Albums with Opening Tracks That Set the Whole World in Motion

“Gloria” begins with Smith speaking her own words over a spare piano figure, then gathers into a performance of the rock song associated with Them. The voice goes from an intimate declaration to something a roomful of people could shout back. “Land” later takes the same license with spoken images and a familiar rock-and-roll refrain.

A teacher takes attendance on “Intro,” and Lauryn Hill’s name goes unanswered. That little scene gives the later classroom conversations about love a place in the album. When Hill sings about a relationship or about becoming a mother, her songs supply the lived experience the classroom is trying to put into words.

On “One More Time,” Romanthony’s heavily treated voice carries a melody you can sing back after one pass. Keep that relationship between the human voice and the processing in mind for “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” where the voice becomes rhythmic machinery. The opener shows how the duo can make both things happen in a pop song.

The first thing on Donuts is a twelve-second piece called “Donuts (Outro).” Then “Workinonit” throws open the door with a much bigger beat. The misleading title and the sudden change of scale teach you how to hear the tape: a small cut can complete one idea and send you straight into the next.

On “Emily,” Newsom’s harp and a story about stars make room for Van Dyke Parks’s orchestral arrangements to come and go. The song takes its time getting back to an image you recognize. Hearing that first helps with “Only Skin,” where following the voice and the changing arrangements is more rewarding than waiting for a verse or chorus to come back on schedule.

“Time of the Preacher” opens with gently picked guitar and a narrator singing about a preacher in the third person. Its tune returns in the shorter pieces called “Time of the Preacher Theme.” Those returns keep you oriented as the record moves between the preacher’s story, old songs, and instrumentals.

The drums and John McGeoch’s circling guitar on “Spellbound” keep the song moving while Siouxsie makes being swept along feel both exhilarating and unnerving. “Night Shift” later turns some of the same tension into a slower, more threatening sound. The opener sets up a record in which the rhythm can be as unsettling as the words.

“IGOR’S THEME” lets a long, abrasive synth tone fill the room before drums and layers of voices arrive. The introduction asks you to hear the voices as part of the arrangement, a habit that pays off when “EARFQUAKE” gives you a clearer tune through similarly altered voices. The shift into a love song feels like a change of scene inside the same record.

“Countdown to Armageddon” puts the sound of a crowd and the voice of an announcer ahead of the first full rap track, “Bring the Noise.” It makes the record feel like a public address from the start. By the time you reach “Rebel Without a Pause,” the piercing loop feels like part of a performance directed at a room full of people.

A drum fill on “Only Shallow” opens into a distorted guitar figure, with a much gentler voice coming through the mass of sound. That layering is a good way into “Sometimes,” where the attack changes and the voice still has to find its space. Start here and the point of listening becomes hearing what moves inside the guitar sound.

“The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” builds from a small electronic pattern into something bright and busy under a voice singing about feeling out of place. “Such Great Heights” gives the same partnership between programmed rhythm and intimate singing a more buoyant outcome. The opener lets you hear how easily the balance can tip either way.

Before the guitars take over “Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home,” a spoken introduction tries to explain what music can do. The guitars then make their own case, slowly building until the sound can speak for itself. By “Mogwai Fear Satan,” you’re already used to following gradual changes in volume and texture as the events of a song.

“Debaser” lets a bouncing bass line get in first, then slips a reference to an unsettling silent film into a song with a chorus you can shout along with. “Wave of Mutilation” uses a similarly inviting tune to carry much stranger images. The opener is an early cue to listen to the words even when the hooks come easily.

On “Mr. Self Destruct,” Trent Reznor’s first sung lines sound as if they’re pressing through a wall of distortion. Then “Piggy” brings that voice in close over a low bass line, without making it feel any more comfortable. Those first two tracks establish how the record can carry the same unease at radically different volumes.

“The Fox” introduces its little fable through guitar distortion and a vocal that sounds close to breaking. It makes the noise feel like something that can carry a story. When “Let’s Call It Love” stretches out for nearly eleven minutes, the guitar takes that role on for long stretches by itself.

On the original two-track LP, the title song gives its whole first side to a repeated groove before turning clipped military commands into satire. “Mr. Follow Follow” keeps the question of obeying orders in view on the other side. The patient buildup matters because it gives the band time to make the sound of everyone moving together part of the argument.

The quiet acoustic guitar at the start of “Fight Fire with Fire” leaves space for a rush of fast, tightly picked electric guitar. “Fade to Black” later takes its time over a related change from acoustic playing to a heavy full-band sound. The opener makes those shifts part of the album’s vocabulary within its first minute.

After the opening fanfare, a simple four-note bass figure gives “Acknowledgement” something to come back to, even as Coltrane’s saxophone takes it elsewhere. The phrase eventually becomes a chant. That move from instrumental figure to words prepares you for “Psalm,” where his saxophone follows the cadence of a written prayer.