Now, more than ever, it seems, there's a need for everything and everyone to simply 'get to the point'. Tell it like is is and get out of our way as quickly as possible… But sometimes being dropped in the deep end can leave your head spinning, feeling uprepared or just unappreciative as to what's to follow.
Far better, instead, to craft a careful introduction. Something that grabs your intended audience's attention, something that hints at what's to come, and makes plain why they should stick around.
And that mantra has never been truer than in the world of music creation.
A great intro – be it an abrupt ear-blast or a slow and gentle tease – makes a great record. After all, there's no point in hiding the 'best bit' three minutes in, if no-one is ever going to stick around long enough to hear it…
And fortunately there are plenty of examples out there that get intro magic just right.
Here, MusicRadar's editorial team have selected their favourite intros of all time, compiling a flawless top 30 featuring modern, future classics and old favourites alike, all of which hit the spot and deliver the goods.
We're certain you'll find something below that you'll keep you hooked.
Let's get this started.
30. The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back
There's no magical arrangement work going on here: just the piano and bass playing the same, timeless riff; the guitar holding station on a single, chugging note; and, on the second pass through, some spritely strings.
No, in this case it's all about the quality of the hook - which is musically simple but impeccably timed - and the instant, certain knowledge that this is a groove that you're going to get along with. In fact, the first 30 seconds alone confirm why I Want You Back is regarded as one of the greatest pop records in history.
29. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
Is it Gsus4? Dm11 with no 9th? Or simply an ‘F with a G on top’?
Whatever it is, the opening to A Hard Day’s Night is easily the most discussed first chord to anything, ever. Musicologists have pored over it in more depth that you’d have thought possible, but whoever was playing what and how, the iconic jangle of 12-string Rickenbacker, bass, piano and acoustic guitar announced the onset of The Beatles' imperial period. A Hard Day’s Night cemented the band's position as America’s favourite, and that impossible intro has since passed into legend.
28. Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
Three notes. That's all it takes to know that you're about to be treated to Marvin's most lustful five minutes. Some great song intros are long and complex, but in this case, a simple, blink-and-you'll-miss-it wah guitar motif is all that's required.
There's something about the way that motif is played, though, with the slightly held-back timing building anticipation in a split second.
27. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
From the revving engine rumble of Vinnie “Mad Dog” Lopez’s drums to the very last tap on the glockenspiel, it’s one of rock’s most exhilarating 14 seconds. With over 11 guitars, pianos, organs and probably a few kitchen sinks, Bruce Springsteen rolls back the curtain on his widescreen love letter to Phil Spector, Leonard Bernstein, the Garden State, a girl named Wendy and suicide machines on highway 9.
In any other hands than Springsteen’s, and perhaps in any other song, this kind of epic sweep would seem like foolhardy hubris - the chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected kind. But when your backstreet Romeo comes on like a wailing James Dean and your Juliet is overcome with passion in a way that only Natalie Wood could understand, grandeur is the very point. Springsteen packs it all up in those 14 seconds.
26. Mel & Kim - Respectable
By the time of 1987’s Respectable, the production trio of Stock Aitken and Waterman had earned their stripes. Dabbling in multiple genres and each time either defining or reinventing them, SAW had, at this point, the art of the intro down to a fine, ear-catching, radio-ready art.
Be that from the stunning intro-less, everything all at once, needle-drop of Dead or Alive’s You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) to, our pick of their best, Mel & Kim’s Respectable.
With the song’s title sampled and pitch shifted down (while retaining its length) via SAW’s secret weapon (the Publison DHM89 B2 ‘Infernal Machine’) it’s soon joined by hi-hats and a LinnDrum hand clap, stereo delayed to provide its own pushing and pulling rhythmic relief.
Then comes that legendary “Tay tay tay tay”… For 22 seconds you’re left dizzy, processing each new assault and a part so naggingly divisive that the team fell out over its inclusion. Their manager hated it but, after the duo performed it for the first time at a PA in Holland, called Pete Waterman to say: “Whatever you do, DON’T take that bit off the beginning of the record because I’ve got an audience here going wild for it!”
It’s just a shame that, puffed up by their own ingenuity, they ruined their perfect intro with sound effects and voice overs for the official video.
But you can enjoy the raw original 7" above.
