Longest Song Goes First

The placement of songs on an album can be a tricky thing to decide, especially when it comes to placing the longest song on the album. More frequently, feeling that the largest piece of music on the record is a good closer or not knowing where else to put it without breaking the flow of the tracks, a band or artist will place it at the end of the album. This is the opposite trope, where a band or artist decides to set their longest song at the very beginning instead. Such a decision is less common, but not unheard of.

There's a handful of possible reasons for that: The track is a good representation of the remainder of the album; the band is confident enough in their long song to feature it first; or perhaps the band trusts its listeners and fans that they will join along for the ride without any issue. As a result, it may be a common decision made by bands that are already known for long tracks, especially in genres like Jazz, Progressive Rock, and Progressive Metal, where long tracks are frequent.

Much like the opposite trope, there is a possible variation where the longest track on the album is indeed placed first, but is preceded by an album intro, as more commonly seen in concept albums. For the purposes of the trope, we're defining "intro" as a musical piece that isn't structured like a song, but serves as a short introduction of the album's content or themes^note It can either be a musical piece composed of musical excerpts of other songs, or just a piece that isn't structured like a song.

Some considerations for this trope:

• We're only counting full-length studio albums and EPs. Live albums, singles, splits, compilations and cover albums fall outside of the scope of this trope, even if they may feature a possible example of the trope, due to padding, the usual live cutting, and because in compilations and splits the song order is either chronologically-based or isn't given much attention at all.
• As for the songs themselves, the length of the track itself doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is that the song is the longest in the album and opens it.
• Also, such a long song must NOT be divided into separate tracks or in the track listing. A single 23-minute song, even if divided into movements, counts. A track that's labeled as "Part 1" with a track labeled "Part 2" later into the album doesn't, even if both parts make it the longest song on the album when put together; unless Part 1 alone qualifies as the longest track.
• The track listing being considered is the original tracklisting (bonus tracks added in special editions or reissues don't count for the purpose of the trope). For the record, for the tracklisting itself we take all sides as a single tracklisting, so only the first song of the first side qualifies for the trope^note i.e., in an album spanning four sides A-B-C-D, only the first song of side A qualifies for the trope if it's the longest.

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Examples:

Longest song as the opener

• ABBA:
  • The Album opens with "Eagle", at 5:51, almost a minute longer than the next longest track.
  • Voyage (2021) begins with "I Still Have Faith In You", at 5:09.
• AC/DC: The title track of For Those About to Rock We Salute You is the longest of the album at 5:44. "Spellbound" is next, at 4:39.
• Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies kicks off with the 6:59 "Rotten Apple". No other song in the EP cracks the 4:30 mark.
• Alstroemeria Records: The album DOMINATED DANCEHALL begins with the song "EXTRA LOVE", a 6:47 long (which includes the seamless 1 minute opener "LAUNCH") remix of the Extra Stage theme from Touhou Fuumaroku ~ the Story of Eastern Wonderland with vocals provided by nachi (of ZYTOKINE fame) as well as audio clips taken from the 1961 sci-fi b-movie Battle of the Worlds, making it a Voice Clip Song as well. It is by far the longest song in the entire album and serves as a strong opening for additional dance remixes to follow suit.
• Art of Noise: The Seduction of Claude Debussy opens with the eight-minute "Il Pleure (At the Turn of the Century)". The next-longest track, "The Holy Egoism of Genius", just barely falls under that mark at 7:56.
• Babymetal's fourth album The Other One opens with "Metal Kingdom" (5:51). None of the other tracks last five minutes.
• The Band: Music from Big Pink starts with the 5:23 "Tears of Rage." The next longest song on the album, "Chest Fever," only goes to 5:18.
• Band-Maid's third album Brand New Maid starts with "the non-fiction days" (4:44); the second longest track, "YURAGU," only lasts to 4:05.
• Black Sabbath:
  • Paranoid opens with "War Pigs" at 7:55.
  • Black Sabbath Vol. 4 opens with the 8:02 "Wheels of Confusion", though technically this is two songs in one—the last two-and-a-half minutes being a separately-recorded instrumental outro dubbed "The Straightener" on some versions of the album.
