Plankton: Openers that kick ass, from albums that blow ass

Sometimes a killer opening track is an omen of terrible things to come.

Case in point: Simian, who, previous to their golden years as a celebrated Mobile Disco, were a (lesser celebrated) electro-rock band. Their 2002 release We Are Your Friends is probably best known for the Justice remix one of its better tracks would one day spawn, but in my heart it will always be remembered as a distinctly bad album with an obscenely good opening gambit; LA Breeze sees the frenetic spirit of Radiohead’s Just crash full frontal into a delightfully reiterative guitar hook reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper’s. It’s good. Boy is it good.

‘LA Breeze’ - Simian
MP3 / Spotify 

In hindsight, perhaps the lyrics were a generous warning -
Here it comes / here it comes / here it comes / here it comes / the breeze will blow away all your reason and your sin / same with your minds / So do your best to run away / but take a ref and you will pay / you cannot hide / there’s no place to hide
- the “breeze” of course referring to the rest of the album, presumably extracted from the modern slang term breeze, which does kind of fit the irrelevant, sticky mess that ensues after the first track.

Other bands are less generous than to offer out such advice, heck, some are downright optimistic in the face of adversity. Annuals, for instance, suffer a near death experience in the opening track of Be He Me but still find the courage to “climb right out” and face up to the pain of a bad album - presumably because that opener, Brother, is so damn good they might just get away with the damp squib that follows (they don’t). Like some kind of overly-adolescent offspring of The Arcade Fire, Brother is at once delicate and lush before exploding into a terrifying, dizzy euphoria, then ultimately collapsing in on itself under the sheer weight of energy and emotion.

‘Brother’ - Annuals
MP3 / Spotify 

Thankfully, not every track numero uno is such a bad omen. Any excuse to pull out this little gem… one of the best pop songs of all time, from one of the best albums of all time…

MP3: ‘Care of Cell 44’ - Zombies

Can I go home now?

Plankton x