25. Genesis - Keep It Dark
Little challenge for you. Put on Keep It Dark by Genesis and try to anticipate when the track drops… Try it. It happens around the eight second mark… Missed? Try again… See? You can’t. And, if you watch closely, despite nailing it alongside Tony Banks on synths for the track’s recording, even drummer Phil Collins can’t repeat the same trick for the video.
That’s because this 6/4 timed track’s main riff doesn’t only NOT start on the 1 beat (as per practically every other track ever), but starts on no beat at all – falling on the off beat between beats three and four… Got that?
And just what is it about Mike Rutherford’s six-note repeating guitar riff that’s so mysterious? Firstly there’s the sound – an almost deliberately boring, non-eventful-yet-hypnotic pluck – and there’s that timing trick, of course, but most of all there’s the fact that while the song appears to musically modulate and move through verses, lead-ins, choruses and middle-eights the same relentless six note riff just repeats BUT always remains always in time and perfectly in key…
It’s (Keep It) Dark magic…
24. Amerie - 1 Thing
While essentially being a raw exposure to the backing track rather than a self-contained confection in its own right, the intro to Amerie’s 1 Thing just had to make our list due to its sheer capacity to cut through and demand attention. (See also Beyonce’s horn-blasting Crazy In Love riff for a similarly devastating instant reveal.)
Like a ponderous puzzle that someone has just dropped down the stairs, the track begins seemingly shapeless as your brain scrambles to make sense of what might happen. And Amerie’s early scrambled call-out pre-verse vocals only make things worse.
It’s only with her “Oh!” 20 seconds in that anything begins to make sense at all. And musically it only begins to stand up as a song when the strings join at a lengthy 1:45 in.
But for all that madness, all that decoding, you remain hooked from opening crash to 3:40 fadeout.
23. Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out
This one's got it all: vintage Nile Rodgers guitar chops, horns blasting all over the place, and a drum track that stops and starts so much that it sounds like sticksman Tony Thompson kept losing his place.
Like trying to get a cold car started, it takes 52 seconds to rev this one up, but then we're off full tilt to the horizon.
For the full impact, make sure you check out the more upfront Chic Mix, which appears on the Deluxe version of the Diana album.
22. Oasis - Wonderwall
Anyone who learned the guitar after 1995 strummed the opening to Wonderwall at some point.
The handful of chords that announced the biggest Oasis single of 1995 formed the hook of the whole song, and showcased Noel Gallagher’s melodic instincts at their best.
Everyone who owned an acoustic guitar went and bought a capo after this, and although it’s the song most likely to be played badly by ‘drunk bloke with mod haircut’ at house parties, the original hasn’t lost any of its power.
21. Jade - Angel of my Dreams
Just what IS that?… Yup, it’s the opening lines from 1967 Eurovision Song Contest winner, Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw. Obvs.
“Hey, Mike. Let’s do something crazy,” suggests the mononymed Jade (formerly Thirlwall of singing contest put-togethers Little Mix) and sure enough Mike – being Mike Sabbath the American producer of hits for Little Mix, Meghan Trainor, Raye, Lizzo and more – proceeds to do exactly that.
It’s not a sample and – after the opening reveal it can be argued that it’s just a single note – but yup, that’s the opening note to Puppet On A String being belted out in the background – “Iiiiiiiiiiii…” – to the degree that the song’s writers gratefully split their credits with Puppet’s original writers, the legendary Bill Martin and Phil Coulter.
It seems extraordinarily foolhardy and generous (couldn’t they have replaced that one note with a synth or string part?) but it’s all part of Angel Of My Dreams’ bewitching slow-mo oddness and magical intro which both tops and finally tails the throbbing synth track in between.
Seems that once they had the idea to “do something crazy”, they couldn’t go back.
20. Prince - Let's Go Crazy
A fine example of an intro that doesn't bear any relation to the rest of the song, Let's Go Crazy's opening minute places Prince as a preacher, not altogether making sense but contrasting the struggles of life with the joy of something else: the afterlife.
Joining him in the pulpit is a cleverly crafted organ passage that switches to reflect the more optimistic tone, and, as we head towards the main body of the song, the distinctive sound of the Linn LM-1 drum machine and that unmistakable crunchy guitar riff.