• David Bowie:
  • The Man Who Sold the World kicks off with the eight-minute "The Width of a Circle"; no other song on the album goes over the six-minute mark.
  • The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars opens with the 4:44 "Five Years".
  • Both Station to Station and ★ start with the Title Tracks, the longest songs in Bowie's catalog at 10:15 and 9:57, respectively. Of note is that "★" was planned to be even longer, at eleven minutes, but was cut down due to iTunes' ten-minute cap on single releases at the time, with Bowie not wanting to confuse listeners by putting out different versions of the same song in an era where tracks can be individually downloaded and streamed.
  • Tonight kicks off with the 7:11 "Loving the Alien".
  • Tin Machine starts with the six-minute "Heaven's in Here"; no other song on the album surpasses five minutes.
• Box Car Racer's Self-Titled Album and only release so far opens with the 4:30 "I Feel So", which is only ten seconds longer than the second-longest track, "Cat Like Thief" (4:20).
• The vinyl edition of BT's Ima opens with "Divinity"(10:58). Averted on the CD edition, where "Divinity" is moved to the end and preceded by "Blue Skies(Delphinium Days Mix)"(12:52) and "Sasha's Voyage of Ima"(42:45).
• David Byrne: Rei Momo begins with the 5:45 "Independence Day".
• Cacola: Ruby Rose opens with the 12:29 "White Rose"; the next-longest track is the first song on disc two, which spans 11:16.
• Can: Delay 1968 kicks off with the 8:20 "Butterfly", which runs for over a minute longer than the next-longest track, "Little Star of Bethlehem" (which, incidentally, is the closer).
• Inverted with Cannibal Corpse's Kill, which opens with its shortest song, "The Time to Kill Is Now" (2:03).
• Cattle Decapitation's The Harvest Floor opens with the 5:39 "The Gardeners of Eden".
• George Clinton starts several of his albums with his various projects this way.
  • With Funkadelic:
    • Their 1970 Self-Titled Album opens with "Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?" (9:04).
    • Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow starts with the Title Track, at 10:00.
    • Maggot Brain starts with the 10:21 Title Track.
    • America Eats Its Young begins with "You Hit the Nail on the Head" (7:10).
    • The Electric Spanking of War Babies opens with the 8:37 Title Track.
  • With Parliament:
    • Mothership Connection opens on "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" (7:41).
  • With Parliament-Funkadelic/P-Funk All Stars:
    • Dope Dogs begins with "Dog Star (Fly On)" (8:11).
• Leonard Cohen:
  • New Skin for the Old Ceremony opens with the 4:13 "Is This What You Wanted". The only other song on the album that breaks four minutes is "Take This Longing", which is seven seconds shorter than the opener.
  • Recent Songs starts with "The Guests", which at 6:40 is only one of three Epic Rocking songs on the record, alongside the 6:16 "The Traitor" and the 6:26 "Ballad of the Absent Mare".
  • I'm Your Man kicks off with the six-minute "First We Take Manhattan", which just barely outpaces the 5:59 "Take This Waltz" for the position of the album's longest track.
  • You Want It Darker begins with the 4:44 Title Track; the second-longest song on the album is the 4:23 "Steer Your Way".
  • Thanks For the Dance begins with the four-and-a-half-minute "Happens to the heart". The next longest song on the album is the 4:17 "The Hills".
• John Coltrane:
  • Blue Train opens with the 10:43 Title Track, the only song on the record to surpass ten minutes.
  • The title track on My Favorite Things clocks in at 13:44, beating out "Summertime" by about two minutes.
• Crosby, Stills & Nash: The group's self-titled debut album opens with the seven-and-a-half-minute "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes".
• The Cure:
  • The band's 1982 album Pornography opens on the 6:42 "One Hundred Years".
  • 4:13 Dream's opener "Underneath the Stars" is 6:17, while no other track goes above 5 minutes.
• Decoded Feedback:
  • Mechanical Horizon opens with "Reflect in Silence"(6:35).
  • disKonnekt opens with "Another Loss"(6:04).
• Destroyer, a Canadian indie rock band, had its twelfth studio album Have We Met, released in 2020, open on the 6:10 "Crimson Tide"; no other songs on the album surpass the six-minute mark.
