The Third Song

Three is a Magic Number - Blind Melon (mp3)
International Bright Young Thing - Jesus Jones (mp3)

So you walk into one of those record stores where you can sample any album, but you're only allowed to sample one single song from any particular album. Which song to pick?

It's a no-brainer, really.

The third song is and should be the cornerstone for any modern album.

A vast majority of modern music albums are formed in a way similar to a baseball batting order. Your first song is the one you hope has the best chance of getting on base and making its way around. It's gotta be speedy and efficient. The second song aims to be a slightly beefier and slower version of the first. The third song is supposed to be the heart of your lineup. Yes, "3-4-5" is called "The Power Alley" because the fourth and fifth batters also need to be able to knock one out of the park, but almost all lineups place their best batter third to maximize the number of at-bats that dude can get in a game.

This entire analogy holds true for -- oh, let's say at least 75% of modern albums, at least those with any aspirations for "popular" success.

Don't get me wrong. Sometimes the third song strikes out. Sometimes it doesn't clear the bases like it should. It's not fool-proof. But when it comes to albums in the post-60s world, if you had to pick a single song that had the best chance of representing the entire album's hopes and intentions, you absolutely have to go with Song #3.

U2 - The Joshua Tree
Song #3: With or Without You
(This is perhaps the greatest baseball line-up album ever made)

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Song #3: Today

Hall + Oates - Private Eyes
Song #3: I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)

Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad
Song #3: Don't Stop the Music

Black Crowes - The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Song #3: Thorn in My Pride

Pearl Jam - Ten
Song #3: Alive

Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
Song #3: Waitin' on a Sunny Day

Radiohead - The Bends
Song #3: High and Dry

Oasis - What's the Story Morning Glory
Song #3: Wonderwall

Counting Crows - August and Everything After
Song #3: Mr. Jones

Aerosmith - Permanent Vacation
Song #3: Rag Doll

Queen - Jazz
Song #3: Jealously (comfortably snuggled between "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Bicycle Race")
("Another One Bites the Dust" is the third song from The Game, proof that they'd become utter slaves to the pop album arrangement)

Go try it with your CD collection. If, um, you still have albums or CDs, that is. Any REM album. Dave Matthews Band's Crash. Tonic's Lemon Parade. Stereophonics, Rilo Kiley, Soul Asylum's Grave Dancer's Union, Tegan and Sara, Matthew Sweet, Taylor Swift, Spoon, Guns 'n' Roses' Appetite for Destruction. Even when the third song isn't their breakthrough hit, it's a song you like a lot if you like the album.

Its not a perfect science, I grant you. Just like some baseball teams do odd strategic things with their lineups, sometimes artists place their power hitters in different spots in the lineup. I mean, you look at Led Zeppelin IV, for instance, and it's next to impossible to find a problem with any possible lineup they could have arranged. "The Battle of Evermore" might not be the cornerstone of the album, but it's also not a bad test point. If for some reason you find that song not to your liking, then the overall album could be a bit of a chore.

If you don't have a good third song, it usually means you blew your musical wad on the first two songs, hoping to God people never actually listen to anything past those first two before they get home, having already wasted their cash to get an album that's only worth the first two songs.

Maybe none of this matters much in the 21st Century, when albums only exist in the sense that they have the same album title in your iTunes category, when even music lovers like myself, who buy entire albums far more often than I buy singles, still rarely if ever actually listens to an album all the way through without stopping.

But just like Grandpa Simpson, I'll stubbornly cling to my conviction about the power of that third song even when they've put me in a rest home and I have to crank the volume up to 11 just to hear it. It's a love story, baby, just say yes.

The Blind Melon song is from the collection of Schoolhouse Rock! covers. "IBYT" is the third song from Jesus Jones' 1991 album Doubt, an album that, while forgotten, still kicks butt.