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Some albums start off with a sort of prelude before the rest of the "proper" songs. The Album Intro Track is a short track or sometimes a short section of the first track, usually less than three minutes, that is meant to be an introduction to the rest of the album.

Some common types of intros:

The opposite trope to Album Closure, where the last track or a section thereof serves as an outro to the album.


Examples:

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    Alternative 
  • All Hail Bright Futures by And So I Watch You From Afar begins with a track called "Eunoia" which leads into the first proper track.
  • Hey Everyone by Dananananaykroyd begins with an instrumental intro track which is also called "Hey Everyone".
  • "Theme from Flood" from They Might Be Giants' Flood. A 27 second choral piece introducing the album.
    Why is the world in love again?
    Why are we marching hand in hand?
    Why are the ocean levels rising up?
    It's a brand new record for 1990:
    They Might Be Giants' brand new album... Flooooood
  • fun.'s Some Nights kicks off with "Some Nights (Intro)", which pretty much highlights the musical and thematic elements of the rest of the work.
  • The xx's Self-Titled Album xx starts with the instrumental "Intro". Ironically, due to being sampled for Rihanna's "Drunk On Love", along with some usage on national television, it's one of their more famous songs.
  • Spiritualized's Sweet Heart, Sweet Light begins with "Huh?", a brief instrumental track that segues into the first proper song, "Hey Jane". The melody from "Huh?" reappears at the end of the album as the chorus to "Life Is a Problem".
  • Mae's The Everglow begins with "Prologue", which features a simple piano melody and narration welcoming the listener and encouraging them to read the liner notes as the music plays. As Book Ends, the last track is "Epilogue", which has the same piano and the same narrator, thanking the audience for listening.
  • Modest Mouse's Good News For People Who Love Bad News starts with "Horn Intro", a 9 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.
  • Jars of Clay's The Long Fall Back to Earth begins with "The Long Fall", a mostly-instrumental track that starts quiet and builds up to a segue into "Weapons".
  • Mudhoney's Piece of Cake starts with an untitled 40-second parody of Orchestra Hit Techno Battle-style rave music (albeit performed solely with organ, guitar, drums, and distorted vocals). This is definitely in the "different genre from the rest of the album" category, because the other songs are primarily Grunge.
  • Muse's 2003 album Absolution opens with a brief percussive intro that gradually builds up in volume, leading directly into, and forming the main rhythm of, the first proper song on the album, "Apocalypse Please".
  • Good Charlotte: The Chronicles of Life and Death ("Once Upon A Time: The Battle of Life and Death"), Good Morning Revival ("Good Morning Revival") and Cardiology ("Introduction To Cardiology").
  • Every album by Bright Eyes has included an example of this, usually either spoken word (I'm Wide Awake It's Morning) or some sort of sample which could either be musical or some sort of speaking.
  • Sakanaction, in three different albums: Kikuuiki starts with the aptly named "Intro=Kikuuiki", made of random noises and music snippets, DocumentaLy starts with "RL", which consists mostly of voices spelling the album name and typing sounds; Sakanaction starts again with a track named "Intro", which is mostly ambient noises.
  • Stone Temple Pilots' 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, 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.
  • Green Day's album 21st Century Breakdown begins with the radio-staticed acapella "Song of the Century" later reprised for the song "American Eulogy".
  • Morphine's Cure for Pain starts with "Dawna", a 44-second ambient instrumental mostly centered on Dana Colley's saxophone playing. Like Swimming starts with the minute-long "Lilah", which is similar, but based around Mark Sandman's bass instead.
  • The 1975's self-titled album opens with "The 1975", a short track that sets the mood for the album. A reworked version serves the same role for their second album, I like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it.
  • Gorillaz included:
    • "Intro" (Demon Days) uses a sample of background music from Dawn of the Dead to suggest the listener has been transported somewhere surreal.
    • "Orchestral Intro" (Plastic Beach) is a short orchestral piece that starts off sounding melancholy and ends on a bright chord, displaying the range of tones that the album covers.
    • "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.
  • Ágætis byrjun by Sigur Rós starts off with an instrumental called "Intro," which is a segment of the Title Track played backwards. It fades directly into the next song, "Svefn-g-englar."
  • The The Dears album Gang of Losers begins with an instrumental track called "Sinthtro" that starts quite and gradually builds, leading into the main album tracks.
  • The Smashing Pumpkins' album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness begins with a mellow instrumental Title Track that starts off very quiet and gradually builds. Since the album is a Concept Album following the cycle of the day, this track can be seen as the sound of the sun rising/waking up.
  • Handcream For a Generation by Cornershop opens with "Heavy Soup" in which guest star Otis Clay introduces the album and the band, and drops the titles of some of the songs to come.
  • Origami Angel:
    • Somewhere City: "Welcome to..." introduces Somewhere City as a place that the singer goes when he feels "so lost", somewhere where "there's places you can go, there's people you should know" and he feels more at home there than where he was before.
    • GAMI GANG: "#GAMIGANG", the shortest track on the album and the only instrumental one.
  • Jhariah:
    • The Great Tale of How I Ruined It All has a short instrumental opener.
    • A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FAKING YOUR DEATH opens with "ENTER: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FAKING YOUR DEATH'', which is 1 minute and 31 seconds long. It follows a man deciding to go through with his plan to fake his death, even though he hasn't really thought it through yet.
  • Zug Izland: Cracked Tiles and Toxicology begin their albums with a few simple and repeated words, four times.
    "Welcome to, Zug Izland
    Your very own, Zug Izland
    Welcome, welcome, Zug Izland
    Welcome, welcome, Zug Izland
    "
  • Qbomb: "Buzzkiller" opens the album by introducing the band's new brand of music, with lyrics about their determination to make it work.