Ultimately, although the intro to Let's Go Crazy doesn't give away what's about to happen, it tells you that it's something you want to stick around for. There's a cracking outro, too, but that's another story...
19. Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express
The thing about Kraftwerk is that – even for seasoned synth aficionados – it’s always impossible to work out exactly what you’re listening to. So when the locomotive rhythm of Trans Europe Express appears, fully formed and perfectly setting the scene for the track’s travelogue theme you’re instantly arrested.
“Just how ARE they doing that?”
And when the mellotron strings chime in, followed by bass and doppler-effect passing-train-in-the-night synth effect you can’t help coming along for the ride.
It’s a magical combo that proved so irresistible that when Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force (alongside producer Arthur Baker) were conjuring up electro classic Planet Rock, they just had to lift it wholesale.
18. The Temptations - Papa Was A Rolling Stone
A masterclass in instrumental arrangement, producer Norman Whitfield pretty much defined the psychedelic soul sound with this monster intro.
Stretching to more than four minutes in the full version and featuring an incessant bassline, Wurlitzer electric piano, choppy guitar and atmospheric strings, it's made all the more remarkable by the fact that it doesn't move from its B flat minor chord.
17. Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
This is the moment that Neil Young stepped out from the shadow of Buffalo Springfield and became the Neil Young that we know today.
A crunching riff played in an alternate tuning on Young’s then-new ‘Old Black’ Les Paul, it predates alt-rock and heavy metal by decades and definitely proves that Young rocks harder than anyone. It’s a potent example of the power of the early Crazy Horse line-up, too, Danny Whitten’s guitar fizzing alongside Young’s to devastating effect.
16. Fleetwood Mac - Need Your Love So Bad
Longing, loss, heartbreak and a raging hard-on - somehow, Peter Green manages to transmit all that in one glorious guitar intro.
Green’s guitar playing was at its peak on this recording, and it’s about as great an example as exists of his near-mythical ’59 Les Paul’s honking tone. Throw in swelling strings and some of Mick Fleetwood’s most tasteful drumming and you’ve got an intro for the ages.
15. Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone
The snare cracks like a starting pistol, and Dylan leads his band out of the blocks like a man possessed.
Like A Rolling Stone is obviously a special track - a 6-minute long single that redefined what it was possible to do with a rock song - and the intro somehow sums up everything that is to follow in 11 short seconds. Swirling organs, jittery tambourines, twinkling pianos and jangling electric guitars come together to form a knotty, hypnotic whole; an impossible to ignore call to arms for a generation that was waking up to itself.
As an added bonus, Dylan released an interactive video for the song last year, proving that his restless, impish creativity is still as potent as it once was.
14. Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough
It’s always been impossible to accurately predict what the future may hold, but, in 1981, the opening seconds of Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough let the cat slip the bag. If nothing else, the population of the UK (and soon, the world) would at least know what the future would sound like.
Being the better-looking, less sleazy product of producer Daniel Miller’s experiments in playing rock ‘n’ roll on synths (don’t miss his Silicon Teens version of Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) from the year before here), Just Can’t Get Enough saw Miller getting the formula just right.
With previously unheard sounds, super-catchy riffs from soon-to-be-anointed synth god Vince Clarke, and Miller’s talent for production and arrangement (the way the bass joins the riff and the drums lock in is pure poetry in electronic motion) this electronic trailblazer serves up a masterclass in intro inauguration.
13. Donna Summer - I Feel Love
'Hypnotic' is often the word that's used to describe the Giorgio Moroder-concocted groove that powers Donna Summer's groundbreaking single. It's the jaw-dropping sequenced bassline that regularly gets the plaudits, but splendid as it is, don't underestimate the atmospheric power of the sweeping synth, which transforms itself from major to minor without you really noticing.
More than 35 years after it was recorded, listening to the opening of this still feels like you're opening a present that's been beamed down from space.
12. The Beatles - Come Together
The opening seconds of Abbey Road couldn’t be spookier. For the intro that serves as a repeated motif of Come Together, Paul McCartney plays a memorable, minimalist bassline that sounds like an owl hooting over a nighttime swamp. Ringo Starr’s sinister hi-hat pattern and rolling tom fills (the latter dampened with tea towels) underscore the eerie effect.
