Tell you what's shite: intro tracks

[alan nagsworth]

What's the point of intro tracks? Load of rubbish. What makes you think your music deserves to be announced? Just play the record, or failing that you could incorporate some kind of extended beginning that's part of the first actual song. I never listen to intros.

There's literally not one single good intro track in the entire world.

[Garam]

It's exactly the same as an extended beginning except it gives you the option to skip it if you don't feel like it or want to use the track proper in a mix.




Wu Tang albums - all the kung fu dialogue shit. That is good and sets the scene. I'll spend some time looking for more examples later, but i just wanted to be the first person to tell you you're wrong.

edit: - Midnight Marauders - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDDDKtAB3xc
This Nation's Saving Grace - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tusdr3lgL0M
Music Has the Right to Children - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEVtP0ZZf6Y
the opening minute and a half of Liquid Swords - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bsl44gJAPY
RIP - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeyF2BatB60

[alan nagsworth]

Intro tracks are a statement though, whereas extended beginnings are generally a lot shorter and are actually part of the music as a whole. Intros are totally removed - you're right, they do set the scene, but I'm almost never looking to be told a big story when I'm listening to an album (or at least one that is unmistakably and predominantly telling a story) so I don't care about establishing mood. I know what mood I'm in already when I play the record: the mood to listen to that record.

A good response to your example I guess would be "Liquid Swords", whose intoduction is as desrcibed above: shorter, and works well as being incorporated into the song, albeit with a very quick and simple fade-in.

Stuff like the short, admittedly "necessary" but nonetheless irritating intro track to "Deltron 3030" is completely pointless to me. Who the fuck wants to hear Damon Albarn talk ever, let alone at the beginning of a seminal hip hop record?

Another one that springs to mind is the intro to Dead Kennedys' "Plastic Surgery Disasters". One of my favourite albums of all time, and despite the intro being a classic example of the sneering, psychedelic horrors jutting out of DK's pores, it never gets play from me. Stuff like that would work far better as an interlude; at least then I'd probably leave it playing. I think I'd like the album a lot more if "Government Flu" just belted straight in at the very beginning.

[imitationleather]

What about when what could conceivably be one giant song is split into shorter ones? For example, Trans-Europe Express, Metal on Metal and Abzug by Kraftwerk on Trans-Europe Express. I like it, if for no other reason than because it adds three plays to your Last.fm profile instead of just one, and so it looks like I've been listening to absolutely loads of stuff. I wish they'd had the foresight to split Autobahn up into twenty-two sixty second tracks and one forty-seven second track for this reason.

[Noodle Lizard]

Do you feel the same about overtures for musicals, or opening title sequences for movies?

[Norton Canes]

Intro tracks can be great in a 'get you into the right mood for listening to the rest of the album' type way. They provide an invaluable bridgehead between the real world and the immersive world of the music.

But they MUST confirm to the first (and indeed only) rule of intro tracks: There must not be a gap between the intro track and the first 'proper' track. Otherwise, what's the point? Why meticulously build up the correct atmosphere only for it all to dispel in a handful of seconds of silence?

[Squink]

Metal on Metal

You're right, intro is crackin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDC2e6i6Quw

[purlieu]

I have too many albums with intro tracks that I like to sum up my disagreement fully.

[alan nagsworth]

Do you feel the same about overtures for musicals, or opening title sequences for movies?

No, because they are different things.

[holyzombiejesus]

Would the first 6 seconds of this count as an intro track?

Denim - The Great Pub Rock Revival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NmDpBTaCVk

[Crabwalk]

I agree with Nags on the whole; there are plenty of time-wasting intro tracks to otherwise decent albums. But of course there are notable exceptions like 'Furryvision' from Super Furry Animals' Radiator which is a wonderful way to welcome people into the album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydl8CwwdPDo

[Noodle Lizard]

No, because they are different things.

They arguably serve the same purpose though, and proportionately take the same amount of time.

Iuno.  I think they work when they're introducing an album whose tracks flow together well anyway, but agree with the other fella who said it's silly if the intro track just ends on its own and doesn't sound much like what comes after it.

Also, what constitutes an Intro Track anyway, aside from it being the first one?  Is Velvet Kevrokian one?

[Crabwalk]

I feel like I should give an example of a shit intro track on an otherwise awesome album. I'll go for Three Feet High and Rising and the bollocks game show skit that gets annoying after 10 seconds.