    Electronic 
  • 18 Months by Calvin Harris has "Green Valley", a short instrumental that fades right into lead single "Bounce".
  • Joy Electric. "The White Songbook", off the album The White Songbook, has an Epic Instrumental Opener making full use of the Boléro Effect, and ends with some spoken-word lyrics. The rest of the album is more conventional synthpop. "Hello Mannequin", off the album Hello Mannequin: a slow, spoken word piece on an album otherwise full of danceable synthpop. "And This No More", off Dwarf Mountain Alphabet, is the album's only instrumental track.
  • Orbital's second album, Orbital II, opens with "Time Becomes..." which is just a looped vocal sample from Star Trek: The Next Generation. And Blue Album opens with "Transient"—a full song, but it's an ambient one with no percussion. The rest of the album is techno.
  • Hybrid's album Wide Angle begins with "Opening Credits", a brief orchestral piece followed by a single drum machine fill. The rest of the album is progressive house (with prominent orchestral bits on several tracks).
  • The KLF's The White Room opens with "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)", which begins with Black Steel singing a verse over some mellow keys. He then gets cut off by a sampled "Kick Out the Jams!" shout, and the album launches into frantic stadium house music. (The previously-released single version of "What Time is Love? [Live at Trancentral]" completely lacked the mellow intro.) Black Steel's verse shows up again at the end of the album, on the song "Justified and Ancient", and this time he gets to finish.
  • Dr Israel's Inna City Pressure begins with "Inna City", a slow spoken-word piece. It segues seamlessly into the Lyrical Cold Open of the next track, the ragga jungle-influenced "Pressure".
  • Figure's dubstep album Monsters Vol. 4 starts off with the three-and-a-half-minute "Death's Gospel", which sets the mood with (in order) creepy ambience, a Drone of Dread, an ominous Ethereal Choir coupled with a Lonely Piano Piece, and another drone, before wrapping things up with some Whispering Ghosts and Falling Bass.
  • All of VNV Nation's albums have one of these. Transnational opens with "Generator", which is a Siamese Twin Song and Epic Instrumental Opener to "Everything."
  • The title tracks of Covenant's Modern Ruin and Leaving Babylon.
  • All of Hexode's albums have intro and outro tracks. As a general rule, the outros are absolutely terrifying.
  • Todd Terje's It's Album Time begins with "Intro (It's Album Time)". It's a bit over a minute long, with a short tune that builds and repeats, while voices chant "It's album time!"
  • Gotye's Like Drawing Blood has its 22-second title track play soflty before segueing into into the song "The Only Way".
  • The first track of Machine Girl's WLFGRL, "MG1", consists entirely of spoken dialogue from the movie The Machine Girl with eerie ambient backing, setting the mood for the rest of the album.
  • Every single studio album by Boards of Canada has one. MHTRTC has "Wildlife Analysis", Geogaddi has "Ready Lets Go", The Campfire Headphase has "Into The Rainbow Vein" and Tomorrow's Harvest has "Gemini".