• Neil Diamond's 2008 album Home Before Dark has all but one of its tracks ("Whose Hands Are These") at over four minutes long, but the first, "If I Don't See You Again", its the longest (7:12).
• Dire Straits:
  • Making Movies opens with the 8:11 "Tunnel of Love". No other track on the album surpasses the seven-minute mark.
  • Love Over Gold opens with the fourteen-minute "Telegraph Road", the longest track in their studio discography.
• Dream Theater: Although Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is more famous for the eponymous 42-minute suite closing the album, said suite is split into tracks 6-13 on the second disc; the actual longest single song is the opener, "The Glass Prison" (13:52).
• Bob Dylan: A fairly short example with "Girl From The North Country" on Nashville Skyline (3:41).
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer:
  • Tarkus starts with the 21-minute title track.
  • Works Volume 1 opens with "Piano Concerto No. 1," at 18:18.
  • Black Moon opens with its title track, at 6:56.
• Brian Eno: Discreet Music kicks off with the 30:35 Title Track, which occupies the entire first side. The second side, meanwhile, is dedicated to several variations on Pachabel's Canon in D Major.
• John Fahey: The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party and Other Excursions opens with "The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party" (19:04). This is over three times the length of the next-longest track, "Sail Away Ladies" (6:04).
• The Frozen Autumn's The Shape of Things To Come opens with the 8:33 "Autosuggestion", which is two minutes longer than the second longest song, "Midnight Sun City"(6:27).
• Peter Gabriel:
  • Scratch opens with the 5:30 "On the Air", which edges out "White Shadow" by a quarter of a minute for the position of the album's longest track.
  • Us opens with the 7:06 "Come Talk to Me", which just barely beats out the closing track, "Secret World", as the album's longest by three seconds.
• Genesis:
  • Nursery Cryme opens with the 10:25 track "The Musical Box".
  • The band's self-titled album opens with the nearly seven-minute "Mama".
• Gojira's L'Enfant Sauvage opens with the 6:39 "Explosia", the only song on the album to surpass the 6-minute mark.
• Goldie:
  • The single-CD, double-CD, and cassette versions of Timeless open with the 21-minute medley "Timeless: Inner City Life/Pressure/Jah", which is sequenced as one track. The double-LP release, meanwhile, omits the song due to its length.
  • The double-CD release of Saturnz Return opens with the hour-long "Mother", which takes up almost all of the first disc. Like "Timeless: Inner City Life/Pressure/Jah" before it, both the cassette and vinyl releases omit the song due to the logistical problems presented by its length.
• Herbie Hancock: Head Hunters kicks off with "Chameleon", which goes a full 15:45. "Sly", the next longest track, lasts 10:21.
• Swedish glam metal band H.E.A.T's 2014 album Tearing Down the Walls begins with "Point of No Return," at 5:16.
• Iron Maiden's The X Factor opens with the 11-minute "Sign of the Cross". Not only it subverts their usual Longest Song Goes Last, but marked the first time they opened with an epic instead of a fast-paced rocker (tellingly, their tours usually start with the album opener; The X Factour pushed "Sign of the Cross" to the middle of the setlist and opened with "Man on the Edge").
• Michael Jackson:
  • Off the Wall opens with "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (6:04).
  • Thriller starts with the 6:02-long "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'."
• Japan:
  • Gentlemen Take Polaroids opens with the seven-minute Title Track. The next-longest song, "Nightporter", just barely falls under that mark. This marks a significant contrast from the band's previous albums, which invariably fell under Longest Song Goes Last.
  • Rain Tree Crow opens with the seven-minute "Big Wheels in Shanty Town". The next-longest song on the album, "Pocket Full of Change", is exactly one minute shorter.
• Jean-Michel Jarre:
  • Magnetic Fields opens with the nearly 18-minute "Magnetic Fields Part 1", which takes up the entirety of side one.
  • Zoolook kicks off with the nearly 12-minute "Ethnicolor".
  • On the original 1988 release of Revolutions, the opening track is the nearly 17-minute "Industrial Revolution". Later releases avert this trope by breaking the suite up into four interconnected tracks, the first of which is outpaced by the 5:21 "Tokyo Kid".
  • Chronologie opens with the nearly 11-minute "Chronologie Part 1".
  • Oxygène 7-13 opens with the nearly 12-minute "Oxygène 7".
• Jethro Tull:
  • "With You There to Help Me," the opening track of Benefit, at 6:20.
  • Thick as a Brick is usually considered a single, 44-minute song, but it had to be split in two for the vinyl pressing, and as a result the first half technically counts, at 22:40.
• Joan Jett and the Blackhearts: Good Music opens with the 5:45 Title Track, the only song on the album to surpass five minutes.
• Elton John: Empty Sky starts off with the 8:29 Title Track.
• Gerard Joling's Sea of Love opens with the 6:41 "Spanish Heart". All of the remaining songs are under 4 minutes.
• King Crimson:
  • Discounting the Hidden Track at the end of the Title Track, Islands begins with the 10-minute "Formentera Lady".
  • Larks' Tongues in Aspic began with the 13-and-a-half minute instrumental epic "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One".
• King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard:
  • Their 2013 album Float Along - Fill Your Lungs opens with the 16-minute "HeadOn/Pill", almost 10 minutes longer than the next longest song.
  • Quarters! defies both this trope and Longest Song Goes Last, being made of four songs that are all 10:10 in length.
  • Flying Microtonal Banana opens with the 7:48 composition "Rattlesnake".
  • Polygondwanaland begins its run with "Crumbling Castle (10:46), over four minutes longer than the next longest song, which closes the album.
  • Omnium Gatherum's "The Dripping Tap" clocks in at 18:17, a huge piece compared to the other songs, which are all shorter than 7:38 in length.
• KISS' Psycho Circus opens with the title track, at 5:30 (which is 20 seconds longer than the next track and second-longest song in the album, the 5:10 "Within").
• Kraftwerk:
  • Kraftwerk 2 opens with the 17:36 "Klingklang".
  • Side A of Autobahn is entirely occupied by the title track, at 22:30.
  • Trans-Europe Express starts with "Europe Endless" (9:40).
• Led Zeppelin's Presence kicks off with the ten-and-a-half-minute "Achilles Last Stand" [sic], one of their longest songs, beaten out only by "Carouselambra" from their final (official) album In Through the Out Door, which is just a few seconds longer, and "In My Time of Dying", which is just over eleven minutes long.
• Lil Yachty's 2023 album Let's Start Here begins with "The Black Seminole", at 6:51.
• Machine Head:
  • The Blackening opens with the Epic Rocking track "Clenching the Fists of Dissent" (10:37 long). The only track on the album that rivals it in length is the closer, the 10:13 long "A Farewell to Arms".
  • Unto the Locust does something very similar with its opening "I Am Hell (Sonata In C#) (8:26 long) and its closer "Who We Are" (7:12 long).
• Manowar: The Triumph of Steel opens with "Achilles: Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts" (28:37), by far the longest track they have.
• Don McLean: American Pie kicks off with the eight-and-a-half-minute Title Track, the only song on the album to reach Epic Rocking status.
• Melvins:
  • Gluey Porch Treatments: "Eye Flys" (6:16)
  • Bullhead: "Boris" (8:34)
  • Lysol^note this release, running a total length of 31:21, doesn't actually list or separate the individual tracks; they're separated here for convenience: "Hung Bunny" (10:42); or, if taken as one song, "Hung Bunny/Roman Dog Bird" (18:20)
  • Basses Loaded: "The Decay of Lying" (6:35)
  • A Walk with Love & Death (Death): "Black Heath" (6:41)
  • Bad Mood Rising: "Mister Dog Is Totally Right" (14:09)
• Metric:
  • Live It Out opens on the 5:55 "Empty".
  • Synthetica's first track, "Artificial Noctuene" at 5:42, beats out the second longest track on the album by about 30 seconds.
  • The band's 2022 album Formentera opens on "Doomscroller", their longest studio song at 10:28, which is also more than four minutes longer than the second longest on the album.
