Unfortunate Album Titles

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According to this story, R. Kelly's next record is to be called Chocolate Factory. Seeing as he's being accused of possessing kiddie porn and having sex with underaged girls, I'd say that Chocolate Factory is kind of an, ahem, interesting album title.

Any others that you can think of -- it doesn't have to be related to the star's [alleged or actual] criminal activity, it could just be a really stupid album title (like REO Speedwagon's You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish).

Tad (llamasfur), Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Avril Lavigne will regret calling her album Let Go in a few years, when her label drops her.

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Kraftwerk - "Radio-Activity" - the follow-up to a bona-fide charting single that got no attention whatsoever from mainstream Amurrican radio

Clarke B., Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:13 (twenty-three years ago)

'Vanishing Point' was the last thing PS did that was remotely interesting

dave q, Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Gerling - When Young Terrorists Chase The Sun, released days after 9-11.

Mil, Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:21 (twenty-three years ago)

"John Lennon Live in New York City" is pretty unfortunate.

tom (alternate), Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Killing Joke: "Laugh? I Nearly Bought One!"

tom (alternate), Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, Cut the Crap, obviously.

gazuga (gazuga), Thursday, 23 January 2003 10:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Comsat Angels' debut _Waiting for a Miracle_ -- they deserved one, but they never got it.

Clarke B., Thursday, 23 January 2003 10:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Pork Soda would have to be my least favorite album title of all time. It is,however,an accurate description of Primus:gassy,greasy,tastes bad and bad for you.
My favorite thing is when aging rockers put out albums with horrible titles that seem to be desperate attempts to appear edgey or indie. Examples:Paul Westerberg-Suicaine Gratifaction,Wilco-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Scott Seward, Thursday, 23 January 2003 12:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean EDGY. Or maybe I mean ledgey.

Scott Seward, Thursday, 23 January 2003 12:54 (twenty-three years ago)

what's edgy about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot ?

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Street Survivors (but not air/tree/field.)

dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 23 January 2003 13:16 (twenty-three years ago)

It's not edgy. It's a ham-fisted attempt to appear "weird".

Scott Seward, Thursday, 23 January 2003 13:19 (twenty-three years ago)

doesn't seem that way to me.. doesn't seem weird or seem like it's attempting to be weird....

dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 23 January 2003 13:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Anytime some boring rockers name their album after some random things they hear on a shortwave radio they are attempting to be arty or weird.The reason that you don't think it's weird or an attempt to be weird is because they failed so badly.

Scott Seward, Thursday, 23 January 2003 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

"Proof of Utah" named after an overheard coversation in a Denny's. Best name ever, ifyouaskme.

Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Thursday, 23 January 2003 14:02 (twenty-three years ago)

It works if you have a good sense of the absurd or the poetic in life. But sometimes it just comes out wrong. Wilco are too mundane and normal to get it right. Example: Summer Teeth. It's just dumb like a thousand other band names/titles are dumb.Some people are just better at it is all.

Scott Seward, Thursday, 23 January 2003 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Martine McCutcheon - Musicality. Thus it happens to share its name with Salako's last record, which is not so much an unfortunate thing, more a very, very confusing one.

William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Thursday, 23 January 2003 14:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Michael Jackson owns this thread.

My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Thursday, 23 January 2003 15:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Street Survivors

remember they changed the cover art too after the plane crash...took out the flames that surrounded the group on the first version and put in a street background.

teeny (teeny), Thursday, 23 January 2003 16:37 (twenty-three years ago)

"Hey Man, Smell My Finger"

Worst. Album. Title. Ever.

mike a (mike a), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Billy Ray Cyrus, "It Won't Be The Last."

What's unfortunate is that it proved correct.

TMFMTL
http://intonation.blogspot.com

TMFTML (TMFTML), Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:00 (twenty-three years ago)

- SONGS FROM THE ELDER by Kiss
- AURAL SCULPTURE by the Stranglers
- AUTOGEDDON by Julian Cope
- NEXTDOORLAND by the Soft Boys
- CONSTRUCITON FOR THE MODERN IDIOT by the Wonder Stuff

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned The Kids Are Alright by the Who yet.

original bgm, Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:07 (twenty-three years ago)

NEXTDOORLAND by the Soft Boys
Explain?

Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:10 (twenty-three years ago)

It's just a bad title.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Uncle Kracker's "No Stranger to Shame" seems to be begging for some kind of caught-masturbating-in-a-movie-theatre incident.

TMFTML (TMFTML), Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Ooooh....Public Enemy:

MUSE SICK N HOUR MESS AGE and REVOLVERLUTION

I mean.....come on!

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

It's just such a shame, as FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET and IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK (which a friend of mine continually refers to as IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO BELIEVE THE HYPE) are quite good titles, I think.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 23 January 2003 18:41 (twenty-three years ago)

_Da Bomb_, a fitting name for Kriss-Kross's 2nd album.

fletrejet, Thursday, 23 January 2003 19:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Unfortunate title -- the new one by the Scene Creamers (Ian Svenonious' band), I Suck On That Emotion. I would have advised him not to use the words "I suck" in anything relating to him.

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 23 January 2003 19:58 (twenty-three years ago)

No mention of Biggie Smalls' Ready to Die?

