Seventeen epic indie folk album openers

As a life-long lover of stories, I’ve recently become captivated by the art of the album opener. Any good album is a story, and the album opener is a songwriter’s answer to this question: how do you want your story to begin?

I’ve compiled my favorite album openers in the indie folk and indie rock genres, most of them from artists I’ve shown you before. I’ve also listed some of the criteria I used to determine what makes the list. Every song I selected boasts at least one of these qualities, and most of them showcase several.

Here’s what I think makes a legendary album opener.

1. Do the first five to ten seconds catch our attention with a unique rhythmic motif, melodic motif, or sound? Captivating the listener early on is crucial. Almost every song on my list has this quality, ranging from the single snare hit at the opening of “tricks & illusions” to the haunting, tumbling melody that introduces us to “Dandelion Wine.” The way 22 (OVER S∞∞N) by Bon Iver enters the stage will also forever be iconic to me.
2. Does the opener function as an “overture” for the rest of the album? In technical opera terms, an overture sets the tone for the rest of the show. It often features verbatim musical content from almost every song in the rest of a collection, giving the audience a fast-paced preview of what’s to come. In my mind, an album opener can serve as an overture if it contains emotional, musical, or stylistic content that we see in many songs later in the album. “Northern Attitude” is one of my favorite “overtures” on this list.
3. Is the opener literally about a beginning? This is a gimmicky one, but I still love it. If you have a song in your track list that’s about the start of something new, why not make it track one? I’m always game for that.
4. Does the opener feel somehow like a new beginning? Does it give us chills and make us excited to listen to the rest of the album? My blueprint for this phenomenon is “Dandelion Wine.” This song is not an overture at all, nor is it literally about new beginnings in a particularly obvious way, and yet! “Dandelion Wine” has this ineffable quality that makes the listener feel like the world is unfurling before them, like everything is impossibly big and exciting, or that a beautiful journey is about to begin. This is my favorite album opener quality, and it also is the hardest to describe.
5. Bonus points: is the album opener stylistically new for the artist? Is this the first time we’ve heard them do something like this? This is absolutely not necessary for an album opener to be really special. However, I do get extra stoked when an artist showcases how they’ve grown and what they’ve learned since the last time we heard from them.

Me (center), Tomo (right), and a dear friend from college in Red Rock Canyon. Photo captured by the film camera of the beloved Bailey White

Anyway, here are the songs, in no particular order. I recommend shuffling this playlist so that you get a different album opener for your album of album openers each time you listen.

• tricks & illusions, Field Medic
• Old Friends, Pinegrove
• New Friends, Pinegrove
• End of August, Noah Kahan
• Dandelion Wine, Gregory Alan Isakov
• Mistakes, Hippo campus
• 22 (OVER S∞∞N), Bon Iver
• If I Don’t Come Home–Go to My House and Hide My Things, The Halfway Kid
• snake, Sadurn
• The Fall, Gregory Alan Isakov
• Waking Up, Sam Burchfield
• After The Setting Sun, The Head And The Heart
• Amsterdam, Gregory Alan Isakov
• Northern Attitude, Noah Kahan
• Incomprehensible, Big Thief
• Prayer Man, Hippo Campus
• Sophie So, Hippo Campus