Even more unnerving is John Lennon, leaning into the mic and defiantly spitting out this tragically prophetic command: “Shoot me.” The last word is choked by handclaps, but the full force of the line works its way into your head almost subliminally.
11. The Rolling Stones - Time Is On My Side
Brian Jones’ gospel-infused, distinctive blues guitar lines that introduce The Rolling Stones’ Time Is On My Side melted millions of hearts in the UK in 1965. Oddly enough, American audiences got the song first, in 1964, but without the guitar part.
The Stones recorded a version with several seconds of Ian Stewart’s funereal organ as the opener in June 1964 in London, and that’s what the US heard on the radio in September of that year. Several months later, the Stones tracked a tighter version of the song in Chicago that featured Jones’ weeping guitar intro.
Either way, the intro pulls you in like a gentle prayer, setting the stage for Mick Jagger’s full-scale sermon that is by turns melancholy and cocky.
10. Earth, Wind & Fire - Shining Star
Earth, Wind & Fire’s first major hit tumbles down the stairs a little wobbly at first, with guitars and bass crunching together, entangling in an impenetrable thicket of sound before hitting the floor like a sure-footed (and extremely funky) drunken master.
The second half of Shining Star’s intro also serves as the musical bed for the verses, and with such a winning combination of jangly guitar, elastic bass and those dynamic horns, it’s no wonder that Maurice White didn’t want to keep a good groove down.
9. The Sweet - Blockbuster
Has there ever been a more dramatic wind-it-up-and-watch-it-go than this? If you want to get the crowd going, just give them a bit of siren!
(Worth noting that for the U.S. release they were forced to strip the siren for fear that it would confuse/excite teenagers too much.)
Like a precursor to the similarly klaxon-powered intro to Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Two Tribes (also on our list) Blockbuster spells out ‘DANGER’ in capital letters right from the off. And as the siren swoops from left to right THAT guitar lick kicks in.
Sure, it’s exactly the same as that of David Bowie’s Gene Genie and with Bowie’s track out in November 1972, and Sweet’s Blockbuster not surfacing until January 1973, it looks like we have a winner… And yet both tracks sat side by side in the chart simultaneously, with neither side batting a mascara'd eyelid. Probably because they were both quietly ripping off The Yardbirds I’m A Man from 1965…
What goes around comes around.
8. NWA - Straight Outta Compton
Is there any finer statement of intent within music than that at the opening of NWA’s 1988 gangsta rap masterpiece Straight Outta Compton?
“You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge...”
And that beat…
7. U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)
The Edge releases three echo-treated harmonic blasts into the sky and lets them sing. In response, Larry Mullen Jr lurches into a stately drum roll, while Adam Clayton holds down the fort with booming bass notes.
After this majestic setup, the three take off in anthemic style, Adam and Larry locked in an almost military-like groove, and The Edge issuing perhaps his most iconic guitar pattern, a briskly strummed slapback sequence that has brought arena and stadium audiences to their feet for going on 30 years.
This stunning guitar riff is the leitmotif for U2’s rousing tribute to Martin Luther King Jr, but it’s one that is varied slightly throughout the song - sometimes Edge opens the notes up; other times he mutes their sound to match the dramatic shifts in Bono’s words. Appropriately, for the tune’s shattering climax, he’s playing to the heavens.
6. The Breeders - Cannonball
Kim Deal was responsible for some great intros with the Pixies - her coo-ing on the opening of Where Is My Mind? is a stone cold classic - but the fuzzy, false start intro to Cannonball has to be one of the most memorable alt-rock openings of all time.
5. Chaka Khan - I Feel For You
![Chaka Khan - I Feel for You (Official Music Video) [HD Remaster] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/YW0sxgYAmLM/maxresdefault.jpg)
OK. Let’s break this one down for you. A song performed by the brilliant Chaka Khan. Produced by the top-of-his-game legendary producer Arif Mardin. Written by [gulp] Prince. Featuring [wha?] Stevie Wonder on harmonica. And an intro and break by Grandmaster Melle Mel? Now you’re spoiling us.
Now think about it. A track with all that pedigree and they open with the rap? Audacious! And not just any rap, but one featuring the biggest and most highly regarded rapper of the day PLUS perhaps everyone’s first ever exposure to a sample st-st-stutter…
“Chak Chak Chak Chak Chaka Khan… Chaka Khan…” Is this the single most memorable, arresting and hi-tech musical moment of the 80’s?
