The Who Mailing List Digest, V14 #9

[John]

I've posted this to a couple of other Who lists, so apologies for those
who've read/deleted/scrolled down it in exasperation!

The premise is that  -  well, read it for yourselves!

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During a lunchtime conversation at work, the question of the opening
song on an album came up.

Those of us old enough to may remember with vinyl albums, you had two
bites at finding an opening song which grabbed your attention.

Of course, with CD, there's only one opening song, so it must be much
more difficult in sequencing an album so that the best song for the
album to open with goes first.

I'm being careful here to differentiate between the best song on an
album, and the best song to open with.

After all, if you take Who's Next for instance, public acclaim may
choose Won't get fooled again as the best song on the album.

How would the album flow then if it were the opening song?

See what I mean?

I think it might be an anticlimax after opening with WGFA.

In fact, I'm going to programme my CD player to do see what happens if
you swap WGFA for Baba.

In our conversation at work, we touched on the following points.

What is the purpose of the opening song?

Is it to grab us by the balls, so to speak, forcing us to listen to the
album?

Is it to set the mood of the album?

Is it the convenient place to put the first single, thus making us think
we know the album better than we do from the start?

We also discussed albums with great opening tracks.

I chose Abba Gold, the compilation, as it opens with Dancing Queen,
which while being a very successful single at the time, isn't the
obvious choice for the opening song on an album with 18 hits, but for
me, that gliding piano, into the signature harmonies and shuffle beat,
then the opening harmonies of the girls still makes me shiver with joy -
and there is an almost irresistible urge to get up and dance with this
song. 

As does the Black Album, by Metallica - the ominous descending guitar
notes of Enter Sandman, stretching the tension for 15 seconds when the
drums come in, then the guitars build up, still keeping that tension
building until almost a minute 20 seconds into the song the voices come
in.

I was not allowed to choose Todd or who albums on the grounds I would
witter on for ever, btw!!

Among the choices for great opening songs on albums from my colleagues
were the White Album, Sergeant Pepper and A Hard Day's night, with
respectively, Back in the USSR, Sergeant Pepper, and A hard day's night.

Also mentioned were the Rolling Stones Let it bleed, with Let it bleed,
The Simple Minds compilation CD Glittering Prize with Waterfront, Bat
out of Hell with - yes Bat out of Hell, you get the drift.

We also pondered on albums with crap opening songs, but we had a hard
time thinking of any.

My challenge is thus - what are the albums you think are enhanced by the
opening track?

Indeed what do you think is the purpose of sequencing albums?

Has CD enabled better sequencing to take place, or is it no loss to have
two great openers as on a vinyl album. One example of this is the Smiths
Meat is murder, where side two of the vinyl opens with How soon is now.
To me, this should have opened the album, but does the band's sequence
of songs one each side make sense?

Clearly, this conversation here can be more Who centred, and I would
offer the following thoughts - would Sell Out have been better with a
different song than Armenia City in the Sky as the first song proper?

Could it have been a better start if the "This is Big L" station
identifier had been used instead of the list of days? If you weren't
around at the time when Radio London existed, that last won't mean
anything, but trust me, the jingle was a great voiced jingle!

How would My Generation have flowed/sounded if I Can't Explain had been
the opening song?

Cheers,

John