    Hip Hop 
  • The appropriately titled Intro in OutKast's Stankonia.
  • Wyclef Jean's "The Ecleftic" has a intro scene with spoken word.
  • Both of noise-rap group clipping.'s full albums, Midciy and CLPPNG, have tracks named 'intro', which consist of their rapper Daveed Diggs rapping quickly over whining tones and blaring chaotic noise, serving to very quickly introduce the albums.
  • The Hamilton Mixtape has the song "No John Trumbull (Intro)" which asserts that the following album would be nothing like Trumbull's famous painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was originally supposed to be used in the play proper but was quickly dropped in favor of the now-iconic song "Alexander Hamilton", and found a home on the Mixtape.
  • Eminem:
    • Slim Shady EP opens with an audio play of Slim Shady's Split-Personality Takeover of Eminem, serving to warn listeners about the direction of his new sound.
    • The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP both start with a public service announcement from an announcer, with Slim Shady whispering instructions in his ear. On The Slim Shady LP, it's a lighthearted warning about the suicide-heavy, Anti-Role Model lyrical content, and telling kids not to do drugs. On The Marshall Mathers LP, it's just death threats.
    • The Eminem Show opens with a gentle music box tune as the curtain is lifted, Eminem appears on stage, and walks up to the mic, checks it, and takes a deep breath (before leading into the screamed intro of the next track, "White America"). Encore has a similar intro, but with a darker, more stressful piece of music, and the crowd chanting his name.
    • Relapse opens with a skit in which Dominic West plays a very unhelpful rehab counsellor, who is actually Slim Shady trying to get Marshall to relapse so he can take over him again. It works.
    • The Marshall Mathers LP 2 has a rapped introduction to the concept of the album at the end of the first song, "Bad Guy", in which Eminem expresses the impossibility of being able to match up to the original The Marshall Mathers LP but states his intention to do his best, and invites us to pick up where the first album left off.

    Jazz 
  • Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: The CD reissue of Moanin’ opens with a 30 second sample of a rehearsal, complete with Studio Chatter between trumpeter Lee Morgan and producer Rudy Van Gelder. (The original LP version of the album omitted this track.)
  • Jaga Jazzist's One-Armed Bandit starts with "The Thing Introduces...", a 23 second track performed by a completely different band (The Thing).