Curtis Stephens, Thursday, 23 January 2003 20:52 (twenty-three years ago)

it's been said before, but george michael's "listen without prejudice, volume one" is a really awful title.

chris smith, Friday, 24 January 2003 02:16 (twenty-three years ago)

"Shark Sandwich", surely ranks in here somewhere. And "Intravenus de Milo"...

pauls00, Friday, 24 January 2003 02:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Happy Mondays' Yes Please! was an open goal for critics who gleefully slammed it into the top corner with a barrage of "No thanks"es.

Charlie (Charlie), Friday, 24 January 2003 02:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Black Sabbath,
"Technical Ecstasy" - the former in unimpressive evidence, the latter missing totally

t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Friday, 24 January 2003 02:57 (twenty-three years ago)

hefner's dead media. its sales never really came alive

electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 24 January 2003 03:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Dan's Genesis hype on the Phil Collins thread reminded me that Tony Banks is actually the one who, while not "owning" the thread, most certainly is the most likely to bore it to death with his first solo album - Bankstatement.

The album cover is equally dry -
http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGCOVERS/music/cover200/drf000/f094/f09474qwjlu.jpg

Perhaps he was trying to fast-track - making his way into bargain bins in record time.

Kim (Kim), Friday, 24 January 2003 03:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Look out...here comes a Log Bomb!

http://www.boblog111.com/images/trike.gif

Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 24 January 2003 05:11 (twenty-three years ago)

what's wrong with autogeddon? a concept album about the end of the world brought about by the automobile, seems perfectly apt.

keith (keithmcl), Friday, 24 January 2003 05:54 (twenty-three years ago)

AUTOgeddon is a really weak, clumsy pun.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 24 January 2003 07:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Derek Bell's (of the Chieftains) solo album where he plays all the instruments himself is called "Derek Bell Plays With Himself".

tigerclawskank, Friday, 24 January 2003 12:39 (twenty-three years ago)

every time that Kelly Osbourne thread pops up in new answers i think: what a daft choice for an LP title

zebedee, Friday, 24 January 2003 13:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Anastacia, 'Freak of Nature'

dave q, Friday, 24 January 2003 15:01 (twenty-three years ago)

the music - the music

willem (willem), Friday, 24 January 2003 15:08 (twenty-three years ago)

I Am the World Trade Centre. The 11th track on the album was called 'September'. This was, of course, produced and sold months before the attack.

robotman, Friday, 24 January 2003 15:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Meredith Brooks's second album "Bad Bad One"

Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 24 January 2003 15:15 (twenty-three years ago)

"Intravenus de Milo"... Roxor! Spïñäl Täp always had ze best album titles!
I should start barking "Smell the Glove!" the same way that Alex in NYC demands we "Honour the Fire!"

Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 24 January 2003 15:17 (twenty-three years ago)

I Am the World Trade Centre. The 11th track on the album was called 'September'. This was, of course, produced and sold months before the attack.
This is because the band members are in league with al-Qaeda and that album was a signal.

Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 24 January 2003 15:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Is that true about the 11th track? Because my overanxious bullshit detector is screaming urban myth on that one.

Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 24 January 2003 15:20 (twenty-three years ago)

BORN ON A PIRATE SHIP is funny as a title (though the band in question are crap). You know the origin of that, don't you? Try saying it with your fingers in your mouth and see how it sounds.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 26 January 2003 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, I sort of thought that it was unfortunate that they both named the album that and put the kid on the cover like that. Heh.

Lex, Sunday, 26 January 2003 00:35 (twenty-three years ago)

sadly-in-denial type titles : sly stone made a album called something like "heard you missed me, well i'm back" & then another one called "back on the right track", i never heard em but i bet those're pretty desperate don't-call-it-a-comeback attempts.
also when bands call their hits albums "greatest hits...so far" or something, you know it means they know it's over for em.

duane (24 hour troubleshooter), Sunday, 26 January 2003 03:30 (twenty-three years ago)

"Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends..."
- ELP

t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Sunday, 26 January 2003 03:59 (twenty-three years ago)

"cut the crap" is a way dumb cruising-for-a-bruising title, but it's still the least worst clash LP since "the clash"

mark s (mark s), Sunday, 26 January 2003 15:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Didn't Jean-Michael Vincent (as Tubbs from "Miami Vice") put out an album called JUST LIKE I PLANNED IT?.....an album that INVARIABLY ended up in the Cut-Price bargain bins within a week of its release. Yeah, Jean, just like you planned it, alright!

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 26 January 2003 16:11 (twenty-three years ago)

You're thinking Philip Michael Thomas.
Jean Michael Vincent was the guy from Airwolf.

Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Sunday, 26 January 2003 18:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Does "No Parlez" translate as "Unspeakable"?

Tom (Groke), Sunday, 26 January 2003 18:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Ack, you're right, my lord. May the gods of pastel t-shirts and rolled up blazer sleeves forgive my insolant ignorance.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 26 January 2003 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Stringfellow Hawke is da Man, even if he does have a dorky name!
The only actor in the world (besides possibly Clint Eastwood) who could win in an 'evil squinting' contest against Charles Bronson.

Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Sunday, 26 January 2003 22:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Here's an obvious one - "Middle of Nowhere" by Hanson. Rather jinxed themselves with that title I reckon.

Philip Alderman (Phil A), