Rocks Off - The Rolling Stones (Exile On Main Street)
Debaser - The Pixies (Doolittle)
London Calling - The Clash (London Calling)
Safe European Home - The Clash (Give 'Em Enough Rope)
The Magic Number - De La Soul (3 Feet High & Rising)
Respect - Aretha Franklin (I Never Loved A Man...)
I'm Alone in the Wilderness - Culture (Two Sevens Clash)

(The Stones pretty much always used to start with a corker).

Planet Clare - The B52s (B52s)
Tangled up in Blue - Bob Dylan (Blood on the Tracks)
All the way from Memphis - Mott the Hoople (Mott)
Once bitten twice shy - Ian Hunter (Ian Hunter)
Lay it Down - Al Green (Lay it down)

...from the Springsteen Live box. You expect fire and brimstone as the first track and you get a tiny, lone piano

'Son Of A Gun', The La's - The La's
'Rehab', Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
'Fisherman's Blues', The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues
'Help', The Beatles - Help'
'Like A Rolling Stone', Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
'The Queen Is Dead', The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

Could go on; in fairness, it's a rare album that doesn't kick off with one of its better songs.

The Storm Is Coming by Ed Harcourt from Strangers. Great opener.

'Gimme Shelter' from Let It Bleed. In the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel, "Where do you go from there? Where? Nowhere".

If not then 'Scuttle Buttin' from Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'Couldn't Stand The Weather' is the most frenetic funk noise to kick off an album imaginable.

If you're wearing a hat at the time you're listening you'll find it blown across the room.

and Like A Rolling Stone may never be bettered, but but but... Janie Jones is the most exciting laying-out of stall on a debut album ever. Even better – and this is rare – what follows lives up to and, 30 years on, still exceeds the promise.

Don Henley sort of spoils the drummer stuff. Since he co wrote Hotel California that album would lose its opening track.

In fact Don also co wrote the opening tracks for Desparado and One of These Nights.

Any other good/successful drummer song writers?

Rumbling bass before Squire's weaving patterns and Reni's snare crack.

Born in the USA - somewhat overlooked now, but in 1984, what an entrance!

London Calling

Gangsters - The Specials (Bernie Rhodes don't argue!)

Black Dog - Led Zep IV

...which is probabaly why Funeral for a Friend was so mind bogglingly fab as an album intro.....

Race for the Prize - The Soft Bulletin by the Flaming Lips

I don't wanna touch...(band kicks in) opening 'This Years Model'

The train arriving on 'Station To Station'

'1,2,3,4...well she was just 17....'

kicking off Southern Harmony and Musical Companion..opens with some amp hum, next a blinding bit of Keef-esque guitar, in come some handclaps and the hi-hat, then the snare drum, all topped off with a bit of greasy Fender Rhodes.

There's a thread about him that's started up today, which puts me in mind of Love The One You're With from his first solo album.
And of course his old partner Neil starting the Rust Never Sleeps album with My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue).
And CSN starting their 1st album with Suite:Judy Blue Eyes.

The 'beatbox' version of Psycho Killer at the start of Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense is a cool way to start a great album.

Bongos over Balham, track 1, side 1/Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers never fails to make me smile.
Good to see it mentioned in the Barney Bubbles retrospective in this months mag.
Changing pace, almost counter-intutively, Beautiful Day not only opens All that you can't leave behind with a flourish, but also kick starts the return of U2 from their experimental years of reduced sales. On a par with Start me Up by the Stones, and having a similar rallying effect, says I.