how to open and close an album

I'm raising this subject because i think it's something queen never truly managed.
The idea is simple open and close your LP with two equally great songs.
Here's my own personal faves:-

Eagles: Hotel California
Opener - Hotel California / Closer - The Last Resort

Sabbs - Heaven & Hell
Opener - Neon Knights / Closer - Lonely is The Word

Boston - Boston
Opener - More Than A Feeling / Closer - Let me take You Home Tonight

Pink Floyd - Wish you Were Here
Opener - SOYCD (i-v) / Closer - SOYCD (vi-ix)

Deep Purple - Machine Head
Opener - Highway Star / Closer - Space Truckin'

Thin Lizzy - Black Rose
Opener - Do Anything You Want To do / Closer - Roisin Dubh

1. Assess the form and type of wrapping (usu. Plastic overwrap)
2. Locate indentation in the wrapping, usually on the right side when looking at the front
3. Insert a fingernail or small sharp object into the plastic carefully avoiding the packaging
4. Unwrap the plastic shrink wrap from off the album (if it folds; if it does not fold you may wish to retain the original shrink wrapped sleeve)
5. Carefully purse the opening section of the album which contains the actual album within.
6. Carefully pinch the inner sleeve (sometimes waxy paper/sometimes an inner plastic sleeve) and album
7. Pull them both out
8.YOU HAVE NOW OPENED THE ALBUM, you may wish to play it or to admire it.


Part Two:

1. REVERSE steps #1-8 starting with #8

8. RE- INSERT the album into the sleeve.
7. RE- insert the album/sleeve combination into the purse of the cardboard.
6. Fold the album back together if necessary
5. Shelve it away (hopefully in a Mylar sleeve)
4-1 may be unnecessary, as it may not be in your best interest to reseal an album

Also note:

Albums can be further arranged according to numerous criteria: alphabetical by title, mass, weight, color, upc code, genre etc.


I hope this helps!

^^^^^ lol!

[QUOTE] [b]brENsKi wrote:[/b]

Boston - Boston
Opener - More Than A Feeling / Closer - Let me take You Home Tonight

Thin Lizzy - Black Rose
Opener - Do Anything You Want To do / Closer - Roisin Dubh

[/QUOTE]

^ nah, there's no way those closers are better than In The Lap Of The Gods Revisited or My Melancholy Blues.

Queen didn't start and end their albums with a bang, like most bands did. They built to peaks and came down from them. Kind of like sex.

But yeah - you seriously can't beat Hotel California, Machine Head and Wish You Were Here in that regard.

You'll notice I really like a few artists.

Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: Blowin' In The Wind / I Shall Be Free
Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan: All I Really Want To Do / It Ain't Me Babe
Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home: Subterranean Homesick Blues / It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited: Like A Rolling Stone / Desolation Row
Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde: Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 / Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks: Tangled Up In Blue / Buckets of Rain
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy: Political World / Shooting Star
Bob Dylan - Modern Times: Thunder on the Mountain / Ain't Talkin'
Bob Dylan - Tempest: Duquesne Whistle / Roll On John
Johnny Cash - American IV - The Man Comes Around: The Man Comes Around / We'll Meet Again
John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy: (Just Like) Starting Over / Hard Times Are Over
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: Mother / God
The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night: A Hard Day's Night / I'll Be Back
The Beatles - Let It Be... Naked: Get Back / Let It Be
The Beatles - Please Please Me: I Saw Her Standing There / Twist & Shout
The Beatles - Revolver: Taxman / Tomorrow Never Knows
John Lennon - Imagine: Imagine / Oh Yoko!
Paul McCartney & Wings - Band On The Run: Band On The Run / Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five
Soundtrack - Wonder Boys: Things Have Changed (Bob Dylan) / Philosopher's Stone (Van Morrison)

I would have put Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall, but I think the songs on those albums are more like "Side 1" and "Side 2" of the actual LPs, rather than "Speak to Me/Breathe" and "Brain Damage/Eclipse," so I didn't include them.

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]brENsKi wrote:[/b]
Boston - Boston
Opener - More Than A Feeling / Closer - Let me take You Home Tonight
Thin Lizzy - Black Rose
Opener - Do Anything You Want To do / Closer - Roisin Dubh
[/QUOTE]
^ nah, there's no way those closers are better than In The Lap Of The Gods Revisited or My Melancholy Blues.

