There have been so many, but the one that sticks out in my mind is "Start Me Up". Why? Simply because "Emotional Rescue" didn't sit well with me when it was first released, and even though I loved "Some Girls", it seemed weird to begin it with "Miss You".

I've told the story about first hearing SMU on the radio. It was uplifting and reassuring. Remember the context of the times.

That's not to say it's still my favorite NOW, but it definitely was in 1981. We hadn't had a really strong opening rock n' roll track on a Stones record since 1972. "If You Can't Rock Me" in 1974? Nope, it didn't move me then, and it still doesn't.

As a starter I like One Hit to the Body alot.

Toss-up:

Gimme Shelter on LIB
Sympathy on BB

60's - GIMME SHELTER

70's - IF YOU CAN'T ROCK ME

80's - ONE HIT/UNDERCOVER - tie

90's - I GO WILD (on my custom CD it's the first song)

00's - ROUGH JUSTICE

Route 66 or Not Fadeaway depending on where you got the 1st LP.

sympathy for the devil
gimme shelter
rocks off
dancing with mr. d
start me up

This won't sit well with some people but,I am going to go with One Hit (To The Body).There haven't been many bad ones since the pre-'68 era.Hot Stuff was not their best.

Rocks Off...I still remember the thrill I had hearing the first time. Being in High School had the headphones on and thought "MAN! These guys are incredible!" That riff and the opening salvo and the great groan...

Sympathy
Rocks Off

Here's a smattering of favorite tracks that COULD have been killer openers, but were placed elsewhere on their respective albums, or in a few cases, not on proper albums at all:

- Tumbling Dice
- All Down the Line
- Crazy Mama
- 2000 Light Years from Home
- We Love You
- Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow?
- I'm Going Down
- Hand of Fate
- Respectable
- I Go Wild
- She Saw Me Coming
- Child of the Moon
- Out of Time
- Under My Thumb

. . . and the king and queen in this category:
- Jumpin' Jack Flash
- Honky Tonk Women

Mine must be Love Is Strong from Vodoo Lounge,but the opening on the IORR-album with If You Can't Rock Me made me dream of my first guitar in the early 1990's

Big T

HTW on Love You Life

Brown Sugar on Sticky Fingers.

I still like the anticipation brought on by "The audience seems to be ready, is everybody ready?"

Rocks Off and Gimme Shelter...

Brown Sugar. It also has been a good concert opener (1972, 2002).

Gimme Shelter

there is a very strong correlation between the excellence of the Stones' albums and the opening tracks. Hence the great ones all have openers that are among their best. Nobody wants to say Miss You for fear of ridicule but add that one too and you see their top 7 or so albums named above.
The opposite is true also. Sad Sad Sad, Flip the Switch, & Dance were openers to albums stronger than the opener.
All the early ones were great but I don't think they really thought about an opener until Beggars (SFTD) with the possible exception of Between the Buttons (LSTNT)
To answer the question I would go with Gimme Shelter and sometimes Brown sugar



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-01 18:30 by livewithme.

toss up between Mercy Mercy(us Out of our heads), Sympathy For the Devil and Rocks Off

Well, their golden era albums also had incredibly strong openers, each of them: "Sympathy For The Devil", "Gimme Shelter", "Brown Sugar", "Rocks Off"... and yeah, one can add "Jumping Jack Flash" from YA-YA's also there.

But if I have to pick up one - is there any more dramatic way to start an album than that magical guitar start of "Gimme Shelter"...

- Doxa

>> with the possible exception of Between the Buttons (LSTNT) <<

smile: you mean "Between the Buttons (Yesterday's Papers)" -
although i'm not sure that still fits your theory :E

Route 66...at the beginning of 1964

livewithme Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> there is a very strong correlation between the
> excellence of the Stones' albums and the opening
> tracks. Hence the great ones all have openers
> that are among their best. Nobody wants to say
> Miss You for fear of ridicule but add that one too
> and you see their top 7 or so albums named above.
> The opposite is true also. Sad Sad Sad, Flip the
> Switch, & Dance were openers to albums stronger
> than the opener.
> All the early ones were great but I don't think
> they really thought about an opener until Beggars
> (SFTD) with the possible exception of Between the
> Buttons (LSTNT)
> To answer the question I would go with Gimme
> Shelter and sometimes Brown sugar


Good points. Motown Records always used a killer cut as the first song on EACH SIDE as bait. Their albums would revolve around two or three good cuts and the rest would be filler. The difference with the great Stones albums is that the killer cuts at the start of EACH SIDE anchor and represent the REST of the great cuts that were to follow. The problem with Miss You and Far Away Eyes as the side openers on Some Girls is that, although they made for great A and B sides when they were released as a single three weeks before the LP, they were totally unrepresentative of the rest of the music on the album.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-01 18:47 by tatters.

Erik_Snow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rocks Off and Gimme Shelter...


Yup.

Tough to beat either of those two.

J

"Rocks Off"
"Rough Justice"

AND

...best finishing tracks:
"Sleep Tonight" + Stu's boogie piano
"All About You"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-01 20:11 by mofur.

HelterSkelter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 60's - GIMME SHELTER
>
> 70's - IF YOU CAN'T ROCK ME
>
> 80's - ONE HIT/UNDERCOVER - tie
>
> 90's - I GO WILD (on my custom CD it's the first
> song)
>
> 00's - ROUGH JUSTICE

60's pronounced "Sixties"
70's pronounced "Seventies"
80's pronounced "Eighties"
90's pronounced "Nineties"
How do we pronounce "00's"
(i.e... What is this decade called?)

>> How do we pronounce "00s" <<

the naughties (aka the noughties)
- credit: Mick Jagger, or whoever wrote that SNL mirror skit



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-01 20:24 by with sssoul.

i personally see nothing wrong with miss you as the opening track of some girls , the reason i didn't post it was i like the 8 min. version of the song better than the album version. the album version seems slower for some reason.

Here's something we need to think about: In 2010 are you going to say "two thousand and ten" or are you going to say "twenty ten"?

mofur Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Rocks Off"
> "Rough Justice"
>
> AND
>
> ...best finishing tracks:
> "Sleep Tonight" + Stu's boogie piano
> "All About You"



Really? Better than Salt Of The Earth, YCAGWYW, Moonlight Mile, Soul Survivor, and Shattered, to name just a few?