5 Greatest Hard Rock Album Opening Tracks

Led Zeppelin have become well known for their album openers. Across each of the band's previous self-titled records, these seminal 70's rockers knew how to make a good impression on heavy hitters like "Immigrant Song" and the highly-esteemed "Whole Lotta Love."

Coming from their untitled fourth record, "Black Dog" is a perfect example of Led Zeppelin at the peak of their powers. After a few seconds of guitar chatter, Robert Plant's acapella howls gives way to a fantastic John Paul Jones-penned riff. In songs like this which has a start-stop interplay between the vocals and instrumentation, the pressure is primarily on the drummer to keep the track free-flowing. With a drummer like John Bonham, this is nothing to worry about as his trademark thunder bellows underneath the vocal and performs in lock step with Jimmy Page's guitar.

As the song nears its end, Page also fires off one of his most tasteful guitar solos with a certain free-wheeling abandon. It seems that the guitar could veer off the road at any second, but instead remains one of the most rock n roll sounding solos the genre has to offer. The stellar backdrop to what many feel is the definitive rock album.