What’s your favourite

one-two album

opening punch?

 
For the benefit of our younger readers, lemme explain that there was a brief period in music history when artists were judged more by the success of entire albums than lone singles. Weird, right?

For this reason, the best albums aren’t just a random collection of songs thrown together to justify a specific price-point, but instead a well thought-out and deliberate progression that takes us on a specific journey.

That’s not to say they’re meant to tell a story (that would be the domain of the concept album, a project famed for its ability to go from brilliant to ridiculous in the blink of an eye), but rather that the music is allowed to flow naturally in a way that allows for greater emotional impact.

And like any creative project, a lot of attention has to be paid to the beginning, where you have to hook people in and get them interested before taking them on the full journey. Today, the question is what albums do you think do this really well? What are the records that really hit you with that One-Two punch of opening songs and make you want to hear more?

Up above you can see one of the first that came to my mind. These days Rick Springfield is better known for his small but INTENSELY devoted fanbase, but recently I’ve discovered that his early albums are pretty fricking great sources of classic pop rock song craft. For me, the opening combo of “Love is Alright Tonite” (which I first heard on the soundtrack for Wet Hot American Summer) and–his biggest hit–“Jessie’s Girl” on “Working Class Dog” is perfect example of how to start an album off right.
 

 
Other examples that occurred to me included the opening combos of “Crucify” and “Girl” on Tori Amos’ “Little Earthquakes”, “Caught in a Dream” and “I’m Eighteen” on Alice Cooper’s “Love It to Death”, “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Simple Twist of Fate” on Bob Dylan’s “Blood On the Tracks”, “Debaser” and “Tame” on The Pixies’ “Doolittle”, and “1999” and “Little Red Corvette” on Prince’s “1999”.

There are a ton of great examples and my list isn’t even close to being definitive. What are the first ones that come to your mind?