Startings of a song?

[chaosassualt]

Sometimes I wonder why songs have a longggg start I was wondering why
anyone know?

 

[gotrice]

hooks the listener?

 

[ZJXMaddog]

They want you to question why it is so long. Seems that it works.

 

[Hoodie]

Erm. I love long intros... Just makes you wanna listen more.

 

[anepicmistake]

to build up tension. they could have just thrown you right into the middle of an intense riff or something, but that would just seem too rushed sometimes, with a long song intro you keep wondering when will it start, when will it start. when it finally does, it's like "YES!".

of course if they wanted you to feel like you were thrown into the middle of an ocean of confusion and awesome, then a short intro to maybe even no intro would be better.

this is just really from a metalheads perspective though, it may be different for other genres...

 

[Endiment]

the best example I can think of is DJ Zany - 384.000. it has a minute and a half on either side of the song consisting of just beats, no melody. I suppose this appeals to all the hardstyle republic guys who can actually do the running man, since the melodic section really only appeals to jumpstylers and other very awesome people. but it makes the thing a pain to listen to unfortunately.

 

[Rellik]

it ramps you up..
you're all like.. what is this. its kinda slow and lame
and then right when you're about reach for the knob (yeah kido's radios used to have knobs) it starts speeding up. and then you're like
hey this ain't that bad...
and then it goes on a little bit longer, and then you're like OH YEAH THIS IS GOING TO ROCK!

that explain it enough?


EDIT: seems anepicmistake basically posted the same thing while i was waiting for the page to load/typing this up. you win sir

 

[Hoodie]

Like everyone else said: builds tension.

Same reason Albums have intro songs:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXZ99Uk6-FA[/ame]

Makes you wanna keep listening, does it not?

Follow up track:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbfDPkyt5ws&feature=related[/ame]

Ps. Hope you like metal, for this little lesson.

 

[Lance]

I like intros, but some songs take it too far. It's ridiculous when it's literally half the song or close to it.

 

[OUCH]

to get the instrumentals in

 

[Flippy the Squirrel]

There's also something to be said for acclimatization. When a song launches directly into vocals, it's frequently possible to miss what's being said or not "get" the song at first because there's too much going on. It's much the same reason that movies frequently have long establishing shots before jumping into the action. The human brain can only process so much at once, so by introducing element gradually, they help to take some of the strain off.

(My opinion, of course.)

 

[Captain Canuck]

2112 by Rush has an intro that's about 4 minutes long. I love long intro's, but then again i love long songs

 

[.:cake:.]

Pour some sugar on me intro haha

 

[anepicmistake]

There's also something to be said for acclimatization. When a song launches directly into vocals, it's frequently possible to miss what's being said or not "get" the song at first because there's too much going on. It's much the same reason that movies frequently have long establishing shots before jumping into the action. The human brain can only process so much at once, so by introducing element gradually, they help to take some of the strain off.

(My opinion, of course.)

that makes a lot of sense, when songs start off just with vocals i often miss what they say the first couple of times.