• Metallica: Inverted on Hardwired... to Self-Destruct with the Title Track "Hardwired", which is only 3:12 long, by far the shortest song on the album and the only one that's under five minutes.
• The National's 2003 album Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers features "Cardinal Song" (6:18) as its first piece.
• Nightwish:
  • The album Dark Passion Play opens with "The Poet and the Pendulum" (13:54).
  • Their 2020 release Human. :II: Nature.'s opening track, "Music", is the longest on the album at 7:23, beating out the album closer "Endlessness" by only twelve seconds. None of the other songs break the six-minute mark, meaning "Music" and "Endlessness" act as Book Ends.
• Night Ranger's album 7 Wishes begins with the title track, at 4:53, only 13 seconds more than the next longest.
• "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the opening track of Nirvana's Nevermind, is the longest one on the album overall at 5:01, not counting the 6:44 Hidden Track "Endless, Nameless" (which is only available in the album's CD version, and even then it was omitted from the initial release due to a mastering error).
• Oingo Boingo: Nothing to Fear opens with "Grey Matter" (5:52).
• Mike Oldfield:
  • While Tubular Bells is officially billed as one song, the limitations of vinyl means that it's split into two parts. Of these, the 25:30 Part One just barely edges out the 23:20 Part Two for the position of the album's longest track. The 2003 re-recording, meanwhile, averts this trope, subdividing each part into additional movements, with the 8:32 "Finale" (which closes Part One) beating out the 5:52 "Introduction".
  • Hergest Ridge opens with the 21:29 Part One, which outpaces the 18:45 Part Two.
  • Ommadawn opens with the 19:23 Part One, which beats out the 17:17 Part Two.
  • QE2 opens with the 10:16 "Taurus I"; no other song on the album surpasses eight minutes.
  • Both Five Miles Out and Crises open with side-length suites, "Taurus II" and the Title Track, respectively; on the initial US release of Crises, this is altered to have the title track close out the album instead.
  • The UK release of Islands opens with the nearly 22-minute "The Wind Chimes". In the US release, the song is split into a two-and-a-half-minute first part and a 19-minute second part, avoiding this trope; incidentally, part one ends up being the shortest song on the US version.
  • Tubular Bells II opens with the eight-minute "Sentinel".
  • Return to Ommadawn begins with the 21:10 Part One, which barely outpaces Part Two by just 14 seconds.
• Ozzy Osbourne:
  • His 2010 album Scream opens on the 6:06 "Let It Die", beating out the next in line by only three seconds.
  • Patient Number 9 opens with the titular track, running at 7:21.
• The Alan Parsons Project:
  • I, Robot kicks off with the six-minute Title Track, the only song on the album to reach Epic Rocking status.
  • Gaudi begins with the 8:44 "La Sagrada Familia", over two minutes longer than the second-longest track on the album.
• Pink Floyd:
  • Atom Heart Mother begins with the titular track (23:44).
  • Wish You Were Here opens with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)" (13:32).
• Perez Prado:
  • Voodoo Suite (Plus Six All-Time Greats) opens with "Voodoo Suite" (23:08). On the original LP, it takes up the entire side 1.
  • Exotic Suite of the Americas (and Six Other Prado Sound Spectaculars) opens with "Exotic Suite of the Americas" (16:12). Which also takes up the entire side 1 on the original LP.
• Porcupine Tree: The Sky Moves Sideways opens with Phase 1 of the Title Track, which clocks in at 18:37. It beats out Phase 2, which closes the album and has a length of 16:46, as well as another Epic Rocking track on the album, "Moonloop", at 17:05.
• Pretty Poison's Euphoria opens with the 11:53 medley "Euphoric Reality/Make The World/Catch Me I'm Falling".
• Propaganda: The original release of A Secret Wish opens with the eight-minute "Dream Within a Dream", the only song on the album to reach Epic Rocking status.
• Queen:
  • Sheer Heart Attack opens with "Brighton Rock" (5:08).
  • The Works begins with "Radio Ga Ga" (5:48).
  • Innuendo begins with the 6:31 title track, which holds the distinction of being the band's longest single.
• Real Life's Sirens opens with its 17-minute title track, which occupies the whole of Side 1 on the vinyl edition.
