10 Best Rock Album Openers Of The 1980s
The '80s had some great rock albums with some amazing opening songs.
Is there anything worse than a bad opening song on an album? Okay, maybe stepping on an upturned plug or cold baked beans, but not much else.
An opener is supposed to kick things off in style; draw in the listener and make them feel like they want to stick around for the whole thing. Otherwise, what's the point in even putting an album together in the first place?
The 1980s was a utopia for rock music albums, with some of the best to ever do it in the prime of their careers. As a result, there's a lot of tough competition when it comes to choosing the very best of the decade's Track 1s.
Good albums don't necessarily have good openers, nor are the openings on bad albums always as dreadful as the overall product. The overall quality of a record doesn't matter at all here - the only thing that counts is the strength of the song that started it all.
From New Wave to Southern Rock to Hair Metal to good ol' fashioned Thrash, this list contains a wide variety of songs that all got their respective albums off to the best possible start.
10. Don’t Stand So Close To Me - The Police (Zenyatta Mondatta)
The Police had no issues with the so-called difficult third album, as 1980's Zenyatta Mondatta was a roaring success.
The band already had a strong collection of songs under their belt, including Roxanne, So Lonely, and Message in a Bottle. They needed something of a similar calibre to open up this record, and that's exactly what they managed to make.
Don't Stand So Close to Me is an uneasy song in terms of lyrical content. It recounts a sordid affair between a teacher and one of his students, and what happens when their relationship is discovered.
Despite the adult themes, the British public ate it up and sent it to the top of the charts. You can draw your own conclusions from that.
Backed by the band's trademark combination of reggae and pop rock, Don't Stand So Close to Me is one of the smarter story songs from this period and is definitely one of the darkest. It kicked Zenyatta Mondatta off in style and remains one of the Police's best tracks.