We’ve killed the intro. And we’re all guilty. This decade’s songwriters have long believed that, with the world’s music at their fingertips, fickle consumers are skipping anything not instantly boiling-magma hot. Now, research from Ohio State University backs them up: the average intro is down from 20 seconds in the 1980s to just five seconds today. The fight to get to the crucial 30 seconds of play mark (after which Spotify pays out) means that many have resorted to using the intro to create a sort of potted highlights reel of the song yet to come.
So what would some of history’s greatest intros sound like if their authors had been subject to modern market pressures?
Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor
Seems like it’s about to finish up efficiently, but then the sheer naivety of 18-year-old Alex Turner means it suddenly runs back into the room, covered in toilet roll, like a giddy teen leathered on peach schnapps.
In 2017: Would end after the intitial guitar scrummage. Perhaps topped with a whoop.
Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street
An intro so bombastic, they had to create an entirely different song to come after it – there’s nothing quite like the feeling of the musical soufflé collapsing as the verse kicks in.
In 2017: Would be pared back to Pink shouting “Baker Street” twice over the full sax rip (songs that don’t state their title in the chorus have become unmarketable).
Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven
Guitar teachers’ fave – as much because its subtly shifting sequence of fingerpicked minor chords use up a lot of lesson time – it then emphasises exactly how good it is by repeating itself.
In 2017: Entire piece of hey-nonny nonsense now unsellable. Travelator straight to Plant wailing over the power chords.
Europe – The Final Countdown
The only bit of the song anyone can remember, its verbal “der ner ner naw” is still sung to this day by Amazonian tribespeople who heard it once from a passing boat, and miles better than the “we’re heading for Venus” doggerel that suffixes it.
In 2017: 3-2-1.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – 1812 Overture
Soft waves of chamber music lapping at a Russian autumn; a plangent, subtle evocation of both coming dread and glory. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
In 2017: Opens with the cannon being fired, then moves up through military hardware to Skrillex sampling a thermonuclear device (fade out).
