History Main / AlbumIntroTrack

Opposite trope to AlbumClosure, when the last song serves as an outro.

!!Albums That Contain An Intro Track:

* Music/{{Queen}}'s second album ''Queen II'' opens with the track "Procession", a short faux-classical Brian May composed instrumental that segues directly into the second track (which in turn segues into the third track). More importantly however, "Procession" served as an introduction for many fans to Brian May's trademark guitar sound and the guitar harmonies that often accompanied them.

* "Theme from ''Flood''" from Music/TheyMightBeGiants' ''Music/{{Flood}}''. A 27 second choral piece introducing the album.

* JRock band Donutman's album ''Start Up To Get Over'' begins with a 30 second track that's a mellow guitar riff with a spoken word sample of an [[GratuitousEnglish English conversation]]. The rest of the album is standard rock, albeit sung in wonderful {{Engrish}}.

** ''Slim Shady EP'' opens with an audio play of SlimShady's SplitPersonalityTakeover of Eminem, serving to warn listeners about the [[{{Horrorcore}} direction]] of his [[NewSoundAlbum new sound]].

* The {{Riven}} soundtrack's first track is called "Link." It's an 11-second track containing the "linking book" sound effect that's used in the game when the player travels between worlds.

* Music/{{LOONA}} has intros in all of their albums. LOONA 1/3's ''Love & Live'' has "Into the New Heart" and ''Love & Evil'' has an intro of the same name. LOONA Odd Eye Circle has ''Mix & Match'' with the intro "ODD" and ''Max & Match'' with "ADD". LOONA yyxy's ''beauty&thebeat'' has "dal segno". LOONA's ''[+ +]'', ''[X X]'' and ''[#]'' all start with intros of the same name as their respective album. "+ +" (the intro) is notable for being a fusion of "Into the New Heart", "ODD" and "dal segno".

* ''Rated R'' by Music/{{Rihanna}} starts with "Mad House", which incorporates a Creator/VincentPrice-like speech "warning" uneasy listeners and inviting those "who can take it".

* ''Music/{{Metallica}}'' starts off both "Ride The Lighting" and "Master Of Puppets" with an acoustic guitar part.

* Limp Bizkit's ''Chocolate Starfish at the Hot Dog Flavoured Water'' and ''Significant Other'' both have intro tracks lasting roughly 30-40 seconds.

* Music/ModestMouse's ''Good News For People Who Love Bad News'' starts with "Horn Intro", a 6 second track that has a horn section (The Dirty Dozen Brass Band) playing a couple of sustained notes that lead right into "The World At Large", the album's first proper song. This turns out to be taken from the very beginning of "This Devil's Workday", which comes later on the same album, and is a full song collaboration with The Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

* ''#willpower'' by Will.I.Am has "Good Morning". It's his way of saying "hello" to the listeners.

* Music/GreenDay's album ''21st Century Breakdown'' begins with the radio-staticed acapella "Song of the Century" later reprised for the song American Eulogy.

* From the ''VideoGame/UmJammerLammy'' soundtrack album ''Music/MakeItSweet'', "Let's Jam Together!" briefly shows Katy, Ma-san, and Lammy initially meeting each other and deciding to form a band.

* Music/StoneTemplePilots' ''Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop'' opens with "Press Play", a minute and 21 seconds of funky, organ-based instrumental jamming that fades into the next song. Interestingly, [[LongSongShortScene the track is three minutes longer on LP copies]], which is how long it was on the original master tapes - it starts repeating itself after the first minute and a half, so they may have just recorded a longer-than-neccesary version so they could decide when to start fading it out later.

* The soundtrack for the film Film/SingStreet starts with Brendan's brief "Rock n Roll is a Risk" spoken word monologue

** ''Music/{{Meteora}}'' has "Foreword", a 13-second track [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030412184824/http://www.shoutweb.com/features/linkinpark0303.phtml described by]] [[WordOfGod co-lead singer Mike Shinoda]] as an attempt at Foley work. It leads up to the first full song, "Don't Stay".

