15 Greatest Album Openers!

[Charger]

So as we all know Loudwire loves their lists (usually they pretty much suck though) and this time they listed 15 greatest Album Openers.

Some great choices here and some horrible ones too I suppose.

Like in what world is Bark At The Moon better than Over The Mountain...or Blind better than Right Now...and where are Highway Star and Neon Knights?

So inspired by this list we need to make our own lists then...

So here goes mine:

15. Alice Cooper - Brutal Planet
14. Judas Priest - Sinner
13. Blaze Bayley - Ghost In The Machine
12. Savatage - 24 Hours Ago
11. Iron Maiden - Futureal
10. Rainbow - Long Live Rock 'n Roll
9. Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
8. Slayer - Angel Of Death
7. Megadeth - Holy Wars...The Punishment Due
6. Judas Priest - Painkiller
5. Motörhead - Overkill
4. Black Sabbath - Turn Up The Night
3. Dio - Stand Up And Shout
2. Deep Purple - Highway Star

And then the ultimate album opener...A perfect album opener is a fast rocker that kicks things off with a high gear. Then you can get into the more deeper and heavier and more complex stuff but album needs to be kicked off on a high gear... You can also use a short instrumental track that slowly builds into a fast song but the main thing is to always kick things off with a high gear.
But ofcourse just sheer speed doesn't do it...the song itself needs to be great as well...something that matches the quality of the bigger tracks on the album...and frankly there is only one that comes to mind right away, before I even thought much about any of the other songs on the list and that ofcourse is:

1. Black Sabbath - Neon Knights


I'll add couple of honorary mentions as well...
Korn - Right Now is a great fierce opener as well...
Dio - We Rock is right up there with Stand Up And Shout as well...
Ozzy - Over The Mountain
Motörhead - Terminal Show (I almost picked this one instead of Overkill but...well....Overkill is Overkill)
Deep Purple - Ted The Mechanic could have easily made the list too...
Blaze Bayley - The Man Who Would Not Die talk about fierce openers...wow.


I could go on but I think those all rise above others...Metallica's Battery has that annoying acoustic intro part which doesn't work as an opener at all...without that it would have been on the list for sure.

Lets see your listings people...maybe we can also then make a Community official openers list out of songs that get most mentionings...if there are any.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I'm inclined to agree that the list is deeply flawed... your list is much better but still has a couple of "errors" in my opinion! 

I'll come up with my list but I need to think about it.

[Zzzptm]

Oooh, a list of 15...

Best openers? To me a "best opener" is a song that makes me ready to go for the rest of the album, with the rest of the album delivering on that promise. If the first track is great and then the other 6-9 tracks suck, then that was a hit single, not a best album opener.

Not that the album itself is the best of the best - pretty damn good is good enough to have a "best opener". Likewise, I've always felt that Black Sabbath's Sabotage didn't really start until we got to "Symptom of the Universe", so not all monster albums have best openers.

That being said, I think *THE BEST OPENER* is DP's "Highway Star". I pause now for a gratuitous graphic:

 

That felt good.

OK, so numbers 2-15 of the best of the openers, metal edition...

I'll just list off 14 of them, in no particular order. Or not. Because #2:

Overkill - Motorhead:
This one does the job, then does it twice more, for good measure. Interestingly, it also works well as a closer.

For the others, I'll tip my hat to Metallica for "Battery" and Dio for "Stand Up and Shout". Love them both. Also a nod to "Ace of Spades", also from Motorhead. Add in "Wake Up Dead" by Megadeth, "Lost Highway" by Wo Fat, "Hell on Wheels" by Fu Manchu, and "Desert Cruiser" by Truckfighters.

Yes, the last three are also stoner rock, but they're metal enough to be metal songs. And they have some great albums to back them up, as well. Six more to go...

"Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", "Neon Knights", and "Turn Up the Night" need to all go to the top end of my list. Those are the best openers for Sabbath albums, and I love 'em.

My final three choices would be Judas Priest's "Delivering the Goods", "Fireball" from Deep Purple, and "Long Before I Die" from Armored Saint. Love that last one so much, I'm listening to that album next!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Seeing you post the best album closers earlier reminded me I hadn't posted on this one yet. A good opener should be short and fast on the whole (with some exceptions!), but I went with 16 instead of 15:

16. Life is Beautiful - Toseland
15. Subdivisions - Rush
14. Knives - Therapy?
13. Battery - Metallica
12. Burning Times - Iced Earth
11. Turn Up The Night - Black Sabbath
10. Wicker Man - Iron Maiden
9.   Man on the Silver Moutain - Rainbow
8.   21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson
7.   Love Song - The Damned
6.   Tom Sawyer - Rush
5.   Hole In The Sky - Black Sabbath
4.   Get Me Out - New Model Army
3.   Sometimes - The Stranglers
2.   Neon Knights - Black Sabbath
1.   The One To Sing The Blues - Motorhead

... and now I'm off to pick my favourite albums closers.