    Metal 
  • Der fünfzehnjährige Krieg'' by Absurd has one (weirdly, it's actually longer than a couple of the actual songs.)
  • Many Bathory albums have an intro track, consisting mainly of keyboard parts.
  • V from Bullet for My Valentine's album Venom.
  • "Det Som Engang Var" and "Fallen" by Burzum
  • 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".
  • Cradle of Filth is fond of these, and they often overlap with Epic Instrumental Opener.
  • Cult of Luna has "Inside Fort Meade", "Marching To the Heartbeats" and "The One".
  • Most of Dalriada's albums have both and outro tracks, sometimes taking motifs from songs within the album.
  • Demon Hunter. 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.
  • Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish at the Hot Dog Flavoured Water and Significant Other both have intro tracks lasting roughly 30-40 seconds.
  • "Generation Why?" by Diamond Plate starts of with various soundbites.
  • V - Metal Machine Music by Die Krupps has "Die Verdammten (Prelude)" as its Epic Instrumental Opener.
  • 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.
  • Dream Theater's "Regression" from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory and "False Awakening Suite" from Dream Theater. The intro to "Root of All Evil" from Octavarium also counts.
  • "Slainia" and "Helvetios" by Eluveitie start off with bits of spoken word.
  • Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk by Emperor starts with Al Svartr (The Oath) a slow atmospheric piece.
  • On Frost by Enslaved the album starts out with the Title Track, a keyboard piece.
  • Gamma Ray:
    • Heading for Tomorrow starts with the aptly-named "Welcome", a powerful intro piece leading onto "Lust for Life".
    • 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."
  • "Tunes Of War" by Grave Digger starts off with the track The Brave a song played on bag pipes.
  • Helloween examples:
    • Walls of Jericho opens with "Walls of Jericho", an orchestrated piece with trumpets which end with a castle door being opened.
    • Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt. 1 opens with "Initiation", a piece which leads into "I'm Alive". The piece itself also opens the music video for the single version of "Halloween".
    • Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt. 2 opens with "Invitation", a hymn-like piece which leads into "Eagle Fly Free". Vision Divine repeats this for their cover on Keepers of Jericho: A Tribute to Helloween.
    • Pink Bubbles Go Ape opens with a swell guitar-and-voice piece called "Pink Bubbles Go Ape".
    • Master of the Rings start with "Irritation", a nice-sounding piece leading onto "Sole Survivor".
    • Better Than Raw starts with an hymn-like mix of metal and opera called "Deliberately Limited Preliminary Prelude Period In Z" which ends in the furious "Push".
    • The Dark Ride starts with "Beyond the Portal", a small effect piece leading onto "All Over The Nations".
    • Gambling With The Devil starts with "Crack The Riddle", a sinister piece starting with a circus-like scene and ending with Biff Byford welcoming everyone with a sinister voice before spinning a wheel leading onto "Kill It".
  • Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism by Immortal
  • "SGNL>01" and "SGNL>05 (Final Transmission)" by Isis, taken from Celestial and SGNL>05, respectively.
  • Judas Priest's album Screaming for Vengeance starts with a 41 second instrumental, "The Hellion", before kicking things into gear with "Electric Eye".
  • Linkin Park:
  • "Paranoid Circus" by Lyriel starts out with spoken word.
  • Massacration has the aptly-named "Intro" in Gates of Metal Fried Chicken of Death, a recipe communicated with a sinister voice as if Satan himself is doing a spell.
  • Metallica starts off both Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets with an acoustic guitar part, part of "Fight Fire With Fire" and "Battery," respectively.
  • Shout at the Devil by Mötley Crüe starts with the track "In The Beginning" with highly distorted spoken word.
  • Annihilation of the Wicked by Nile starts off with the instrumental "Dusk Falls Upon the Temple of the Serpent on the Mount of Sunrise".
  • Nothing More's self-titled album opens with a song called "Ocean Floor", which is the lead-in to "This is the Time (Ballast)".
  • Powerman 5000's Tonight The Stars Revolt opens with "An Eye Is Upon You", a short track of ambient sounds and pulpy science fiction narration by actor Malachi Throne, which segues into the first proper song, "Supernova Goes Pop".
  • Sabaton's album Carolus Rex begins with a short track titled "Dominium Maris Baltici", which is also the Epic Instrumental Opener for the second track on the album, "Lion from the North".
  • Sentenced had three, "Intro - The Gate on Down, "Kaamos" on Frozen and "Konevitsan Kirkonkellot" on The Cold White Light.
  • Showbread's No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical uses this for a joke at the listener's expense. The first track, "A Llama Eats a Giraffe (and Vice Versa)" begins with a quiet phone conversation between two people which lasts for about 30 seconds. An unsuspecting listener who turn up the volume to understand it will then get assaulted by a Metal Scream and blaring guitars when the song itself starts without any prior warning.
  • Slipknot are quite fond of this.
    • "742617000027" from their first album is an intro to "(sic)".
    • "(515)" from Iowa is likewise into "People = Shit".
    • ".execute." from All Hope Is Gone into "Gematria (The Killing Name)''.
    • "XIX" from .5: The Gray Chapter would also qualify.
  • 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 the sudden clap of thunder, but instead it just fades out.
  • "Mezmerize" by System of a Down 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 Trivium begins with an instrumental track titled "The End of Everything."
  • Type O Negative'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.
  • Vision Divine examples:
    • Send Me An Angel starts with an instrumental piece called "Incipit".
    • Stream of Consciousness kicks off with a scene of a person relaxing and turning the radio called "Stream of Consciousness", which leads onto "Secret of Life".
    • The 25th. Hour starts with a small voice-and-piano piece called "My Angel Died".
    • Destination Set to Nowhere starts with an italian-spoken piece of ambientation called "S'il Fosse Foco" which ends with a countdown to a rocket launch. This piece leads onto "The Dream Maker".

