The Best Opening Tracks From V&B’s Top 100 of the 2000s
We’re not done just yet! A lot of what made some of the albums from my Top 100 so effective for me was their ability to suck me in almost immediately. A good start can do wonders for an album and occasionally even provide more goodwill than an album actually deserves. A strong opening track can really provide some smoke and mirrors for lesser albums. Fortunately, none the albums on my list are lesser releases, thereby making these opening tracks all that much more powerful. This is truly the best of the best.
*Note: I could probably do a list of 25 great opening tracks from my Top 100 list, but that may be diluting things a bit too much. I wanted to, however, point out that unnecessary intro tracks prevented some truly wonderful songs from making the list. So apologies to “Shakey Dog,” “Cashout” and especially “Nutmeg.”
Two more supplementary lists to follow.
10. Pretty Girls Make Graves “Speakers Push The Air”
In 2002, I was still pretty immature in my tastes. Although I felt that my palette was broadening, I still had some hard and fast rules that I stuck by. One of those rules was, “No female rock singers.” For whatever reason, I could not see validity in the female voice being paired with aggressive music. When Pretty Girls Make Graves were first formed, I had serious doubts. As a fan of Murder City Devils at the time, I was excited that at least one of the band’s members had found a new band, but I was deeply cynical about anything “chick rock.” Luckily, “Speakers Push The Air” launched me past my sexist bias. PGMG were mostly about their guitar interplay and that is certainly in full effect here as the song bursts open following its keyboard intro, but singer Andrea Zollo shows she’s in full command, leading the charge with her femininity and aggression. “Speakers Push The Air” shattered prejudices with its immediacy.
9. The Hold Steady “Stuck Between Stations”
The Hold Steady have the innate ability to put their best foot forward. Each of their albums had their most immediate moments shoved to the front of the line. Boys And Girls in America is no different and “Stuck Between Stations” represents the best of the band. Draped in the kind of muscular E Street moves that defines the band’s best work, “Stations” quotes Jack Kerouac, chronicles poet John Berryman’s suicide and manages to tap into some resonating universality at the same time (“I like the warm feeling / But I’m tired of all the dehydration.”) It’s an absolutely huge rocker, decked with hooks and singer Craig Finn’s boundless insight. Boys And Girls shines elsewhere, but it wouldn’t be half the album it is without this rousing start.
8. The New Pornographers “Mass Romantic”
The New Pornographers were not on my radar when they released Mass Romantic. I knew of Neko Case as a presence in the Mint Records scene (shout out to the Smugglers!), but the concept of a supergroup full of people I’d never heard of seemed silly. Then I heard the title track. As Carl Newman’s count-off gives way to a hyperactive keyboard and overexcited rhythm guitar, I knew I was hooked and that I would be buying the album. Then Neko Case started singing and I knew I’d be buying every New Pornographers album ever released.
7. Deerhoof “The Perfect Me”
Deerhoof play ultra-cutesy no wave, but underneath it all they’re prog rockers. How else do explain the frenzied drums that open “The Perfect Me.” What, has Neal Peart been listening to The Contortions again? Up to this point, Deerhoof were an odd little concoction with the ability to almost accidently tap into something real (read: not contrived) and meaningful in their music. With Friend Opportunity, they went on a populist bonanza and “The Perfect Me” was a shimmering *kaboom* of their ability to write a riveting rock song for everyone to enjoy.
6. Shining “Goretex Weather Report”
There are few modern day bands that do what Shining do. Essentially, there’s Shining and then there’s everybody else. “Goretex” is that line in the sand. So heavy and powerful is the song that it nearly overwhelms the rest of 2005’s In The Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster. If the idea of a band that jumps headfirst into both free jazz and apocalyptic metal causes consternation, “Goretex” will either convince you totally or dissuade you totally. There’s no middle ground, which is just as it should be.
5. Mclusky “Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues”
Highly quotable, maniacally paced and delivered with bulging eyes and snapped veins, “Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues” is an almost terrifying introduction to Mclusky. It’s, as I’ve noted before, a runaway train headed straight for BF, Nowhere, with only destruction, death, drugs and regrettable sex on its mind. In a word – essential.
4. Shellac “Prayer To God”
I yammered on about this song when I wrote about 1000 Hurts, but it needs to be reiterated: “Prayer To God” is evil, violent and aggressively unpleasant. It’s also scarily funny and a hell of an eyebrow raiser. People talk about Steve Albini’s work peaking with Big Black, but they obviously never heard “Prayer To God,” a visceral and frighteningly satisfying revenge fantasy. “Prayer To God” proves that Albini’s legacy was more than just producing Nirvana and the Pixies (and Bush!) and being an asshole. Give the guy a guitar and lyrical carte blanche and he could create something immediate and ultimately memorable as any of the bands he produced.
3. Ted Leo “Me & Mia”
Explosiveness is a quality that many of these great opening tracks share. They simply jump out of the speakers screaming, “Listen to me!” like a precocious child. They seek to grab your attention, instilling an entire album’s worth of goodwill. Ted Leo is not the kind of songwriter who needs to reach out for that kind of goodwill. He’s already got it. But that doesn’t stop him from kicking off Shake the Sheets with his most vibrant, pulse-pounding anthem ever. The song is as dynamic as anything released this decade, bounding from palm muted verses, a BIG SHOTS chorus, a ska bridge and an overdrive coda. “Me & Mia” slaps a smile on your face. If the rest of Shake The Sheets were a waste it would be forgivable. That everything following “Me & Mia” is nearly as good is simply icing.
2. Animal Collective “Leaf House”
For many, Sung Tongs, was a first introduction to Animal Collective and if that was the case, “Leaf House” was the first introduction to Sung Tongs. I know that’s how it was for me. Hearing “Leaf House” for the first time was an incredibly jarring experience. A mix of psychedelic Smiley Smile whimsy, campfire sing-a-long folk, organic rhythms (hands, feet) and punk’s iconoclasm, “Leaf House” sounded like music from a foreign tongue, but it also proved a major leap forward for AC at the time. The band’s earliest material had been a murky and dark (and much of Sung Tongs returns to this sound), but “Leaf House,” and to an even greater degree the following track,” Who Could Win A Rabbit?”, shows a huge lunge forward and the gateway drug to one of the most frustrating, baffling and ultimately rewarding catalogues of the decade.
1. Dungen “Panda”
I already blew my wad in describing this song and it’s absurdly hair-raising intro, but it needs to be noted just how much “Panda” does for Ta Det Lugnt. In reality, Ta Det Lugnt is a difficult album to wade through, what with all the druggy, jazzy, seemingly aimless detours it makes, but the album always returns to its original promise if being a hard rocking, ridiculously dynamic psych album. “Panda” is that promise, diving headlong into a mind-bendingly nimble basslines, delicious guitar tones and fluttering drum patterns before petering out in a flame of amp noise. It’s not as spacey as the rest of the album (it’s also not Ta Det Lugnt’s best song), but it’s everything that a great psychedelic song should be and that, unfortunately, so few actually are.