would have bought this record in 1967, but I know that when I bought in on vinyl in the 1980s I hated the song and usually skipped it when I listened to Pepper.
Not the worst, but I never liked “Money” kicking off Side two of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon.
“Space Child” opens the second side of Spirit’s The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus. It’s merely ok, making it the weakest song on the album.
I can’t think of a better example.
“Radio Song” makes you think R.E.M.'s Out of Time is going to suck. Well, it doesn’t.
(No, I have nothing against rap, hip-hop, or KRS-One. The song just blows, that’s all.)
“Procession” (written description on Wikipedia), the opening track on (side 1 of) the Moody Blues’ album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. This album of mostly catchy, listenable, great songs opens with four and a half minutes of the Moodies at their artsy-fartsiest, and whenever I listen to the album I generally start it at track 2.
The first track on The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead side two is Bigmouth Strikes Again, which, at the time it came out, I hated. Luckily I had it on cassette then, so with practice I managed to time flipping the thing over so that there was minimal fast-forwarding required. I have to say that now I do appreciate the track much more, and I don’t skip it at all these days.
Oops, 1991 is a bit late for “album era”. My bad.
I propose “Save the Life of my Child”, which weakly opens Side 2 of Simon and Garfunkel’s masterful Bookends.
Every vinyl copy I’ve ever seen opens Side 2 with Fakin’ It.
Side 1 opens with Bookends, followed by Save The Life Of My Child.
I always thought George was doing us a favor by letting us opt to begin the second side after WYWY. It’s a perfectly good album that way.
:smack: I was thinking of Side 1, you’re right.
And, technically, it’s not the first track, so you’re right about that as well. But…the first track is not “Bookends,” which is a real song that closes Side 1, but rather “Bookends Theme,” which is just a short instrumental echo of the real song.
That’s how I “parse” the album when listening to it, anyway.
Dire Straits’s eponymous first album is odd in that every song on side two is very noticeably better than any song on side one; it almost like listening to a different band. Side two opens with the strongest song, and the hit, Sultans of Swing, but side one opens with the weak “Down to the Waterline.” Arguably there are yet weaker songs on side one, but anything from side two would have made a stronger opening.
Opinions vary, but I always disliked King Crimson’s , “21st Century Schizoid Man”, the very first song from, “In the Court of the Crimson King”. So unlike the rest of the album.
I agree with Face Intentionally Left Blank about the otherwise amazingly great “In the Court of the Crimson King”. “21st Century Schizoid Man” is more grunge than anything else and really contrasts poorly to the melodic prog-rock in the rest of the album.
Now, I like grunge, don’t misunderstand me. It is just that that particular album is a bad place to put that song.
Within You Without You. This song got me into my lifelong love affair with Indian music, which got me into World music, which got me into all the different types of music I had never given a chance. Thank you George.
Outside World, which opens Midnight Oil’s 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 album. Not a bad song, but it plods and you keep expecting it to kick in, but it never does.
Love You To did that for me, and it fit nicely into Revolver. As much as I loved George (he was always the Beatle I would liked to have dinner with), I never cared for WYWY, especially in the context of the Pepper album. My loss.
It was the song that got them the recording contract, so of course it was first. It also was the best thing they ever did.
^^^^ this.
Other nominations: “Custard Pie” is one of the worst, if not THE worst, song on Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. The Yes album Fragile started side 2 with some awful bit of twanging titled “Five Percent for Nothing”.