[Charger]

Interesting list there KDC! Lots of songs I don't even know...gotta check them out!

Burning Times is a great choice too...I was thinking about that too...it's killer tune!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Some of those come from my punky/indie likes:

[Typhon]

   I have not made a list for this, but I must say I am a bit stunned that more Sabbath songs are not on these lists.  My list would wind up saturated with Sabbath.  So many great openers and closers.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^ I ended up going mostly with the shorter, up tempo songs, so great openers like War Pigs, Wheels and Computer God sorta got left out by default.

[Tyr66]

Mercyful Fate - Evil
Celtic Frost - Circle of the Tyrants
Slayer - Hell Awaits
AC/DC Hells Bells
Saxon - Power and the Glory
Scorpions - Dark Lady
Judas Priest - Freewheel Burning
Gillan - What's the Matter
Accept - Fast as a Shark
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Black Sabbath - Neon Knights
Thin Lizzy - Angel of Death
Candlemass - Solitude
Sodom - Agent Orange
Rainbow - Tarot Woman

Special Mention to:
Deep Purple - Knocking at Your Back Door
Rammstein - Mein Herz brennt
Trust - Antisocial
Van Halen - And the Cradle Will Rock 
Venom - Black Metal
Waysted - Hang 'em High
MSG - Assault Attack
Halford - Resurrection
Joe Satriani - Flying in a Blue Dream
Pink Floyd - Shine on you Crazy Diamond

[Charger]

  I have not made a list for this, but I must say I am a bit stunned that more Sabbath songs are not on these lists.  My list would wind up saturated with Sabbath.  So many great openers and closers.

Well I tried to make my list as versatile as possible...stuff from as many bands as possible. I could have ofcourse have songs like Hole In The Sky, Trashed, Turn Up The Night, I Witness on the list but I wanted to spread the love around a bit...

That being said Sabbath doesn't really have a great track record when it comes to openers though. Take songs like Black Sabbath, War Pigs, Wheels Of Confusion for example...all great tracks but not great openers...all too plodding and slow for that purpose. Same goes with Headless Cross (which really isn't the opener anyways), Anno Mundi, Computer God, The Illusion Of Power and most certainly with Atom & Evil and End Of The Beginning.

Like I said in my opening post...a great opener needs to be a great song yes, but it also needs to kick the album off with a high gear and intensity and power.

Darn Tyr you've got some interesting picks as well... Hell Awaits, Freewheel Burning and What's The Matter all hit the spot...

Solitude would never be on my list though...despite the fact that it is one of my all time favourite Candlemass tunes.


KDC I did go through some of those songs...not my cup of tea I have to say...

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

KDC I did go through some of those songs...not my cup of tea I have to say...

Like a Venn diagram we both have a wide and varying taste in music... and the point where they overlap perhaps isn't as big as it maybe could or should be.

[Charger]

KDC I did go through some of those songs...not my cup of tea I have to say...

Like a Venn diagram we both have a wide and varying taste in music... and the point where they overlap perhaps isn't as big as it maybe could or should be.

True. But lets remember we are the only two here who like Iced Earth!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

KDC I did go through some of those songs...not my cup of tea I have to say...

Like a Venn diagram we both have a wide and varying taste in music... and the point where they overlap perhaps isn't as big as it maybe could or should be.

True. But lets remember we are the only two here who like Iced Earth!

Absolutely... everyone else is deaf!

[Tyr66]

Like I said in my opening post...a great opener needs to be a great song yes, but it also needs to kick the album off with a high gear and intensity and power.

Absolutely ! A success key for everything that comes after .

[Typhon]

  I have not made a list for this, but I must say I am a bit stunned that more Sabbath songs are not on these lists.  My list would wind up saturated with Sabbath.  So many great openers and closers.

Well I tried to make my list as versatile as possible...stuff from as many bands as possible. I could have ofcourse have songs like Hole In The Sky, Trashed, Turn Up The Night, I Witness on the list but I wanted to spread the love around a bit...

That being said Sabbath doesn't really have a great track record when it comes to openers though. Take songs like Black Sabbath, War Pigs, Wheels Of Confusion for example...all great tracks but not great openers...all too plodding and slow for that purpose. Same goes with Headless Cross (which really isn't the opener anyways), Anno Mundi, Computer God, The Illusion Of Power and most certainly with Atom & Evil and End Of The Beginning.

Like I said in my opening post...a great opener needs to be a great song yes, but it also needs to kick the album off with a high gear and intensity and power.

I guess your idea of what makes a good opener and my idea of what makes a good opener are completely different.  For me, the "high gear and intensity" doesn't have to start from the very first note.  I find that a methodical and persistent build up from the very first note, leading into the high gear and intensity, to be quite impressive.  Like, Black Sabbath, the perfect song to open the bands debut album.