As you may or may not have yet noticed, school is starting. To celebrate the beginning of the semester, here are a few of my favorite album openers. First impressions are a big deal, and these opening tracks should help get things started.

The Fiery Furnaces, "Quay Cur," Blueberry Boat

Clocking in at more than 10 minutes long, it's an ambitious way to start off an album, but one that rocks pretty hard nevertheless. Also, any song that can work in a dozen or so Inuit words without sounding pretentious scores big points from me.

The Mars Volta, "Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus," Frances the Mute

My love for this song has been enhanced tenfold by watching abominable covers of it on YouTube. Search for "Yellow Turban Uprising," wait for the vocals to kick in and thank me later.

Gatsbys American Dream, "The Taming," Ribbons & Sugar

It's rare that an instrumental introductory track can get by without boring me, but this one is tight enough to even stand on its own.

Led Zeppelin, "Achilles Last Stand," Presence

Honestly, if this song doesn't put hair on your chest, you're either dead or you have some sort of hormonal disorder. Either way -- sorry.

Forgive Durden, "Ants," Wonderland

Yeah, comparing people to ants is pretty soft when it comes to social criticism, but listening to clichéd extended metaphors is a small price to pay for face-melting guitar.

Weezer, "My Name Is Jonas," "The Blue Album"

Bonus points for me for opening up the band's career-opening album and still not really being sure what it's about.

Death Cab for Cutie, "The New Year," Transatlanticism

I'm really hoping one of Ben Gibbard's New Year's resolutions this year was to finish that damn Postal Service follow-up before 2007 comes to a close.

The New Pornographers, "Mass Romantic," Mass Romantic

This is one of -- at most -- a half dozen New Pornos songs that doesn't put me to sleep before the bridge, so good on that.

The Beatles "Yellow Submarine," Yellow Submarine

In addition to opening up the album with the same name, "Yellow Submarine" was also on the album Revolver, which was marred by John Lennon's infamous "more popular than Jesus" remark. I get where he was coming from, though. Jesus walked on water; the Beatles did drugs and rode around in submarines underneath the water.

The Minders, "Hooray For Tuesday," Hooray for Tuesday

I don't know how many of these mix tapes I'm going to be doing over the course of the semester, but I can pretty much guarantee that every single one of them will have an Elephant 6 band on it somewhere.

Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nevermind

As the story goes, when Kurt Cobain first presented a rudimentary version of the song to the band, bassist Krist Novoselic deemed it "ridiculous," so as punishment Cobain made the band play the riff for a full hour and a half.