• R.E.M.: Fables of the Reconstruction starts off with the 4:48 "Feeling Gravitys Pull".
• Roxy Music: Country Life opens with the six-and-a-half-minute "The Thrill of It All".
• Rush:
  • Side A of 2112 is comprised entirely of the title track (20:34).
  • Hemispheres's Side A is taken up by "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres" (18:08).
  • Counterparts opens with "Animate" (6:04).
  • Test for Echo begins with the title track, clocking in at 5:56.
• Ryuichi Sakamoto:
  • Vrioon, a collaborative album with Carsten Nicolai (credited as Alva Noto), starts with the nearly 14-minute "Uoon I".
  • Insen, another collaboration with Nicolai, starts with the nearly 9-minute "Aurora".
• Scorpions (Band) has the 2004 album Unbreakable, which starts with the 5:51 "New Generation."
• Silversun Pickups:
  • Widow's Weeds starts with "Neon Wound" (5:38).
  • Physical Thrills opens with "Stillness (Way Beyond)" (5:15), which barely edges out the 5:14 "Quicksand" as the album's longest track.
• Slayer's World Painted Blood opens with the 5:53 Title Track, the only song on the album that surpasses the 5-minute mark.
• Skinny Puppy's Bites plays this trope straight on its original vinyl edition, opening with the 6:55 "Assimilate", but inverts it with its CD and cassette editions, where the 9:42 "The Centre Bullet" is the last listed track.
• The Smiths:
  • Their self-titled album starts with "Reel Around the Fountain" (5:58).
  • The Queen Is Dead starts with the 6:24 title track.
• Indio Solari: El Tesoro de los Inocentes (Bingo Fuel) opens with "Nike es la Cultura" (6:30)
• Stereolab's fourth studio album, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, opens on the 7:55 "Metronomic Underground".
• Styx's 1972 Self Titled debut album begins with "Movement for the Common Man" (13:11).
• Donna Summer:
  • Love To Love You Baby opens with the title track, which takes up all of side one (16:50).
  • Similarly the follow-up A Love Trilogy fills its first side with "Try Me, I Know, We Can Make It" (17:57).
  • Although it doesn't get into quite the same Epic Rocking territory (and it's only the longest by a matter of seconds), her next album Four Seasons of Love opens with "Spring Affair" (8:29).
• Sunn O))):
  • White 1 opens with "My Wall"(25:30).
  • Monoliths and Dimensions opens with "Aghartha"(17:34).
  • Solstitium Fulminate opens with "Wine and Fog"(21:29).
  • Kannon opens with "Kannon 1"(12:50).
• David Sylvian:
  • Dead Bees on a Cake opens with the nine-and-a-half-minute "I Surrender"; the second-longest track on the album, "Krishna Blue", just barely cracks eight minutes.
  • Blemish kicks off with the 13:42 Title Track, the only song on the album to surpass eight minutes.
• Yukihiro Takahashi: Neuromantic starts with the 6-minute "Glass", the only song on the album to reach Epic Rocking status.
• Talk Talk: Spirit of Eden opens with the 9-minute "The Rainbow".
• Tame Impala's album Currents opens on "Let It Happen" (7:46).
• Tears for Fears: Raoul and the Kings of Spain starts with the 5:16 Title Track, the only one on the album to surpass five minutes.
• Tokio Hotel's 2017 album Dream Machine opens on the 5:21 track "Something New".
• The Tubes' 1983 album Outside Inside starts with "She's a Beauty," at 4:01; none of the other songs cross the 4-minute mark.
• U2's The Joshua Tree opens with the five minute, thirty-eight second song "Where The Streets Have No Name" which is fifteen seconds longer than the next longest song on the album.
• Ultravox: Vienna opens with "Astradyne", which at 7:07 outpaces the next-longest track, "Mr. X", by just over half a minute.
• Vangelis's Soil Festivities opens with "Movement 1"(18:32).
• W.A.S.P. (Band)'s fourth album The Headless Children starts with the 7:16 "The Heretic (The Lost Child)."
• The Who's ninth studio album Face Dances begins with "You Better You Bet," at 5:36.
• Calvin Wilkerson:
  • The Connie Maheswaran Experience opens with the 25:52 title track.
