What's the most utterly pretentious album title you've ever seen?

grt albm tho

It's up there with the artist blah blah Prince

(My knowledge of this is proof that I used to listen to indie in the 80's.)

That's the point, they created it as a ridiculous and not necessarily funny joke. In which case, did they fail or succeed? ;-)

Also BDP's By Any Means Necessary

Pretentious =/ stupid

Pretentious (title and artist both).

Is "We have the facts and we're voting yes" too obvious? That always annoyed me. There's also Eminem using a different one of his names for each album (oh, that's a concept... right.)

They wish...

Devendra Banhart's debut title is a bit trying ('Oh me oh my .. the way the day goes by the sun is setting dogs are dreaming lovesongs of the christmas spirit') but it's redeemed by the album's cover art (see here: http://www.younggodrecords.com/Releases/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=26)

I really like this parody of the Wavy Gravy school of titles, 'The Three Terrors In Their 1885 Transploding Styrofoam Holo-Graphic Octopus', the title of a one off show at the Bowery Ballroom by Stephin Merritt & pals.

'Some Girls' by the Stones has to win some prize for the most misogynistic groupie-banging album title in history.

1.Black Dragons soar above the Mountain of Shadows - Keyboard Instrumental
2.To dethrone the Witch-Queen of Mytos K'unn (The legend of the battle of Blackhelm Vale)
3.As the Vortex illuminates the cystalline walls of Kor-Avul-Thaa
4.Starfire burning upon the ice-veiled throne of Ultima Thule
5.Journey to the Isle of Mists (Over the moonless depths of night-dark seas)
6.The Splendour of a thousand swords gleaming beneath the blazon of the Hyperborean Empire
7.. And lo, when the Imperium marches against Cul-Kothoth, then dark sorceries shall enshroud the Citadel of the Obsidian Crown
8.Summoning the Guardians of the Astral Gate
9.In the Raven-haunted forests of Darkenhold, where Shadows reign and the hues of sunlight never dance
10.At the altar of the Dreaming Gods

I nominate all self-titled records, but especially non-debut self-titled albums. Bo Diddley is the only artist allowed to do this, as he is Bo Freakin' Diddley. The band called Chicago is therefore the most pretentiously-titled band of all time.

Oh, and I really like super-pretentious titles of the kind cited above. More self-glorification! Hey, Yume Bitsu, who called a record Giant Surface Music Falling to Earth Like Jewels From the Sky! I am in fact calling you out...for a hug!

("The Eminem Show" strikes me as being a fair degree of aggrandisement away from, ooh, "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" or "Follow The Leader", say)

I want to also add that A Rush of Blood to the Head is pretty damned pretentious. Not evil or wrong, just pretentious. Makes me like Coldplay just a little bit.

It's unfair to say the whole album focused on the group. "She Watch Channel Zero" and "Night of the Living Baseheads" dealt w/other issues. "Cold Lampin'" was a nice diversion. And "Caught...", while focusing on the group itself, was not about anyone's fascination w/them.

ITANOM... is my fave record ever BTW. The Eminem Show is not.

(smart-ass answer:) Sure! Without the accumulated hatred of a nation of millions, Public Enemy would not have been held back from a successful musical career in which they sold millions of records to that nation. [Obv not accurate.]

(real answer--caution, contains white middle-class guilt:) Without the accumulated racism of a nation of millions, black people would not be held back. [Fairly accurate, if not perhaps a complete realpolitik worldview.]

Why?

'Cos if you don't live in Rochester, or never did, you have no fucking clue who he is.

Felt OWNZ TH1S THR33D

Looky here

My favorites:

"Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty"
"Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death"
"The Strange Idols Pattern And Other Short Stories"
hell, ALL of them...

and the best are the names of the collections.. "Absolute Classic Masterpieces", etc.

LOVE the records, but you could easily choke on the richness of those titles.

I'm so proud...

Kind of implies everyone will be playing their songs from now on.

But yes, Felt wins. They're the most consistent.

Debate over.

