Article: Hot Take: Album Themes Matter More Than You Think
Hot Take: Album Themes Matter More Than You Think
Hey folks,
Hot take: Album themes matter more than you think.
I come from the school of thought that whatever song you put first on your album should probably be your live opener for that album's tour cycle.
If it isn't, are you really promoting the album?
Okay, maybe that's a slightly outdated way of thinking.
But hear me out.
The album should have a world around it
I've always loved when a record feels like more than a collection of songs.
Artwork.
Production.
Stage design.
Merch.
The intro tape.
The first song.
All of it belongs to the same little universe for a couple of years.
And when that first song becomes the live opener, the second those opening sounds come through the PA, you know exactly what era of the band you're standing in.
Metallica might be the prime example of how much weight good album themery can carry.
They understood that stuff ridiculously well.
Blackened
For years, Metallica essentially followed the formula:
New album.
Track one.
Tour opener.
Battery.
Blackened.
Enter Sandman.
And it worked every damn time.
I was lucky enough to eventually witness that shrieking, backwards build-up to Blackened before the band kicked in.
Okay, this was the Madly in Anger with the World tour in 2004 and therefore nowhere near the ...And Justice for All tour cycle.
Who cares.
For those few seconds, the entire building knew what was about to happen.
That's what a great opener does.
Madly in Anger with the World tour, Munich, June 13, 2004. Hit play: it opens with Blackened. Via Metallica.
Meshuggah understood the assignment
Another one I'll never forget was Meshuggah on The Violent Sleep of Reason tour.
That rising siren-like pitch before Clockworks kicked off was so uncomfortably wonderful that I'd put it up there with the Aces Highs and Batterys of the world.
And Meshuggah have another unfair advantage:
They don't count their songs in live.
No:
"ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!"
The thing just fucking happens.
Every song starts like somebody loading a fresh chamber into your grandpa's shotgun.
You're standing there.
Then suddenly you're not.
Intro into Clockworks, The Violent Sleep of Reason tour, Hobart, March 19, 2017. Filmed by samomac.
And half the crowd is still buying beer
The funny thing about the first song of a concert is that a surprising number of people don't seem to realize the show has started.
Some people are ecstatic.
Somebody has been standing against the barricade for six hours.
Meanwhile somebody else is still in the beer line shooting the shit about their workweek.
But bands, please:
Don't plan the opening of your show around the beer-line people.
Plan it for the lunatics who have been ready since the house music started.
Speaking of which...
Why is it always AC/DC coming through the PA before a Metal show?
Is there some international touring regulation requiring Back in Black before the lights go down?
I need answers.
Aces High
And this brings me to something I'm still jealous about.
My father-in-law saw Iron Maiden on the Powerslave tour.
So yes.
He actually got the full thing.
Churchill's speech.
The aircraft noises.
The tension building.
And then:
ACES HIGH.
As the opener.
On the tour for the album it opened.
The bastard.
Churchill's speech into Aces High, from Live After Death, recorded on the Powerslave tour. What my father-in-law got. Uploaded by theironmaidenvault.
Make the whole thing matter
If there's a silver lining to this unnecessarily specific rant, I guess it's this:
Make cohesive pieces of art.
Albums don't have to be folders containing ten unrelated singles.
The artwork can matter.
The sequencing can matter.
The production can matter.
The intro can matter.
And yes, the first song can matter.
Give the album its own little world.
Then take that world on tour.
Because twenty years later, somebody might not remember what you played seventh.
They might not remember whether the Snare sounded good.
They might not even remember who they went with.
But they'll remember the lights going out.
They'll remember that sound coming through the PA.
And they'll remember exactly what happened next.
Give us the memorable tour opener.
-Ron D.Rock / Loudstakk
P.S. If your own opener currently starts with four clicks and a prayer, the Metal & Punk Intros MIDI Pack exists for exactly that moment when the lights go out.
