The 18 Ways of Beginning and Ending an Album
Whether by chance or by careful planning, there is an observable pattern to intros and outros in albums.
PopMatters breaks down 18 of them.
It’s no secret that albums have structures. Songs rarely play in a randomly determined order; artists and bandmates often agonize over the playlist for weeks or months. Radiohead, for example, notoriously bickered about running orders during the final stretch of the recording sessions for
Kid A and
Amnesiac, nearly tearing them asunder. But it’s not for nothing. The song sequence is one of the most important facets of record-making, and it’s one that’s usually taken for granted.