A couple of things this last week - one a sadly unfolding saga of a band crumbling in front of our eyes, the other a very specific (and quite niche) anniversary - got me thinking of albums that have undoubtedly great opening tracks.
This is, of course, by no means a definitive list, but just ten albums that I thought of where they really hit the ground running, because the opening tune is so great. These are also albums where there are more banging tunes than duds. I don't think that with any of the records I have chosen you could argue that the first song is the only good song on there.
So, sit back and strap in for ten great album openers...
1. Jane' Addiction: True Nature
So to the first of the things alluded to at the top of the page. Over the last week or so, we have watched as the first tour of the full 'classic' Jane's line-up (Farrell, Navarro, Perkins, Avery) in many a long year, disintegrated following a very physical bust up on a Boston stage between Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro. They are a band that have split and made up more than once over the years, so this is not unusual (although it does have a feeling of finality on this occasion).
What it did get me thinking of though, was their album Strays - a 2003 comeback (minus Eric Avery), that has, in my humble opinion, about the best opening trio of songs on any album. The title track and the glossy, funky Just Because (their only tune to crack the US Top100), are preceded by this explosion of eviscerating power chords and slide guitar from Navarro on True Nature. "How you treat the weak is your true nature calling".
Jane's Addiction: True Nature (Official music video)
2. David Bowie: Changes
A bit of a change of pace here. This is the opener from Bowie's fourth album, Hunky Dory, in 1971. Changes is about his compulsive need for artistic reinvention (something that was an obvious theme across his entire career) and also about trying to position himself away from the mainstream. The second verse also is a callout to parents to allow their children to be themselves. The song features Rick Wakeman on piano, who had been a part of the Strawbs at the time, but would more famously go on to prog giants Yes. Wakeman would say that the demo tape Bowie played him before the recording began was "the finest selection of songs I have ever heard in one sitting in my entire life".
David Bowie: Changes (Live at Hammersmith Odeon, 1973)
3. Big Country: In A Big Country
Stuart Adamson had already cut his teeth as the guitarist with Scottish punk band, The Skids, but by the early 1980s he was ready to head out and forge his own path. The band he assembled (half Scots and half English) would come to define Scottish rock music (rather than rock musicians from Scotland) in that decade. Big Country let fly with a bang. The Crossing is undoubtedly one of the strongest debut albums of the 80s - and it seems almost harsh to say, but if you got to see them live, the record almost sounds flat in comparison; but that is only because their live power was unlike anything I have ever seen, taking the songs to even greater levels.
In A Big Country was the third single from the record, making number 17 in both UK and US. It remains one of the great guitar anthems of the 80s, Mark Brzezicki's drummers propel it, while Adamson's wailing guitar hooks lift it up. And as Kurt Loder noted in Rolling Stone at the time, "[The Crossing] blows the knobs off all the synth-pop diddlers and fake funk frauds who are cluttering up the charts these days."
Big Country: In A Big Country (Live at The Barrowlands, 1983)
4. Echo & The Bunnymen: The Cutter
Porcupine, the third Bunnymen album released in 1983, starts with the interesting single The Cutter. It's an East meets West piece of slightly psychedelic indie rock, and is probably the first Bunnymen tune I can definitively remember hearing. Guitarist Will Sergeant asked guest string arranger, Shankar, to channel the melody from Cat Steven's 60s hit, Matthew & Son.
The bands lighting engineer, Bill Butt, was asked by record label WEA to shoot the videos for the three singles from the album and the photography for the artwork. He wanted to create something that replicated the cold musical feeling of the record, but there was no snow cover in Scotland, So the band found themselves on the frozen Gullfoss waterfall in Iceland. The resulting video was spliced with clips from the 1929 Russian documentary, The Man With The Movie Camera.
Echo & The Bunnymen: The Cutter (Official music video)
5. Power Of Dreams: The Jokes On Me
Perhaps one less familiar to many of you, but as we entered the 1990s, Power Of Dreams were one of the hot tips for future big things. The Dublin group were young, very young - singer and songwriter Craig Walker was still at school when they had released their first EP, A Little Piece Of God, on Setanta Records in 1989. A label bidding war ensued, with everyone assuming they would be the next U2 - Polydor ran out winners.
The debut, Immigrants, Emigrants & Me, remains one of the most impressive indie rock debuts. Produced by Ray Shulman (The Sundays, The Sugarcubes), the album gets off to a flying start with The Jokes On Me. It's a indie masterclass, a driving, slightly folky power-pop tune, with a maturity far outstripping Walker's 19 years.
