The song "Empire" is the high-energy opening track and the official first single from Dokken's eleventh studio album, Broken Bones, which was released in 2012. As the track is positioned at the start of the record, it serves to immediately announce the band's continuation of their classic Heavy Metal and Hard Rock sound, which many fans felt had been effectively recaptured on the preceding album, Lightning Strikes Again. The music is a fast-paced, "chugging" rocker that features a driving rhythm and strong, heavy guitar work from Jon Levin, whose riffs and soloing are notably powerful and have been praised for evoking the spirit of the band's earlier material. The lyrics and overall feel of "Empire" are characteristic of the genre, focusing on themes of ambition, destruction, and surveying the aftermath of conflict, perfectly fitting the song's aggressive musical temperament. The lineup for the recording included Don Dokken on lead vocals, Jon Levin on guitar, Sean McNabb on bass, and Jimmy DeGrasso on drums, who stepped in as a session musician for "Wild" Mick Brown due to scheduling issues, although the album is still strongly rooted in the Dokken aesthetic as produced by Don Dokken himself. The song is one of the stronger, more upbeat cuts on the album, designed to hit the ground running with frenzied speed and a soaring vocal above the thunderous instrumentation.