Albums that you know are going to be brilliant within the opening 20 seconds of the first track

http://www.student.uib.no/~ane041/1%20-%20Fotoprosjekt/homegrown-dodgy.jpg

"Have mercy on me, sir/ allow me to impose on you"

among others

Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love, is in this category for me, though I know I'm very much in the minority on that.

Stretchheads, Five Fingers, Four Thingers, A Thumb, A Facelift and a New Identity
Pere Ubu, The Modern Dance

Other stuff

Curtis Mayfield, Curtis (the bass groove, the double-tracked vocals)
Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come and Science Fiction (Charlie Haden bass / launching right into discordant theme)
Fuck the Facts, Disgorge Mexico (wow wow wow)
Gilberto Gil, Expresso 2222 (flute insanity with afro-brazilian percussion)
Nina Simone, Forbidden Fruit (proto-industrial cymbal clank in 3/4 time, then she howls out "Rags! Old iron!")
Thelonious Monk, Genius of Modern Music Vol. 1 ("Humph"!)
Funkadelic, Maggot Brain (wins this category outright)

dazzle ships
so

A Love Supreme

^ yes, for sure

Along the lines of Maggot Brain, Locust Abortion Technician, though it might take a little more than 20 seconds to get to "yes son"

A Frames S/T: so jagged and precise and atonal, then it breaks into that big chorus with the amazing hostage crisis metaphor.

The US Version of the Clash debut was like this for me too: Clash City Rockers was everything I was looking for at 14, having just worn out the early Who.

*funky acoustic bass line*

Back in the days when I was a teenager
Before I had status and before I had a pager
You could find the Abstract listening to hiphop
My pops used to say it reminded him of bebop

Raw Power (especially the remixed version)

*eerie synthesizer noises*

When I was young, my father was famous.....He was the greatest samurai in the empire....and he was the shogun's decapitator........He cut off the heads of a hundred and thirty-one lords......It was a bad time for the empire....

XTRMNTR, thought it has faded for me a bit over the years.

Most recently: Tha Carter III

Gang Of Four Entertainment
Slayer Reign In Blood
Neil Young Zuma
Television Marquee Moon

John Coltrane - Giant Steps.

There are way too many albums where this seems true on first listen and turns out to be false. So I question the use of the word "know."

another OTM for Low End Theory

esp because I actually had that thought the first time I listened to it.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6!"

The Modern Lovers

Birthday Party The Bad Seed ep, duh

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6!"

The Modern Lovers

― surfboard dudes get wiped out, totally, Tuesday, November 11, 2008 5:02 AM (1 hour ago)

oh man...lock thread.

There are way too many albums where this seems true on first listen and turns out to be false. So I question the use of the word "know."

― Albert Jeans (Hurting 2)

My point exactly

Technique and Compton seconded, along with a little album called How To Operate With A Blown Mind

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n19/dment3d/southernplayalistic.jpg

^^^probably more like first five seconds

"In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection..."

A Wizard A True Star
Funkentelechy vs The Placebo Syndrome
The Dreaming
New York Tenderberry
Grace

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet...
http://missskind.no.sapo.pt/dbimg/NewOrder-Power,Corruption11312_f.jpg

How long is it 'til the 'YEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' in Vision Creation Newsun?

MY FATHER WAS THE GREATEST SAMURAI IN THE EMPIRE...

Man Man - Rabbit Habits

Billy Cobham - Spectrum

Squeeze - Argybargy

the first verse and bridge all in 20 seconds...

Neu! 75
Here Come The Warm Jets
Odessey & Oracle
Master of Reality

Loveless OTM as well, of course. Really, most albums where texture/arrangement/production is in the foreground would fit.

There are way too many albums where this seems true on first listen and turns out to be false. So I question the use of the word "know."

― Albert Jeans (Hurting 2)

My point exactly

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, November 11, 2008 1:19 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark

Yeah, didn't see your post.

In fact this used to happen to me all the time with record store listening stations.

All this thread really is = classic albums that also happen to have a really awesome opening 20 seconds.

MY FATHER WAS THE GREATEST SAMURAI IN THE EMPIRE...

I gotta call this one out, I'm thinking your confusing this with your current nostalgia over hearing those words when you pop in the album now. There were so, so many hip-hop albums in the latter half of the 90s that kicked off with spoken word samples from old movies that I find it hard to believe you would have felt anything special hearing that particular one for the first time.

There's also great creepy music during that part stfu.

And I'm counting the dropping of the beat as within the opening 20 seconds so keeping stfuing.

You don't know me.

that Sundays album is faceless except for one track though

Madness. I wonder what the sole non-'faceless' track could be though?

1984, borrowed Computer World from the library, only having vague idea what Kraftwerk were about. That.

Nag! otm about "faceless" claim = madness!. Opening track on Reading... probably the one that took me longest to get into though, so not that.

Yeah, second that about The Sundays.

Guess: non-'faceless' = "Here's Where the Story Ends"? In which case the madness is double, as it's "Can't Be Sure" which is the greatest thing on there.

But that was a single well before, so "You Know-oh" that one already...

"Souvlaki"

black celebration

New album from Nahvalr, a kind of mail-art BM project, opens with a segment from radio host Art Bell talking about underground recordings of the damned. His voice is wonderful, halfway between Tom Waits and Ken Nordine. The music that follows shouldn't be able to live up to it, but does . . just.

i'm gonna go with:

The Wonderful & Frightening World of The Fall (that actually might be 30 seconds tho...nevermind)
Y
Talk Talk Talk
the first Remy Zero album
E.V.O.L.
Blackboard Jungle Dub (not the real name I know...)

ON THE CORNER