Power Of Dreams: The Jokes On Me (Audio only)
6. Simple Minds: Someone, Somewhere (In Summertime)
Since New Gold Dream is my all time favourite album, I really had to include its beginning. Luckily, Someone, Somewhere In Summertime provides us with an atmospheric, dreamy slice of new wave pop, with huge amounts of texture, courtesy of Mick McNeil's sparkling keyboard skills, underpinned by by Charlie Burchill's chiming guitar and Derek Forbes rolling bass lines. There was some inconsistency with the title though; the single version records the title with brackets - Someone, Somewhere (In Summertime) - while the album version loses the brackets.
The album was also interesting, as it includes three different drummers. Recording started with Kenny Hyslop, who had toured Sons And Fascination with the band over the previous six months. He features on breakout hit, Promised You A Miracle, but he was soon replaced by Mike Ogletree. Again, he wasn't doing it for the rest of the band, and the final tracks, including this one, fell to Mel Gaynor. Gaynor's controlled power was obviously the right tonic, as he became a permanent member for the much of the next three decades.
Simple Minds: Someone, Somewhere In Summertime (Live at Newcastle City Hall, 1982)
7. Pearl Jam: Once
Like Strays, Pearl Jam's Ten is an album with a hugely powerful opening trio of tracks. By the time you are through listening to Once, Even Flow and Alive, your ears are pretty much bleeding, largely due to the twin riff assault of Mike McCready and Stone Gossard behind Eddie Vedder's gutsy vocals.
Gossard had an instrumental track for a tune called Agyptian Crave at the time on a tape full of demos, which found its way into the hands of Vedder via the Chili Peppers Jack Irons. Vedder was down in San Diego working in a gas station, and the story goes that he listened to the tape and wrote lyrics to several of the songs while out surfing. He mailed the tape up to Seattle, got an invite up, and the rest is grunge history. Agyptian Crave became Once, which is described as the middle track of a trilogy (despite being the album opener), with Alive and Footsteps (B-Side of Jeremy) either side. The trilogy is referred to as Momma-son, and is about a man's descent into madness and becoming a serial killer.
Pearl Jam: Once (Audio only)
8. The Beach Boys; I Get Around
I Get Around is a pivotal track for the Beach Boys in several ways. Not only did it give them their first number one single, but it also opened up sixth album, All Summer Long (1964), seen as the first 'unified' set of songs that Brian Wilson had pulled together. Its subject matter was starting to move away from surfing and cars, to take a more general view of life as a Southern California teenager in the mid-60s. There was much less 'filler' on the record, and Wilson was now consciously trying up the ante, to compete with Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound and the new threat from the UK, The Beatles.
The song itself was a reaction to fame and also a desire not to succumb to the status quo. Top producer Daniel Lanois compared it to a Polaroid photo; "I like the way Brian wrote about specifics of a rising culture. He brings the listener in through one philosophical moment - one thought, one emotion - and that is often the most powerful way."
The Beach Boys: I Get Around (Live on Ed Sullivan, 1964)
9. The Beatles: I Saw Her Standing There
Is this the best 2 minutes and 52 seconds of rock n roll out there? Maybe - but even if you don't agree with the first bit, it is not a bad statement of intent to put out as side 1, track 1, on your first full length record (Please Please Me).
Paul McCartney was driving home after a gig in Southport when the idea for the song first came to him. It was a modern take on an old folk song called Seventeen Come Sunday (also known as As I Roved Out), first arranged by Percy Grainger and then used by Ralph Vaughan Williams. He picked out the chords for it while sitting in the house of fellow Liverpool musician, Rory Storm - while some of the words were written a few days later whist on a trip to London with his then girlfriend, Celia Mortimer. He then worked on it with John Lennon and it would become part of their live set from around December 1962. McCartney would also later admit that the bass riff was stolen from Chuck Berry's Talkin' About You.
The Beatles: I Saw Her Standing There (Live in 1963)
10. The Clash: London Calling
And so to the other moment that prompted this particular playlist. 45 years ago last Friday, one of the most iconic rock photographs of all was taken. It is a shot by Pennie Smith of bassist Paul Simonon, on stage at New York's Palladium, smashing his bass guitar on the floor in frustration (apparently because the fans were not allowed to stand on their seats). It would become the cover artwork for The Clash's third album, and the title / opening track would become one of their most iconic (and best) tunes.
This composition by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones was an apocalyptic, political fusion of punk rock and reggae rhythms, which made its frequent plays during the 2012 London Olympics somewhat bemusing. It was like the media didn't understand the lyrics about the "nuclear error" (it was written just after the Three Mile Island disaster), police brutality and catastrophe ("London is drowning and I live by the river"). Even the squally bit of morse code at the end spells out S.O.S.
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