Queen didn't start and end their albums with a bang, like most bands did. They built to peaks and came down from them. Kind of like sex.

But yeah - you seriously can't beat Hotel California, Machine Head and Wish You Were Here in that regard.
[/QUOTE]
okay, will concede on the boston one - but no way on Roisin Dubh - it's a really great album closer

as for Last Resort - - top notch. lyrically superior, musically stunning in it's simplicity and so well sung.i honestly don't think there's a finer album closer anywhere - really glad i chose that as the main example now.

[QUOTE] [b]brENsKi wrote:[/b]

okay, will concede on the boston one - but no way on Roisin Dubh - it's a really great album closer[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it really is. The celtic guitar lines are marvelous !

[QUOTE]as for Last Resort - - top notch. lyrically superior, musically stunning in it's simplicity and so well sung.i honestly don't think there's a finer album closer anywhere
[/QUOTE]
It's definitely one of the best rock albums ever. You only hit perfection once, if you're lucky - and this is theirs.

Good topic. Not sure I agree though: Brighton Rock and In the Lap of the Gods Revisited is pretty much perfect. Good call on Thin Lizzy. I'd add Iron Maiden's Powerslave and AC/DC's Let There Be Rock.


[QUOTE] [b]brENsKi wrote:[/b]

I'm raising this subject because i think it's something queen never truly managed.
The idea is simple open and close your LP with two equally great songs.
Here's my own personal faves:-

Eagles: Hotel California
Opener - Hotel California / Closer - The Last Resort

Sabbs - Heaven & Hell
Opener - Neon Knights / Closer - Lonely is The Word

Boston - Boston
Opener - More Than A Feeling / Closer - Let me take You Home Tonight

Pink Floyd - Wish you Were Here
Opener - SOYCD (i-v) / Closer - SOYCD (vi-ix)

Deep Purple - Machine Head
Opener - Highway Star / Closer - Space Truckin'

Thin Lizzy - Black Rose
Opener - Do Anything You Want To do / Closer - Roisin Dubh


[/QUOTE]

"Innuendo" - "The show must go on" ...never truly managed ?

Don`t know much about the Thin Lizzy album but for the rest you can have my blessing.

[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]

"Innuendo" - "The show must go on" ...never truly managed ?

[/QUOTE]

^ this.

[QUOTE] [b]Holly2003 wrote:[/b]

Good topic. Not sure I agree though: Brighton Rock and In the Lap of the Gods Revisited is pretty much perfect. Good call on Thin Lizzy. I'd add Iron Maiden's Powerslave and AC/DC's Let There Be Rock.

[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

Sheer Heart Attack is about as perfect as perfect gets.

As for AC/DC, I still pick If You Want Blood You Got It. I know it's a live album, but it's the perfect collection of the best and highest energy early AC/DC.

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]

"Innuendo" - "The show must go on" ...never truly managed ?

[/QUOTE]

^ this.[/QUOTE]

No-one outside of queen fans would include BR as a great track.
The only reason i didn't include Innuendo/TSMGO is because as good as the songs are the production on the album is weak...leaving a very "thin" almost hollow feeling for the listener

Hotel California is a great, great album and it's got a wonderful opener/closer and structure throughout, but I'd like to point out here that I think The Eagles in general are pretty much unrivaled in opening/closing an album. "Desperado", with its "Doolin-Dalton" opener and "Doolin-Dalton/Desperado reprise" closer is a classic inclusio-form, which is stylistically impeccable. Their debut album's Take It Easy / Tryin' opens and closes tastefully, One Of These Nights/I Wish You Peace on "One Of These Nights", also wonderfully thought out.

I don't think The Eagles are the best band ever, though I do really like them, but I know of no band that matches them in structuring an album, and especially, closing it. And The Last Resort is one of the finest songs EVER!!!

Now that we're on the topic: the line "There is no more new frontier / we have got to make it here" always struck me as being a deliberate double entendre: no more new land to move to, so the literal sense of "new frontier", but also to symbolize the death of the early-to-mid '60s optimism (the idea that America could be fundamentally changed and improved with just a bit of effort from everyone) that was characterized by Kennedy's program, partly continued by Johnson, known as the New Frontier. What do you guys think? Am I over-thinking this, or does it make sense?

Wouldn't surprise me if you were right. Good analysis.

Innuendo (album) starts and ends well, I think.