Friday 5: Here’s To Beginnings!
Happy Friday, MetalSucks reader! Welcome to MetalSucks Friday 5, a new series that appears every Friday (duh) on MetalSucks (duhh) and involves the quantity of five (duhhh).
Here’s how it works: A list of best/worst/weirdest/whatever five somethings is posted by one of your beloved MetalSucks contributors or by one of our buds (like you?). Then you, our cherished reader, checks it out, has a chuckle, then chimes in with a list of the same. No sweat, just whatever springs to mind, k? (Just like that movie about those losers working at a Chicago record store!) After all, it’s Friday — the day dedicated by the gods to mindless, fun time-wasting. Let’s start with an easy one!
THE FIVE
What Are The Five Best Opening Songs?
THE LISTER
Anso DF, MetalSucks Senior Editor
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1. Overkill “Coma”
from Horrorscope (Atlantic, 1991)
An unhurried, unconnected intro like the one to kick off “Coma” — which kicks off Overkill’s first album without guitarist Bobby Gustafson — might’ve been given its own track. But then it’d seem optional. It is not. None of “Coma” is optional.
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2. The Crown “No Tomorrow”
from Possessed 13 (Metal Blade, 2003)
It’s wise to load the beginning of an album with your sessions’ weakest material; that way, a listener experiences it while still excited by, y’know, the novelty of the album’s first minutes. Once that wears off, excitement is replaced by the awe of the album’s best stuff in its middle and finale. That’s what The Crown did on Possessed 13: a trio of doubles then eight straight homers. The wild thing is that in any other ballpark, those doubles would’ve landed in the parking lot.
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3. T-Ride “Zombies From Hell”
from T-Ride (Hollywood, 1992)
Did you ever see that movie Enter The Void? There’s a sequence in its first scene that combines wizard-level technicality and brilliant storytelling to just blow you away right away. From there, it’s a singular, virtuosic masterpiece, and a tribute to its godly forebears. Same to be said about T-Ride’s only album. Crank it up!
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4. Deftones “Hole In The Earth”
from Saturday Night Wrist (Maverick, 2006)
On some albums, the opening track is riveting not (only) because it’s a super-awesome jam. Instead, it acts like a cheerleader, a reasonably attractive girl in a skirt who gets you pumped up for the main attraction. For that, you love it dearly and treasure your time listening to it. And as its final notes echo, you rub your palms together in anticipation of the rest!
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5. Metallica “Blackened”
from … And Justice For All (Elektra, 1988)
The queen mother of opening tracks, “Blackened” is for headbanging while falling down the stairs. And when you land at the bottom, sprawled and bloodied, then you are spat on and sprayed with gravel. It’s that hateful. It’s also our first evidence that the men of Metallica could make a mistake: Never open with a show-stopper.
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Your turn! Have an awesome wknd!
