Genre defining opening tracks?

blobb

JerkMoans said:

Radio Free Europe - REM

or The Headmaster Ritual - Smiths.  I know it opened their second album, but it's where Johnny Marr really kicked into gear.

Good call on Headmaster Ritual, but c'mon The Smiths / The Smiths has got to be one of the most eye opening debuts of all time.

The opening line "It's time the tale were told, of how you took a boy, and you made him old"

Boom! You're not getting away with that too easily. Stand by for action, here's something very interesting coming your way.

Neill

Stuckfast said:

Oh yes,  I remember John Peel playing this for the first time, just amazing, take something so simple and make it ground breaking.  I still listen to it today.

Neill

I'm surprised no-one's got there before me, but side one track one on the Ramones first album is the best example I can think of.

Grumpyrocker

Black Sabbath is the prime example as many have said.

How about Welcome to the Jungle? Pretty much all your sleazy LA glam metal right there. Told you all you needed to know about the scene and the band. 

drofluf

Whether you’d call them genre defining I’m not sure but Gates of Delirium by Yes and Action Strasse by S.A.H.B. changed my world when I first heard them as an impressionable 11 year old. Until then I listened to a steady diet of top 20 pop and was unaware of anything else. 

english_bob

The moment progressive rock was born, for better or worse:

DrCornelius

Logie

I think Good times, bad times left a pretty good marker.

Stuckfast

FelineGuitars said:

UFO - Natural Thing from the live album Strangers in the Night

I don't really know UFO at all, what genre would that have defined?

danishbacon

How about The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion) which sparked a recording chapter of 200 or so albums and a huge cultural movement around it?

SurfinSirFari

Stuckfast said: 

I second that. It's a stonker.

Sesh

Gloria from Horses by Patti Smith. A twisted cover launched with "Jesus died for someone's sins, but not mine." 

ArchtopDave

/\ .   I put this in a Thread on memorable opening lines of songs a while back. As the opening line of the first song on Patti Smith's first Album it's amazing, plus the rest of that song is excellent.

ICBM

Surprised no-one has mentioned Smells Like Teen Spirit yet. While it's not the first grunge song nor Nirvana's first album, I think for a lot of people it was their introduction to grunge and it still more or less defines it.

Kittyfrisk

RandallFlagg said:

Not an opening track per se but the Sex Pistols first live appearance on TV on Manchester TV Show ‘So It Goes’ playing Anarchy In The UK must have been a stop the clocks moment for those that saw it:

https://youtu.be/94DNV6oM8HU

Similarly The Damned's 'New Rose', never got over the thrill of it.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

Surprised no-one has mentioned Smells Like Teen Spirit yet. While it's not the first grunge song nor Nirvana's first album, I think for a lot of people it was their introduction to grunge and it still more or less defines it.

I think I first heard it on the late-night heavy metal TV show Raw Power (later known as Noisy Mothers).

On first hearing I thought what the hell is this rubbish, the second time I thought it was absolutely astounding.

Litterick

RandallFlagg said:

Not an opening track per se but the Sex Pistols first live appearance on TV on Manchester TV Show ‘So It Goes’ playing Anarchy In The UK must have been a stop the clocks moment for those that saw it:

It was that.