Crossing The Rubicon

So I’m aiming to do something like this a week where I start to spew and spew and spew things in all sorts of directions so that I can have some semblance of content on this site and thus will have a huge fan base and invited to lovely conventions with fat people in tight shirts. So I want to introduce the idea of this, and I wanted to comment on an issue that lends itself thematically to the, uh, theme of introductions.

Being how albums start off.

I have to post a link to this video which is the first song off the third album of one my favourite bands: The Sounds. This track continues the trend of their previous two albums in that that they sodding know how to fecking start an album. The album in question is Crossing The Rubicon (an old saying meaning: THE POINT OF NO RETURN)  and the song is No-one Sleeps When I’m Awake.

The Sounds have this amazingly uncanny ability to be able to graft an ultimate attack on the nerve system when you start an album. The second album, Dying To Say This To You is album that if I were to be crashed on a desert island with five albums to listen to until I die and/or go made and kill myself with a coconut – this would be the one I would have. Apparently that sort of hypothetical question has apparently been asked before, I’m not sure. But the point is that album also had an amazing start (as well as middle and finish) with Song With A Mission. Their debut album Living In America also starts with my favourite track from them: Seven Days A Week. It’s like they just know how to start a 40 minute race but not quite know how to run it or finish it when they go for their third try.

So I was thinking of more albums I have heard to that have both good and bad examples on how to start albums. Now for me I’m a sucker for albums that try to have some semblance of theme or style in the ordering of their albums, so that they can tonally shift your moods throughout – so a good opener is an absolute necessity. Most All rap albums I’ve ever owned have always started with a skit cutting into the first song. Good idea – a bit of an annoyance but in some places it works (like the Eminem albums that open to songs that will address the style and content). Some albums don’t completely get it right, like Briskey’s Joe Dallasandro from Jumping on Cars. I love the album to bits (another Desert Island Disc) but I have a habit of skipping to track 2 and then listening to the whole album on repeat and on the repeat listening either skipping the song or listening to it depending on my mood. I don’t know why I, I do like the song I just need to be in the right frame of mind. (And for no reason I am shoving  I Miss You Like Crazy in your face as  I fell in love with that band due to this song.)

Other albums go for the most popular songs or released songs first being kicking in with the songs-so-not-mainstream-or-catching-to-be-released and thus the whole album turns into a complete and utter twisted shock and the artist turns into something completely difference that you’d expect. On the plus side this is a good thing: Amy Studt’s False Smiles will forever be a pleasant surprise and a memorable experience on first listen (nope this won’t be joining me on any island). Albums that have lured me with goodness and them proceeded to beat me up in a metaphorical alleyway mugging include You’ll Love To Hate This by Richard Blackwood (no Dick, I just hate it) that Miss Dynamite album I got which I now begrudgingly admit to have actually exchanged money for when I could’ve bought something more productive and would last longer. Like a Tamigotchi.

A Grand Don’t Come For Free, The Streets’ most accomplished album starts off with the brilliant scene setting It Was Supposed To Be So Easy, and thus leads you on 10 more tracks of songs that you immediately need to re-listen to. The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths and it’s TITLE TRACK opens up with an ongoing shifting style with some great lyrics.

But to make this all egotistical – consider this the first track of a new LOOOOOOOONG album. An album where each track is a random little entry about nothing whatsoever.

So I ask you – what albums do you consider to have good or bad opening tracks? Which albums are a letdown after a good start? Let me know!