Haha, finally someone else sees that issue! TPATP is easily a contender for Nightwish's masterpiece, but its place as opener rather than climax is a frankly ridiculous mess-up as far as album structures go.

I'd have been alright with Meadows as a penultimate track, perhaps even after TPATP as a sort of 'epilude' (those are spots on an album tracklist where ballads like Meadows tend to work best), but having the sole album epic as the first track just throws the whole thing into disarray. It's like opening an album with ''The Odyssey'' or ''Blackwater Park''. The album's already reached its big peak before it's properly started.

The title track on One Step Beyond... by Madness is a pretty good opener. Musically, it's alright, since it's pretty much a three minute saxophone solo. What sells it is Chas Smash yelling, "HEY, YOU! DON'T WATCH THAT, WATCH THIS!" and so on; it makes it a great opener for their whole discography, much less the album.

Hm. I guess I have a couple.

Openers:

Warning- Green Day Battery- Metallica Chamber the Cartridge- Rise Against

There are so many more, but I'm too lazy to think of any of them right now, so I'll just skip to a couple closers.

Call Me- Shinedown Save Me- Avenged Sevenfold Octavarium- Dream Theater

Yes, I like both Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold. Shut up.

Openers - Social Distortion's "Reach For The Sky" and "Dear Lover", Alec Empire's "Kiss of Death", Afghan Whigs' "If I Were Going", Breaking Benjamin's "So Cold", The Cure's "One Hundred Years", Bad Religion's "Incomplete".

Closers - NIN's "Hurt", Cold's "Gone Away", Bad Religion's "Only Entertainment", Eve 6's "Arch Drive Goodbye", Social Distortion's "Still Alive", American Head Charge's "To Be Me".

OPENER

• U2- "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
• U2 - "Where The Streets Have No Name"
• eastern youth - "Yoake no Uta"
• The Cure - "In Between Days"
• Coheed and Cambria -"In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth"
• At The Drive-in - "Arcarsenal"

CLOSER

• Ling Tosite Sigure - "illusion is mine" <—Can only find an AMV for that one
• At The Drive-In - "198d"
• The Cure - "Fight Fight"
• John Frusciante - "Leap Your Bar"
• Coheed and Cambria - "The Black Rainbow"

edited 26th Sep '11 5:49:29 PM by Dekunobo

Openers:
________

The Shins, Wincing The Night Away ~ Sleeping Lessons (To me, this is like the perfect start to the album's dream. My only qualm is that the song ends so shortly after it kicks off.)

Sufjan Stevens, Illinois ~ Come On, Feel the Illinoise! (I admit I'm kind of cheating with this one, since it's actually the third track off the album, but to me, the first two are just preludes and this is where the album really starts. I have the same feelings about the last two tracks. The third to last track is really where the album ends. What comes after is an instrumental epilogue.)

Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness ~ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Beautiful piano heavy instrumental opener to one of the greatest mega-albums out there.)

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs ~ The Suburbs (My favorite song on the entire album. The Book Ends reprise ending is one of my favorites.)

Radiohead, The Bends ~ Planet Telex (Not just the beginning of a great album, this song feels like the beginning to Radiohead's unique career, beyond the forgettable Pablo Honey and the daunting shadow of Creep.)

---

Closers:
________

Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West ~ Styrofoam Boots/It's All Nice On Ice, Alright (Very interesting song lyrically, quite a bit more subdued than the other songs of the album for the first two to three minutes, then the drums and bass kick in and power away through the rest of the song as the singer chants the it's all nice on ice alright! They grow faster and faster until the very end, as they finish with "1, 2, 3" -drums- "...4")

Sufjan Stevens, Illinois ~ The Tallest man, The Broadest Shoulders (Once again, it's not the last song on the album, but it's where the album really builds up to it's apex and concludes. It's even the last song with lyrics, and the last lyrics are "Oh great Illinois". Too great not to mention.)

The Shins, Oh, Inverted World ~ The Past and Pending (This is my favorite song from The Shins. It's one of their longest, and a great finisher to their first album.)

Radiohead, OK Computer ~ The Tourist (Hey man, slow down.)

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There's a couple I've missed, and I know I've only covered a small cluster of bands here, but I'm running out of steam, so I figure I'll think of some more later.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:25:40 PM by Ryuhza

Another fan of "The Tourist", I see. Nice to have you.

Surprisingly, given the nature of the music he produces, Dominick Fernow (alias Prurient) has a remarkable knack for choosing striking album openers and closers. For his best opener, I nominate the crystalline, bizarrely catchy "Many Jewels Surround the Crown" from Bermuda Drain, with "Military Road" (from Pleasure Ground) and the ear-testing "Roman Shower" (Black Vase) as second and third place respectively; for his best closer, "Myth of Love" off of Black Vase wins hands down for just being unbelievably frightening in a very primal way.

edited 9th Sep '12 10:55:44 PM by JHM

Pretty much every album by Mew. Also, every single last song on every Wall Of Voodoo album.

edited 14th Sep '12 12:03:36 AM by KlarkKentThe3rd

Genesis’ Duke had pretty amazing opening and closing tracks: “Behind the Lines” and “Duke’s Travels/Duke’s End.” A pretty strong way to sell a New Sound Album, it’s just a shame that each successive album was that much weaker than the one before.

This was actually used as something of a Catch Phrase for MTV during their early years. In fact, in reference to it, their Technical Difficulties card used to read, “Hey, you! Don’t go away!”

Big & Rich, Horse of a Different Color. Starts with a thundrous 5-minute I Am Song ("Rollin' (The Ballad of Big & Rich") that features Country Rapper Cowboy Troy. Closing it is the wonderfully moving ballad "Live This Life", followed by Big & Rich saying they hope you enjoyed the album.

Comin' to Your City also opened with the delightfully goofy "The Freak Parade" (most of which is just them noodling while singing "Somebody's got to be unafraid to lead the freak parade"), but I think it would've been better if they had closed with the epic "8th of November" and relegated the patriotic mashup "Our America" to a bonus disc or something.

The Darkness' Permission to Land had a great closer named Holding My Own. It was a sad little song... about masturbation. It was surprisingly a great, if not sad, closer to one of the best rock albums of the 00's.

If Swans can open an album with an epic choral dirge about autoerotic asphyxiation, then The Darkness can surely close one with a poignant tune about masturbation. It's the way the world works.

Tangentially related: The Fall's Hex Enduction Hour begins and ends brilliantly.