* ''Music/{{Gamma Ray}}'''s ''No World Order'' begins with "Induction", a calling out of the Illuminati and those who would seek to control others, which leads up to "Dethrone Tyranny."

!Albums That Contain An Intro Track:

[[AC:Alternative]]

[[AC:Electronic]]

[[AC:Hip Hop]]

[[AC:Jazz]]

[[AC:Metal]]

[[AC:Mixed]]

[[AC:Pop]]

[[AC:Punk]]

[[AC:R&B]]

[[AC:Rock]]

[[AC:Soundtrack]]

* "Generation Why?" by Diamond Plate starts of with various soundbites.
* ''Music/{{Dragonforce}}'''s first album, ''Valley of the Damned'', begins with "Invocation of Apocalyptic Evil", which is generally an instrumental lead-up to the title track.

* Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism by ''Music/{{Immortal}}

* "Paranoid Circus" by Lyriel starts out with spoken word.

* Nothing More's self-titled album opens with a song called "Ocean Floor", which is the lead-in to "This is the Time (Ballast)".
* "Shout At The Devil" by Music/MotleyCrue starts with the track ''In The Beginning'' with highly distorted spoken word.
* "Mezmerize" by Music/SystemOfADown begins with an intro version of the song "Soldier Side", the full version of which isn't heard until the last track of the sister album "Hypnotize."

* "Ascendancy" by Music/{{Trivium}} begins with an instrumental track titled "The End of Everything."
* Music/DemonHunter. ''The Triptych'' opens with "The Flame That Guides Us Home", an a cappella piece sung by a women's choir, leading directly into the second track, "Not I". On ''True Defiance'', the first twenty seconds of the first track are very lo-fi (as if they were recorded on cheap tapes in someone's garage) before abruptly switching to a louder and clearer studio recording. ''Extremist'' opens with "Death", featuring choral chanting and death metal, in contrast with the metalcore-influenced sound of the rest of the album.

* Music/DreamTheater's "Regression" from ''Metropolis, Pt. 2'' and "False Awakening Suite" from ''Dream Theater''. The intro to "Root of All Evil" from ''Octavarium'' also counts.
* Music/TypeONegative's ''October Rust'' has the joke track "Bad Ground," which is just an amplifier hum, followed by introductory dialogue from the band members.
** They pulled a similar trick with the first track of their next album, ''World Coming Down'': "Skip It" is an 11 second track of what sounds like a skipping CD, followed by a member of the band shouting "Sucker!" There was even a format specific version of this intro for the cassette edition, which sounded like a tape being eaten instead.
* Music/{{Stryper}}'s ''To Hell with the Devil'' started off with an ominous instrumental intro, titled "Abyss (To Hell with the Devil)". Listeners might expect it to lead into the title track, especially after [[ScareChord the sudden clap of thunder]], but instead it just fades out.
* ''V - Metal Machine Music'' by Music/DieKrupps has "Die Verdammten (Prelude)" as its EpicInstrumentalOpener.
* ''V'' from Music/BulletForMyValentine album Venom.

* Music/{{Cormorant}}'s album ''Earth Diver'' opens with "Eris", a short instrumental piece that contains sampling from later tracks on the album, opening to the song "Daughter of Void".
* Der fünfzehnjährige Krieg'' by Absurd has one (weirdly, it's actually longer than a couple of the actual songs.)
* ''SGNL>01'' and ''SGNL>05 (Final Transmission)'' by {{Music/Isis}}, taken from ''Celestial'' and ''SGNL>05'', respectively.

** "Intro: I Switched My Robot Off]]" (''Humanz'') is the first in a number of spoken interludes that pop up every few songs, each setting the tone for its given section of the album.

* The remix album of ''Music/HybridTheory'', titled ''Reanimation'' has [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Opening"]], which samples the violin and piano [[{{Foreshadowing}} later used]] [[BookEnds in the final track "Krwlng".]]

* Linkin Park's "Meteora" has a short track leading up to the first song.