    Mixed 
  • Strife, from Homestuck, opens with "Stormspirit", a 46-seconds long piano piece in contrast to the mix of electronic and rock music of the other songs.
  • Another Monty Python Record starts with an apology:
    Good evening. We apologize most sincerely to those of you who have bought this record under the impression it was in any way connected with the television programme Monty Python's Flying Circus. This was due to an error in the printing stage of the album cover. This album is in fact called Pleasures of the Dance, a selection of Norwegian carpenter songs compiled by Oskar Tritt.

    Pop 
  • #willpower by Will.I.Am has "Good Morning". It's his way of saying "hello" to the listeners.
  • Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics begins with a short, mellow, midtempo track intended to summarize the purpose of the album; namely, paying homage to the legendary jazz and blues artists of the early 20th century.
    So here I stand today, in tribute I do pay, to those before me who laid it down and paved the way
  • Rated R by Rihanna starts with "Mad House", which incorporates a Vincent Price-like speech "warning" uneasy listeners and inviting those "who can take it".
  • The album Goodbye Lullaby from Avril Lavigne starts with "Black Star", a piano track with one verse.
  • Korean Pop Music quartet Mamamoo starts off their first album Hello with a song of the same name, which also introduces the group's members.
  • Fun Boy Three's self-titled debut has the intro track "Sanctuary", 1:22 of Ominous Latin Chanting. Their second album Waiting begins with "Murder, She Said", a cover of the theme from the 1950s Miss Marple movies - an instrumental which acts as a showcase for their new backing group and their new sound.
  • Hayley Kiyoko's first full album begins with the brief instrumental "Expectations/Overture".
  • 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".

    Punk 
  • The self-titled debut album by Bad Brains inverts this trope by having a 45 second track called "Intro" appear as the last song on the album.
  • On Fugazi's The Argument, the opening track is ambient noise intertwined with voices from a radio and the recording studio.
  • Ixnay on the Hombre by The Offspring begins with "Disclaimer", an exceedingly sarcastic disclaimer (narrated by Jello Biafra) about its objectionable content. The following two albums, Americana and Conspiracy of One, follow suit, except with shorter intros: the former, "Welcome" in the form of For Inconvenience, Press "1" (fitting one of the album's themes, of automated life in America), and the latter, "Intro", sounding like an intro to a song in a concert.
  • Fastbacks compilation The Question Is No begins with the spoken word "Dear Mr. Oswald" refusing the request of an executive attempting to replace the singer.
  • Almost every album by Fucked Up has some kind of instrumental lead-in:
    • The first track of The Chemistry of Common Life begins with a long, solo flute vignette before becoming much more hardcore.
    • David Comes to Life begins with "Let Her Rest", an electronic instrumental that gains more and more layers of sound as it progresses.
    • On Dose Your Dreams, the first three minutes of "None of Your Business Man", the first track, is a classical-sounding orchestral piece, which becomes suddenly very hardcore in the middle of the song, but nevertheless eases the listener into the album.

    R&B 
  • Channel Orange by Frank Ocean starts with the track "Start", which samples a sound of a PlayStation starting up, along with other electronic sounds.