- Brilliant Trees (1984)

- Alchemy (1985)

- Words With The Shaman (1986)

- Gone To Earth (1986)

- Secrets Of The Beehive (1987)

- Plight And Premonition (1988)

- Flux + Mutability (1989)

- Rain Tree Crow (1991)

- The Beekeeper's Apprentice (1992)

- The First Day (1993)

- Damage (live, 1994)

- Dead Bees On A Cake (1999)

- Approaching Silence (1999)

- Everything and nothing (anthology, 2000)

yeah sure they aren't all pretentious, but he wins for "secrets of the beehive" & "dead bees on a cake" surely. I think david sylvian is GRATE.

Even beats the laughable 'Melon Collie and the infinite sadness' (oh please... who the f*ck thought this one up..?)

By the way, anyone else heard the rumor that the Streets aren't actually brothers?

By the way, anyone else heard the rumor that the Streets aren't actually brothers?

???

My vote has got to go to This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours. If only for the fact they found the idea that there are many truths, wow! so revolutionary it needed to be put in an album title.

'Melon Collie and the infinite sadness' (oh please... who the f*ck thought this one up..?)

-- russ t, Wednesday, February 26, 2003 5:09 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

It was meant to be a joke, Russ. Taking it seriously meant you missed it. ;-)
-- Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, February 26, 2003 5:14 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

yeah right.

THE JOKE'S ON YOU, BUB!

Even though I'm never sure what is meant by "pretentious" exactly, you've got to doff your cap (and bells) to this old classic:

http://www.ferhiga.com/progre/portadas/marillion-script.jpg

Ornette Coleman Quartet - The Shape of Jazz to Come

True, sure, but pretentious just the same.

Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water

Fulfillingness' First Finale has always bugged the shit out of me.

geir otm

Architecture and Morality

The Daniel Higgs album I just got is called Metempsychotic Melodies.

i don't see how 'chocolate starfish and the hot dog flavored water' is such a pretentious title. surely just misguided and well...pathetic

i'll go with 'from genesis to revelation'

or maybe those sigur ros titles that people are dieliberately not meant to be able to understand... nice gag, fellas

the construKtion of light

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

druqks

or maybe those sigur ros titles that people are dieliberately not meant to be able to understand... nice gag, fellas

-- Charlie Howard, Tuesday, 20 November 2007 14:34 (44 minutes ago) Link

They don't have any titles that people are deliberately not meant to be able to understand. They have songs with improvised sounds as lyrics and songs that don't have titles, but all the rest is purely Icelandic. So either you're saying that everything that isn't English is pretentious, or you're mistaken.

I always thought chocolate starfish was a goof on mellon collie.

'Chocolate starfish and the hot dog flavored water' is Beavis and Butthead style sniggering pretentiousness.

The new Foo Fighters one - what is it, Echoes comma Silence comma Patience & Grace or something? - is a lively piece of complete and utter pretentious wankery.

I always thought chocolate starfish was a goof on mellon collie.

-- Oilyrags, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 7:31 AM (Tuesday, November 20, 2007 7:31 AM) Bookmark Link

You know, you're probably right. Never put that together.

If the title wasn't rediculous enough, this is the tracklist:

1.Black Dragons soar above the Mountain of Shadows - Keyboard Instrumental
2.To dethrone the Witch-Queen of Mytos K'unn (The legend of the battle of Blackhelm Vale)
3.As the Vortex illuminates the cystalline walls of Kor-Avul-Thaa
4.Starfire burning upon the ice-veiled throne of Ultima Thule
5.Journey to the Isle of Mists (Over the moonless depths of night-dark seas)
6.The Splendour of a thousand swords gleaming beneath the blazon of the Hyperborean Empire
7.. And lo, when the Imperium marches against Cul-Kothoth, then dark sorceries shall enshroud the Citadel of the Obsidian Crown
8.Summoning the Guardians of the Astral Gate
9.In the Raven-haunted forests of Darkenhold, where Shadows reign and the hues of sunlight never dance
10.At the altar of the Dreaming Gods

-- Siegbran (eofor), Tuesday, February 25, 2003 11:25 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link
So it's a pub rock record then?

-- Tom (Groke), Tuesday, February 25, 2003 11:26 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

this might be my favorite one-two punch in all ilxdom

did anybody mention I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got?...(I'm too lazy to look)...

Surely Magma must be the most pretentious band ever. They even made up their own language and all of their output - concept albums exlusively - was recorded in that self-made gibberish language. Few of the album titles are really as pretentious as several of the ones mentioned here though.