And when Melle Mel is done in swoops Wonder on harmonica and the track just soars. Superb.
Need more choice celebrity name dropping? Never (EVER) forget that Chaka Khan’s sister is called Taka Boom.
4. New Order - Blue Monday
Arguably the most iconic kick drum of all time, the Oberheim DMX-powered intro to Blue Monday provides the perfect introduction to the techno meets post-punk sound the Manchester band perfected in the mid-‘80s.
The band have since revealed in interviews that Gillian Gilbert faded the opening synth line in at the wrong time, leaving the whole intro slightly out of sync. The band felt the odd timing helped add to the song’s charm, however, and left the mistake in the final recording.
3. Michael Jackson - Don’t stop til you get enough
You can just feel the tension building and Jackson’s opening monologue while the hi-hats tap and the bass throbs – while making very little sense – is just the perfect scene setter, with a built-in vocal explosion at the end.
“You know, I was wondering, you know, if… if you could keep on, because, the force… it’s got a lot of power and… it makes me feel like… it makes me feel like… OOOOH!” he intones, then the track cracks open and bathes you in pure sunshine.
Sure, it’s not much of a song, and being Jackson’s first ever foray into writing (this being track one, side one of his first album and his first solo single) it’s amazing that Quincy Jones indulged the fledgling Jackson for what’s essentially 6:05 of expertly produced groove. But it remains, forever and always, pure intro dynamite.
2. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes
Of course, every 80’s 12” fan knows that there are near countless remixes of this nine-week number one smash out there but when it comes to one of the definitive intros of the past 40 years, we’re going right back to 1984’s pure and simple (impossible to find digitally) 7” pressing.
Beginning with Patrick Allen’s infinitely memorable (but curious non sequitur) “The air attack warning sounds like - this is the sound” (effected to sound as if it’s coming from a shonky PA) we’re soon into Trevor Horn’s piano and orchestra refrain that - magically - doesn’t appear anywhere else in the song…
And that’s because Two Tribes isn't a song. Instead it’s a series of musical events strung together over a machine-gunned Synclavier bassline. So when the string intro fades and the LinnDrum clatters in and “You and your family must take cover,” you know that something BIG is coming. And when that bassline drops… “Ow Ow Ow! Let’s go! OOOOH!”
Thus Tribes lurches from mood to mood, build to drop, to build again, never truly repeating and, from intro through to explosive outro, taking the listener on a journey that will only leave them reaching for repeat.
1. Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part 1)
While the modern streaming version on Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd’s ninth album and the follow up to the ground-breaking Dark Side of the Moon – lists the album’s opener, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, as ‘Pts 1-5’, were going with the original vinyl sleeve notes which describe it simply as the more cohesive ‘Part 1’. So there.
This (conveniently) allows us to classify Crazy Diamond’s opening, spellbinding, first four-and-a-half minutes not as tracks or parts in their own right, but rather as the fabulous three-movement protracted intro to a single stunning nine-minute whole.
Thus the track begins with all kinds of electronic tinkling, like an sci-fi Fry’s Turkish Delight advert (this was 1975 after all) and when David Gilmour’s Strat cuts in at 2:09 and that chord finally changes at 2:24 the relief is near orgasmic.
But all of this is only the precursor to Gilmour’s second guitar assault. All this time, perhaps without realising it, you’ve been begging for the guitar that chimes in at 3:54 and the final part of Diamond’s jigsaw is complete. Now, with the track thoroughly prepped for flight, it’s finally launched it into orbit alongside Nick Mason’s drums at 4:30.
From there we’ve solo’s, improvations and blistering performances from all band members, never letting the excitement and tension slip despite a glacial 46 bpm tempo.
Sure, it’s an amazing track but it’s that intro that makes it a legend.
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“I’m looking forward to breaking it in on stage”: Mustard will be headlining at Coachella tonight with a very exclusive Native Instruments Maschine MK3, and there’s custom yellow Kontrol S49 MIDI keyboard, too
“The thing from the agency said, ‘We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da...' and at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3 & 1/4 seconds long’“: Brian Eno’s Windows 95 start-up sound added to the US Library of Congress
