10 Best Rock Album Openers Of The 1980s

5. Start Me Up - The Rolling Stones (Tattoo You)

Whilst their heyday may have been the 1960s, The Rolling Stones showed that they still have a few tricks up their sleeves with this little ditty.

Start Me Up is probably the only song most people would recognise on 1981's Tattoo You, and it's right at the start of the record. That's either a good thing, as it gets the album off to a flying start, or a very bad thing, as it sets everything up for failure.

Its bouncy guitar line, combined with Mick Jagger's imitable vocal delivery, make it one of the easiest Stones songs to enjoy. The track is just as catchy and danceable as any of the band's classic releases, wriggling its way inside you and letting your natural sense of rhythm do the rest.

It also has that certain je ne sais quoi that makes the best Stones records so effortlessly cool.

No montage or compilation is complete without Start Me Up. To be honest, most of the rest of their '80s output doesn't stand up to this song. It might have put the rest of the record to shame, but that doesn't detract from the greatness that is Start Me Up.

Contributor
Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.