  • While After Hours isn't an example, the bonus alternate take compilation is: it starts with a 7:03 rendition of "Hell's Angels" (5:19 on the final studio version).
  • The relatively lesser-known Marceline's Closet kicks off with the 16:42 title track.
  • Simon & Marcy opens with the 10:34 title track.
• Steven Wilson's solo album The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) begins with "Luminol," which at 12:10 takes up the entire first side of the double-LP release.
• Yes loved to do this:
  • The Yes Album starts with "Yours Is No Disgrace", clocking in at 9:40.
  • Close to the Edge begins with the sprawling 18:42 epic track of the same name.
  • Relayer starts with the longest track in the band's discography, "The Gates of Delirium" (21:46).
  • Drama opens with "Machine Messiah" (10:18).
  • The Ladder begins with "Homeworld (The Ladder)" at 9:32.
• Frank Zappa did this often:
  • Just Another Band from L.A. opens with the 24:47 "Billy the Mountain", which takes up the entire first side.
  • Waka/Jawaka opens with the 17:22 "Big Swifty", which takes up the entire first side.
  • One Size Fits All opens with the 8:45 "Inca Roads".
  • Studio Tan opens with yet another side-length piece, the 20:40 "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary". When the album's contents were included on the posthumous triple-CD release Läther (produced in 1977 and initially cobbled into several other releases by Warner (Bros.) Records, this one included), the song instead became the closing track, as Zappa had intended.
  • The original standalone release of London Symphony Orchestra: Volume II kicks off with the 24:32 "Bogus Pomp", which takes up the entire first side; later releases append Volumes I and II together, thus resulting in "Bogus Pomp" opening side three instead.
  • The Perfect Stranger opens with the 12:42 Title Track.
  • Francesco Zappa kicks off with the 3:32 "Opus I: No. 1 - 1st Movement: Andante", one of only two tracks on the album to surpass three minutes in length (the other being the 3:04 "Opus I: No. 4 - 2nd Movement: Allegro").
• ZYTOKINE: The album To You, Who Couldn't Become Neither White or Black is comprised of 2 discs, but disc 1 begins with the longest song in the entire package: "No Longer Human", a 5:06 long remix of "Border Between Dreams and Reality" from Touhou – ZUN's Music Collection with vocals provided by itori. For comparison, the next song after that, "Soft Rain Fell on My Cheek", is only 3:39 long, while the second-longest song in the package, "Path of the Last Goodbye" on disc 2, barely cracks the 5-minute mark with a length of 4:58.

Album intro, then longest song

• David Bowie: Diamond Dogs begins with the minute-long "Future Legend" before launching into the nearly six-minute Title Track; no other song on the album surpasses five minutes.
• Coheed and Cambria's The Unheavenly Creatures has the 7:43 "The Dark Sentencer" after "Prologue".
• Kraftwerk's Radio Activity begins with "Geiger Counter"(1:04), which segues to the Title Track (6:44), the only song on the album to surpass the six-minute mark.
• The Prophecy by Ninja Sex Party begins with the aptly-titled "Intro (The)" (1:11) and is followed by the Epic Rocking "The Mystic Crystal," at 11:54. None of the album's other tracks reach the four-minute mark.
• Pink Floyd's album Animals begins with "Pigs on the Wing (Part 1)" (1:24) before the album's longest track, "Dogs" (17:04), kicks in, taking up the remainder of Side A.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra: The original Japanese release of ×∞Multiplies opens with the 21-second "Jingle 'Y.M.O.'" before launching into the 3:46 "Nice Age", which just barely beats out the Title Track by two seconds for the position of the album's longest song.
• Enigma's MCMXC A.D. opens with the 2-minute Album Intro Track "The Voice of Enigma", which leads into the 11:43 "Principles of Lust". The album's only other Epic Rocking-length track is the 10:32 Album Closure suite "Back To the Rivers of Belief".
• Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Welcome To The Pleasuredome'' opens with three 1-minute introductory tracks; "Well", "The World Is My Oyster", and "Snatch of Fury (Stay)"; which lead into the 12 1/2-minute Title Track.

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