In an entirely different genre, "Never Mind The Bollocks..... Here's The Sex Pistols" tried so hard to appear extremely unpretentious it actually ended up as one of the most pretentious album titles ever.

It's like that story about the emperor who was naked!

XTRMNTR

Hard to believe they haven't been mentioned yet, but pretty much any of the last three Coheed & Cambria albums:

In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (their second album)
Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness
Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World For Tomorrow

I realize they're all part of some space opera concept thing, hence the wonky numbering... but seriously. W. T. F.

I realize they're all part of some space opera concept thing

did anybody mention I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got?...(I'm too lazy to look)...

WHAT KIND OF FUCKFACE SI TOO LAZY TO PRESS CTRL F SHEEEEESH-O-MONDO

chaki you gotta note that half the posters to the revive think that "pretentious" just means "I don't like it"

Dunno about album-titles, but most pretentious musically-related thing I've ever seen is a Manowar opening track which clocks up at about 20 minutes and is entitled "Agony, Ecstacy and Achilles in Eight Parts".

Suite for Susan Moore and Damion: We Are One, One, All in One

(Susan Moore=Tim Hardin's wife; Damion=his son. Not long after the album's release, Susan and Damion moved across the country to escape Tim and his unbearable heroin addiction. IMHO Tim wasted a fine opportunity to change the album title to Suite for Susan Moore and Damion: Fuck You Guys)

that fiano apple album

Public Enemy - How You Sell Soul To a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?

I win.

stanm, the pretentiousness is more in the intent rather than the fact that the titles are in icelandic. i'm sure the band has some idea that its products are going to reach a global audience, and is conscious of trying to outsmart its naive anglophone listeners with some faux sort of exoticism. i'm certainly not anglocentric, far from it. but sigur ros are simply a pretentious band all round, the sort of band that bluffs people into closing their eyes and thinking they're in some sort of sonic utopia. too obscured, veiled and mysterious for their own good.

I love that title!

I nominate Terence Trent D'arby's entire catalog, or at least his first four. (How many has he got?) Anyone who habitually uses their own name and a possessive "s" in their album titles...And even a colon in the debut for, chrissakes.

i'm sure the band has some idea that its products are going to reach a global audience, and is conscious of trying to outsmart its naive anglophone listeners with some faux sort of exoticism.

I'm not sure I agree- they are titling them in their native language, and they do have fans in Iceland, I'm sure. And besides, Sigur Ros means Victory Rose IIRC, which is pretty pedestrian as far as album titles go. On the other hand, there is no excuse for the fucking parentheses album, packaging and all.

yeah, you're probably right :)

That Aeroplane one by Neutral Milk Hotel or whoever it was.

Actually that was Olivia Tremor Control.

I'm going to state the obvious here, an obvious that others have more than alluded to, but why do so many ILMers interpret "pretentious" as a pejorative? I mean, it can be, but, hey...

And as much as () is, kind of, oddly, pretentious, it's packaging is both pretentious and very beautiful indeed.

I sometimes wonder whether "pretentious" is synonymous with "artistically ambitious".

Pavement, "Westing (By Musket and Sextant)"

That long Fiona Apple poem title ("When the Pawn...") is pretentious in the eyes of many. Me, I think it's neat.

Although I do always find the defence "b-b-but it was s'posed to be a joke" hilariously lame in the face of such accusations. I mean, have the huevos to embrace the pretentiousness (or lack of, whatever) of your music or the music you champion!

And might not "artistically ambitious" also encompass "overreaching"? I mean, this shit ain't simple.

Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Prince_%28artist%29.svg

13 Tales from Urban Bohemia

what's pretentious about druqks? am i missing something?

Bolton Swings Sinatra

that's "Mr." Fuckface to you, chaki...

You know, a "fuckface" is kind of a weird thing to call someone as an insult. YOU ARE A CONTORTED EXPRESSION OF EXTREME PLEASURE! It just doesn't quite work.

I nominate Terence Trent D'arby's entire catalog, or at least his first four. (How many has he got?) Anyone who habitually uses their own name and a possessive "s" in their album titles...And even a colon in the debut for, chrissakes.

yup -- terrence trent d'arby wins this contest hands down. he's the closest thing to a black axl rose as yer gonna get.

it's pretty easy to look up words.

