An Instrumental Masterpiece

When you have instrumentals as ear-catching as "Intro" (the opening track of The xx's self-titled 2009 album), lyrics are superfluous. There are some vocalizations that add to its understated grandiosity, but everything here is pre-verbal, pre-lingual, trip hop enigmatic epicness. As music critics have noted, the track would make for an apt score for a James Bond film, and has been used to score a variety of media: BBC’s 2010 UK General Election coverage, sports highlights, episodes of thriller series (Cold Case, Law & Order, Person of Interest) films (It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010), Project X (2012). It was also sampled for Rihanna's  "Drunk on Love".

Its hard to pin down what makes the track so iconic - A.V. Club's Vadim Rizzo describes it as 'epic minimalism' noting that it "couldn’t be leaner—fuzzy keyboard, a simple guitar riff, wordless chanting—but the double-tracked drums boom out, setting an appropriately magisterial tone". The Guardian's Sarah Boden notes that its appeal is practically instant: "As the languorous swirl of Intro fades in, however, you immediately sense you're listening to something seductively special". 's Heather Phares AllMusic describes it as being 'moody' and 'monochromatic'.

But sometimes it's better to simply to experience the music, rather than spending brainpower to dissect it. If the original version was too short for you to enjoy, there's a seven minute loop that would serve as the perfect soundtrack for a run along a beach or a scenic hillside: