Albums you like with first tracks you don't like or don't care for
 

Go.

I could mention many great albums that have 1 or 2 throwaway songs, but I'm not able to remember one where it's specifically the 1st track on the album.

Back when I cared about Cradle of Filth I could have put almost every album of theirs on a list here. They tend to start with a dull as dishwater orchestral intro.

I can remember having this issue a few times but can't remember which. It is interesting because it made me think I'd dislike the album and not want to give it a chance. It's also interesting because people like to put one of their best tracks in the intro to hook you in.

A lot of albums have one of the shorter, more fast paced tracks first. Iron Maiden don't tend to put their 8 minute epics as the first one. It would make sense if a lot of albums have a ****ty sellout radio single as the first track, but looking at all my music, I can't really find one with that problem.

Blind Guardian's A Night at the Opera is a contender for best power metal album ever, but the first track, while starting out very strong, loses me about halfway through, and it has always left a bad taste in my mouth even though every other song is basically brilliant.

Listening to the first track here I remember why I never really got into that band. Blind Guardian was always a little too maximalist for me. I feel stressed out listening to their albums. The one song of theirs I really love is Bright Eyes.

I mean come on. Yeah they're wall of sound as ****, but on A Night at the Opera they perfected that ****.

That's indeed the default. I call this the "explosive opener".

Blind guardian song doesn't seem bad but just seems to drag on.

I might give the whole thing a spin if I'm feeling like torturing myself one evening, but right now I couldn't possibly handle all those 1.000 vocal overdubs screaming at me every second of the way.

Probably not a bad way to start an album. Opening with your 20 minute everything-and-the-kitchen-sink prog-wank masterpiece might be risky.

That's the genius of the album though. The production of the guitars, which you think would be way up front like all their other albums, is of equal importance to all of the symphonic elements so that no single instrument gets center stage. They attempted to make a metal album with production in the spirit of classical/opera. Or at least that's what I get from it. In any case it's a singular power metal album in a genre full of guitar albums with pretensions of being otherwise.

Well, when you put it like that. At least that makes me want to see what I would think of it. Lots of metal bands have attempted grandiose albums with symphonic pretentions, but it usually end in disaster.

Oh, so that's why you think old metal mixing is superior.

...

I think old metal mixing is superior to anything mixed by Charlie Bauerfeind.

ALLRIGHT will you calm down with that already?!

I'll do it when I'm done listening to this gay ass Tori Amos album on my stereo.

Jesus Christ is that how you define modern metal? Yuck.

1. No.

2. OMG Tori Amos has some good ****. I need to dive more into all those albums I stole from the internet. Boys for Pele calls to me.

Rodan begins with almost 7 minutes of guitar noodling:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SRjxl3bN2i8

Only to next put in an energetic short aggrressive track, the only of the 6 tracks like it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3MuTLDGC0JU

It would've worked a lot better the other way around.

I haven't even listened to that one nearly enough myself. She's got so many albums, and they're so long... So I'm way more familiar with some of the newer ones, even though I have them all.

Just finished listening to To Venus and Back and American Doll Posse this evening and they're both pretty damn good.

Not really, but you're the one who brought it up in a Blind Guardian context. It's not exactly from the 80's.
Modern metal prodcution - generally - would make me think of the awful sterile sounds of bands like Periphery, Textures, Bring Me The Horizon.

It was in the context of your "screaming at me" comment.

I definetely think longer tracks work best when you've been eased into the style and sounds of the band. Get me in the mood, then start noodling.

I wasn't sure which way to take the comment. Still not quite sure, actually.

Old metal has just as ****ty production as modern metal. The styles have just changed.

Yeah well... it's different, which leaves room for personal preferences. I have much more tolerance for the most common bad habits of the 80's (thin sounding mixes, phoney sounding reverb), the 90's (bad triggered kick drums, odd mismatched mixing where the drums don't sound like they're in the same room as the guitars, for example) than I have for 00's and 10's bad metal production trends (crazy compression, obnoxiously loud growls, snares and kickdrums, plus weird over the top snares that sound like frigging gunshots).

The 00's we specifically dominated by a lot of awful Andy Sneap production and too many Andy Sneap wannabe producers. I'm not a fan of that dull ass production sound.

To be fair, there's some really great sounding modern metal records around. I'm just talking about the general worst tendencies. If I go after the best examples instead, I'd probably put modern metal over the 90's and 80's...

General statements are tricky.

Exactly. You gotta sell me on whether you make good **** or not earlier on. Noodling isn't the best advertisement. Once I hear the cool first song, then I'll invest into your noodling.

The thin production is much more noticeably bad to me than the overcompressed modern production and I don't think loud growls are always a bad thing, but I get your point a little better now.

One man's noodles is another man's steak.

No probably not, but it really does annoy me how the nuances of the music can become really hard to appreciate on so many albums where they are obscured behind a layer of constant abrasive screeching. Many bands have really one dimensional growls combined with interesting guitar playing. Seems like such a shame to give so much priority to the least interesting aspect of your music.

The problem is that when you're dealing with music as extreme as brutal death metal and Norwegian black metal there's often no room for non-extreme metal vocals unless it's some kind of experimental metal. At what point would you include melodic vocals in Cryptopsy and Darkthrone?

Plenty old metal is thin as ****, which kinda goes against the whole point.

Growls can sound good, but I often find it annoying.
Like I've probably mentioned a few times before in here, and despite my complaints about growling and screaming in metal, I'm a big fan of Nile.
I find that the guitars and growls generally don't get in the way of each other on their albums.

Mixing extreme metal is no doubt tricky.

The more it tries to sound heavy, the more I'd perhaps agree. Death metal with no bass is just tame.

I finished listening to all of that Blind Guardian album now and... holy hell do I need a break now. There was admittedly a lot of great guitar playing and some cool vocal passages, but I'd describe the album as being "frantic" first and foremost. Frantic and very, very long.

https://media.giphy.com/media/kvGwtqgbGSCfS/giphy.gif

That **** is luscious.

http://media.pitchfork.com/photos/59...0/491909e4.jpg

The Fox is not a great song, much less the opener to this great record.

You made me do it so don't complain.