"pretentious: trying to appear or sound more important or clever than you are, especially in matters of art and literature."

'the shape of jazz to come' isn't pretentious, it's accurate. and as a title it's humbler than it sounds.

'in the aeroplane over the sea' isn't pretentious, it refers to a song on the album titled 'in the aaeroplane over the sea' with that line in it describing an aeroplane over the sea. it's not claiming anything and it has a nice roll to it; how that is trying to appear or sound more important or clever than it really is = beyond me.

() is pretentious because a pair of parentheses with nothing in them is trying to appear or sound more important or clever than it really is.

it's fun and easy to apply definitions to things!

peter murphy, deep -- pretentious if meant to convey mr. murphy's opinion as to the quality of that record's songs (not to mention the prior pretentiousness from mr. murphy's bauhaus [itself a pretty pretentious bandname] days, then there's naming yer post-bauhaus band "dali's car"). interestingly enough, the music on deep was probably murphy's most accessible and pop-oriented.

No mention of "This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours" yet?
Although, surely, there are songtitles by the Manics that are even way more pretentious than that one.

'He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms' - A Silver Mount Zion

No mention of "A Whole New Thing" by Sly & The Family Stone.

Giving your debut album such a title speaks of extreme confidence.....

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.. Vol 1.

Supergrass by Supergrass.

No mention of "A Whole New Thing" by Sly & The Family Stone.

Giving your debut album such a title speaks of extreme confidence.....

Yeah, but if it's true (and it was for Sly), it ain't braggin'. Ditto Ornette's The Shape Of Jazz To Come, Cecil Taylor's Jazz Advance, etc.

Those titles were decided by the record companies, though, not the artists.

There's a great 2-in-1 CD reissue of Jazz Advance and Coltrane Time which is credited to Cecil and goes under the name of Hard Drivin' Jazz complete with cover shot of car. Boy are the Les McCann fans in for a shock.

Although I do always find the defence "b-b-but it was s'posed to be a joke" hilariously lame...
Sometimes dude, they're right.

I'll cast a vote for We Are the Architects of Desire, though it's probably not my final answer.

thread should've ended here

I was hoping that would link to the first post but close enough.

I like China Crisis

Yeah, but if it's true (and it was for Sly), it ain't braggin'. }

I do, indeed, agree, that Sly Stone's mixture of soul, funk, hippie music and English psychedelia was actually a whole new thing. But it's still pretentious.

the siegbran/mark s/tom exchanges up above are magnificent

I don't think you actually know what "pretentious" means, Geir. It's not a synonym for "arrogant" or "presumptuous".

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/pretentious

Sydney band Madroom had an album called (deep breath)

"I'm for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top. I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary. I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself".

The quote is from sculptor Claes Oldenburg, apparently. It was a great album in a Birthday Partyish vein, hmmm, what happened to it?

I don't think you actually know what "pretentious" means, Geir. It's not a synonym for "arrogant" or "presumptuous".

Actually, according to your own reference
Arrogant doesn't show up under synonyms for pretentious, but if you keep reading, pretentious does show up under synonyms for Arrogant. As for "presumptuous", one of the first synonyms is "assuming", so, y'know... it does mean those things.
I don't care for squabbles over definitions, but when it's cut and dry like this...

OK, in short (ref: Sly album)

If the album title is true, then it is not pretentious.

I thank you.

B-b-b-but... All those self-titled album titles are objectively true, and nobody can deny that. :)

http://www.phonono.com/pix/sigur-ros-svigar-lg.jpg

http://image.listen.com/img/170x170/4/2/3/2/402324_170x170.jpg

(Those two)

xpost: Right, so Self Titled albums are not pretentious album titles.

That does not stop them from being pretentious band/artist names, however.

It's a pity the Madroom album wasn't actually called (deep breath).

It's not pretentious, but Vintage Cocker does make me giggle.

The parenthesised song subtitles on Hail To the Thief have always sturck me as pretentious, and irritated me to the point where I've deleted the subtitles from the songs' iTunes files.

Radiohead have just committed suicide in sympathy with your heartfelt protest.

in addition, their collective assets have been transferred to your bank account.

Hooray.