[Crabwalk]

Also It's Album Time by Todd Terje pretty much has two intro tracks with 'It's Album Time' building up a nice head of steam, but then being stopped in its tracks by the the next song 'Leisure Suit Preben', which also sounds like an intro song. The album should've just launched straight in with 'Preben Goes to Acapulco'.

[Crabwalk]

Then again, you can't beat a little overture that launches into a killer first song like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g-aJJ0ku7I

[alan nagsworth]

They arguably serve the same purpose though, and proportionately take the same amount of time.

Like I said though, I don't go into a record hoping for an involving story to be told and to have to pay all my attention to that, as I would with a musical or a film.

There are tracks that are very much introductory in nature, but are longer and serve as a more cohesive build up. This is typically when the second track is a single or something that stands out as the album's "banger". An example of this is the first track on the Blanck Mass album Dumb Flesh, which is completely in the same vein of the rest of the record and sets the tone without feeling like you're literally being introduced to something, and can be listened to as a standalone song without having to always be succeeded by the rest of the record, but still builds up a nice head of steam to where the album really kicks into gear with "Dead Format".

Something I really struggle to understand is intros for individual songs halfway through the album, particularly on hip hop records, where skit tracks are largely a pain in the arse anyway. Man that's annoying.

There are some exceptions obviously, I was being facetious in the OP and I don't hate all intro tracks, just the majority of them and the act they exist, I guess. One that I can happily abide is Prince Paul's A Prince Among Thieves which interestingly enough is also a record which is riddled with talky skits but the narrative and the concept of the whole thing is executed to perfection.

[Dex Sawash]

I like the intro to The Wolf on Motorhead's album Rock and Roll

https://youtu.be/YqWPtftLHxM

[phantom_power]

Two intros to prove you wrong:

Public Enemy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7DXgUmhIUw
David Bowie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q7ABB8h7KA

Both, as has been said before, get you mentally prepared for the album ahead

[greenman]

"Introduction" on Bryter Layter?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr3-ScLFG4w

[Serge]

David Bowie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q7ABB8h7KA

I suppose that 'Diamond Dogs' also has an Outro track in 'Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family'.

[great_badir]

The intro (introducing the later themes) to Lenny White's Astral Pirates is awesome.  The fact that it's reminiscent of that annoying and ubiquitous Alan Parsons song is neither here nor there cos it came first.

[phantom_power]

I suppose that 'Diamond Dogs' also has an Outro track in 'Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family'.

Yeah, and the whole thing holds together better as a concept than any of his other albums, Ziggy included, which makes sense given the 1984 roots

[Petey Pate]

I feel like I should give an example of a shit intro track on an otherwise awesome album. I'll go for Three Feet High and Rising and the bollocks game show skit that gets annoying after 10 seconds.

How many feathers are on a perdue chicken?

The skits on De La Soul is Dead are even more annoying.  Great album, but approximately a third of it is filler.

[clingfilm portent]

Rap albums have a tendency towards bad intros and even worse, skits. Get the ferk/fuck outta New York indeed.

[studpuppet]

Your argument spiked in one song, sir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcrUuCDFLOQ

"And looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes..."

[Petey Pate]

Rap albums have a tendency towards bad intros and even worse, skits. Get the ferk/fuck outta New York indeed.

I had the idea once to make a mixtape consisting exclusively of skits from hip hop albums, just to see if I could create something at least passably listenable.  It's probably too much of a challenge though.

[clingfilm portent]

I had the idea once to make a mixtape consisting exclusively of skits from hip hop albums, just to see if I could create something at least passably listenable from it.  It's probably too much of a challenge though.

I never really thought about it, but they can be decent sampling material, so they've got that going for them at least.

[studpuppet]

Two songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYGoougMHSQ

"And son, if you see your mom this weekend, would your be sure and tell her..."

(Although the live intro was always more fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AybqfcZ5UMY)

[alan nagsworth]

Your argument spiked in one song, sir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcrUuCDFLOQ

"And looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes..."

This is lampooning the notion of intro and outro tracks though, and at three minutes in length and placed in the middle of the album (albeit admittedly at the beginning of the second side) I'd say that it constitutes an actual song.

"And son, if you see your mom this weekend, would your be sure and tell her..."

That's a part of the song, to the point that "Sweet Loaf" would not be the same song if it were removed. It isn't a separate intro track at all.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Get out of my thread.

[clingfilm portent]

Incidentally, through image searching your avatar I was able to find END OF LIFE ENTERTAINMENT SCENARIO #1, which I've been looking for for a while. So thanks for that.