    Rock 
  • Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is presented as a concert by the eponymous band, with the first song an intro track. (2:02 per Wikipedia, with a reprise at the end of the record @ 1:08, followed by an Encore song.)
  • The Jimi Hendrix album Axis: Bold as Love begins with a track depicting a British-accented talk show host, with a slightly sped-up "chipmunk" voice, talking skeptically about U.F.O.s and aliens, with his guest revealing himself to be an alien (with guitar noises depicting his ship picking him up)—the track is called "EXP", and segues into "Up From the Skies", a song from the point of view of an Ancient Astronaut returning to Earth.
  • "Son et lumiere", the first track of The Mars Volta's Deloused in the Comatorium, provides an ambient rise to the first song.
  • The Moody Blues' 1969 album On The Threshold Of a Dream begins with a short spoken playlet that riffs on the idea of computer intelligence and Descartes' famous axiom "I think, therefore I am". This was an idea they first used on the preceding album In Search of the Lost Chord. A subsequent LP Every Good Boy Deserves Favour also begins with an off-beat spoken piece.
  • A short 30-second prologue precedes Otherwise's "Die for You".
  • Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon begins with a cacophony of ringing clocks, cash registers, voices, and screams called "Speak to Me". Many of the sounds occur individually on subsequent tracks on the album (such as the cash registers from "Money", the clocks from "Time", and the high arias from "The Great Gig in the Sky").
  • J Rock 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 English conversation. The rest of the album is standard rock, albeit sung in wonderful Engrish.
  • David Bowie's Diamond Dogs has an Opening Narration as its first track: "Future Legend", which establishes the Crapsack World setting of the album. 1. Outside has "Leon Takes Us Outside", an instrumental with a few cryptic spoken-word phrases sprinkled over it.
  • 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. It also served as the intro music for most of their concerts between 1973 (before the album was released) and 1975, with a brief revival for two shows at Earl’s Court in 1977, with shows from 1973 using an earlier recording of the song, as heard on their widely-bootlegged Golders Green concert, which was later released officially on Queen On Air in 2016.
  • The Beach Boys' SMiLE begins with 'Our Prayer,' a church-like hymn with huge echo that provides just a taste of the amazing music to follow it.
  • Several albums by The Alan Parsons Project begin with an instrumental piece that segues into the first song. The remix version of their first, Tales of Mystery and Imagination features spoken intros to the first and second halves, read by Orson Welles as Edgar Allan Poe.
  • Petra's Not of This World starts and ends with instrumental Book Ends titled "Visions".
  • Relient K's second album The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek starts with the short track "Kick-Off", with these lyrics:
    Here's the kick-off
    Hope you're not sick of
    Relient K
    Or all the songs we play
    'Cause then you'll want to throw our CD away
  • Tom Waits' Foreign Affairs opens with "Cinny's Waltz", a chamber instrumental that leads into the anguished One-Woman Song "Muriel".
  • The Gene Simmons 1978 solo album begins with what sounds like a dark orchestral music intro that lasts for 1 minute 4 seconds before the first song "Radioactive" starts.
  • The Aquabats!:
    • The first track on Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures is a short instrumental synthesizer piece called "Robot Theme Song!".
    • Charge!! opens with a brief clip of a sci-fi narrator type warning listeners "Now stand back, for your own safety!"
  • Thank You Scientist includes one for all three of their studio albums:
    • Maps of Non-Existent Places has the aptly-named "Prelude".
    • Stranger Heads Prevail has both an intro track ("Prologue... A Faint Applause") along with an outro track ("Epilogue... And The Clever Depart").
    • Terraformer has the instrumental "Wrinkle".

    Soundtrack 
  • The soundtrack for the film Sing Street starts with Brendan's brief "Rock n Roll is a Risk" spoken word monologue.
  • From the Um Jammer Lammy soundtrack album Make It Sweet!, "Let's Jam Together!" briefly shows Katy, Ma-san, and Lammy initially meeting each other and deciding to form a band.
  • The original soundtrack for Super Mario 64 begins with a track called "It's a me, Mario!", which is Mario saying exactly that. Unlike the game, it has no echo effect.
  • 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.

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