Sequencing an album is a tricky process. If you place all of the weakest songs at the beginning, the listeners might not make it to the end. If you place all of your best songs at the beginning, however, the rest of the album is going to be disappointing. Here are six great albums whose track listings were front-loaded, with all of the best songs in the beginning.
1. The Velvet Underground - Loaded (1970)
Let me get an obvious joke out of the way: Loaded? More like Frontloaded! Okay, moving on...The Velvet Underground's fourth album Loaded was an attempt to make a mainstream rock record ("Loaded" with hits, the story goes), and though it was another commercial failure for the band, it's more or less an artistic success, containing some of the best songs Lou Reed ever wrote. Unfortunately, the album's three best songs come right at the beginning: "Who Loves The Sun," "Sweet Jane," and "Rock & Roll." The rest of the album is fine (final track "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" is another highlight), but none of them reach the pop bliss of the first three.
2. The B-52's - The B-52's (1979)
The first side of The B-52's is among the most perfect twenty minutes of music in the new wave era. "Planet Claire" introduces us to the band's campy aesthetic, "52 Girls" shows us how feisty and punk they can be, "Dance This Mess Around" is a post-modern update of '60s dance songs, and "Rock Lobster" is..."Rock Lobster." After such a brilliant side one, side two can't really compare. We're given another great guitar riff with "Lava," but the rest of the album afterwards is relatively forgettable, coming off as almost a rehash of what we've already heard.
3. Talking Heads - Remain in Light (1980)
Remain in Light is completely unlike any other Talking Heads album. Instead of a collection of eleven quirky pop songs, like the band's first three albums, Remain in Light is an eight-song experiment of dense African rhythms, funk guitars, noisy electronics, and minimal chord changes, exemplified by the album's brilliant first half, including the band's best known song "Once in a Lifetime." Though the album's second half is just as experimental, it's much more atmospheric and laidback, and doesn't achieve the same exuberance and excitement that we expect from Talking Heads.
4. Pixies - Surfer Rosa (1988)
I love all of Surfer Rosa dearly. It was the album that introduced me to '80s indie rock, and for that I'm grateful, but if I had to choose one half over the other, I would choose tracks 1-7. The album's two best pop songs are in this half ("Gigantic" and "Where Is My Mind?") plus the album's best punk songs ("Something Against You," "Broken Face"). Though the album's second half has the brilliant "Cactus," and "Brick is Red," (not to mention "you f**kin' die!!"), tracks 1-7 are indestructible.
5. Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)
At first listen, Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand may sound like it's a jumbled mess of tape hiss and poorly recorded instruments, but it gradually reveals itself to have a brilliant structure and flow on par with the best prog-rock song cycles. As indispensible as the complete album is, however, most of the best songs are placed in the first half. "Tractor Rape Chain," "Smothered in Hugs," "Echos Myron," and "Gold Star for Robot Boy," all come in between tracks 3 and 9. The album's second half is more experimental and even more disjointed, and the only song from this half that can compare to the first is the wonderful "I Am A Scientist."
6. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (2011)
Strange Mercy is a classic example of an album whose opening tracks were given dozens of spins on my iPod, while the last seven tracks were probably given about one each. They're not bad songs by any stretch of the imagination, but the first four songs, "Chloe in the Afternoon," "Cruel," "Cheerleader," and "Surgeon" are the kind of unpredictable, surreal pop songs that Annie Clark is a master at writing. If she had spaced these four throughout the rest of the album, I might remember a few of the other songs.
What other album do you think are front-loaded? Let us know in the comments section!
