The 5 Best Grunge Album Openers + Closers of All Time

These are the best grunge album openers and closers of all time.

Track sequencing is such an important aspect of releasing an album. It's an afterthought for listeners as we just get to consume and enjoy the finished product, but it was something that was deliberated before being completed.

The opening and closing songs on every album have the most important jobs. The opener is meant to catch the listener's attention and immediately draw them in, so it has to be extremely effective in order to get people to continue listening. And the closing track is meant to end the record on a strong note. If it sucks, then no one's going to listen to the album in its entirety again.

This is still the case even though we aren't exactly in an album-focused world anymore. A lot of bands put out six or seven singles before the record even comes out, which leaves pretty much no mystery when it's time to listen to the finished product in full. Even then, the sequencing is important.

READ MORE: Soundgarden's Kim Thayil Names the 'Big 4' Grunge Pioneers

For this list, we took the five best grunge album openers we could possibly think of as well as the five best album closers. And we switched up the albums a bit too — we didn't pick the opener and closer for the same album unless they were both the best choice. There were a few albums that made the cut though because they're sandwiched by two incredible songs.

Keep scrolling to see our picks for the five best album openers and the five best closers below.

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Check out our 30 Years of Grunge series on YouTube.

Keep reading to see our picks for the best grunge album of each year from 1987 to 1996.