Top 50 Album Openers - 30 - 21
30. The Flames Beyond the Cold Mountain - Mono (You Are There)
I was a little tardy with my first experience with Mono as Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky…, a few years have passed since that album and now being abreast of all of their previous work, I have to say that You Are There is the crème de la crème. On Walking Cloud, "Halcyon (Beautiful Days)" hooked me and for a lack of a better term: moved me like no other song had, but then came this song with its flooring first minute and a half before progressing to a long and monumental rise and fall. Every time I hear this song everything around me seems to slow to a sedated pace, clearing my head and wiping clean the residue and clutter of the absurdly busy life that I wake up to everyday. – Phil Del Costello
29. Ghost Rider - Suicide (Suicide)
Is there any way not to feel like complete shit when listening to Suicide's self-titled debut? There are more desperate screams and barren soundscapes on this one album than in the entire '60s. And it all starts on Ghost Rider. The looped bass and guitar twitches carry you away until you hear, "America, America's killing its youth." And after Alan Vega's squeak turns into a twisting, delayed, battering ram, you realize you're not in Kansas anymore. But Suicide is an amazing album as depressing and downtrodden as it is. If there has to be sadness to experience happiness, be glad that Suicide took care of the sad part. Just Enjoy. – Chris Gaerig
28. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath)
Black Sabbath invented heaviness in 1970. It had been hinted at before, by bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, and Blue Cheer, but nothing really heavy happened until the sludgy shit storm that is 'Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath, from their debut album Black Sabbath. It's just that black. A seemingly endless sample of thunderstorms and church bells gives birth to the GREATEST 3 note guitar riff ever. EVER! Ozzy cries out for help, begging for someone to save him from the figure in black, but it's too late, his soul is lost, the unbeatable rhythm section launches into the chorus (same as the verse but, you know, louder) and heads all around the world learned to bang. – Geddes Gengres
27. Every Day I Have the Blues - BB King (Live at The Regal)
BB King gets things started with a barn burner. Often cited as one of the best live albums ever, Live at The Regal captures King at one of his finest moments. For a song with such a sad title this is the most up-tempo blues number on the whole album. It sets the speed and displays the control that King had over his crowd. The listener is not exactly sure what is going on as the MC announces King and a raging horn section kicks in, but as soon as the first notes are played on Lucille and the tell-tale vibrato is heard, you know that this is the blues. It is not a dirty blues, or something from the delta (although the roots are always there), this is an urbane, sophisticated blues. King's band reacts on a dime and his voice climbs easily into falsetto for dramatic effect. With this track, without question, the King claims his territory and for the rest of the album he rules the stage. – Travis Hutzell
26. Bring Da Ruckus - Wu-Tang Clan (Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers))
What's better than nine reefer addicts from New York with a strange affinity for old kung-fu films? Nine reefer addicts from New York with a strange affinity for old kung-fu films that want to wreck some shit. As our first look at RZA's production style Ghostface's purple-haze flows, and the Clan's sheer dominance of the English language and hip-hop, Bring Da Ruckus told everyone that the Wu-Tang was here and here to stay. So Bring Da Ruckus. You might just like it. – Chris Gaerig
25. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart - Wilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
I wasn't much of a Wilco fan before Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I had heard Being There and Summer Teeth quite a few times, but they didn't really stick with me in retrospect, I have no fucking clue what it was that made them uninteresting to me, but at the time, they just didn't do much for me. When Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out it immediately gained a load of critical praise from tiny monthly zines to nationally distributed newspapers. Normally such a widespread praise makes me stray from albums, books and films for a few months, but I jumped right in a picked up a copy. The first two minutes of "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" wiped clean my earlier wishy washy opinion of the Midwest collective. The light acoustic strum begins amidst the on-going clearing of sonic whirrs, leading into Jeff Tweedy's sleepy voice singing "I'm hiding out in the big city blinking/What was I thinking when I let go of you?" You usually can't bet on the quality of an album on the first song, but I knew I could bet on YHF being a winner. - Phil Del Costello
24. 3rd Planet - Modest Mouse (The Moon and Antarctica)
3rd Planet was one of the most mature statements from a band who up until that point seemed like angst ridden young upstarts. Isaac Brock claims his only art is "fucking people over" but this is fake modesty and he certainly knows it. He compares his blood and the blood of his lover to the Atlantic and ponders his role on this planet. One can't help but think of William Blake and his ‘heaven in a wildflower' and perceive that this could be just what Modest Mouse is trying to communicate. – Travis Hutzell
23. Blister in the Sun – Violent Femmes (s/t)
1983. Folk-punk. What is folk-punk? And what did it sound like in 1983? I don't know what folk-punk is but this song, the Violent Femmes, and Gordon Gano have come to define it. They probably can't explain it to you either but it happened, developed a cult following and has never gone away. The Violent Femmes first album hit a stride the band would never hit again but that has not lessened its impact. Gano's voice and lyrics embodied adolescent angst and frustration in a way that was good enough for the least of us and its first track, Blister in the Sun, is perhaps the most well known of the twelve distinct songs from the record. – Steph Haselman
22. Delia's Gone - Johnny Cash (American Recordings)
When I was a kid, my dad had an early version of Cash singing this song and at a young age, the song was striking to say the least. Cash's first of the now legendary American Recordings opened with this song and it was even darker and chilling then. Accompanied by a haunting video featuring Cash dealing out death Kate Moss, carrying her to her fresh grave and burying her there, there was no chance that this song wouldn't have an effect on you. This song started off what has come to be my all-time favourite collection of music and it'll always hold a high place in my collection. – Phil Del Costello
21. 20th Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson (In the Court of the Crimson King)
This was Fripp's grand entrance into prog and what better way than to lay the foundation once and for all. Jumping from a jazz-induced mid section to a Fripp solo that would bite and snarl beside the explosive bass notes, this song was as political as it was prog. 20th Century Schizoid Man is 7 minutes of time changes, scratched vocals, and instrumentation that spits in the face of formality. The lyrics that lash out at politics, art, and medical practices, all with the blood-stained vocals of music's most interesting characters. This was a lighthouse beacon that endless bands would follow and still follow. –Darren Susin
| 50 - 41 | | 40 - 31 | | 30 - 21 |
- IW Staff | 2006-09-20
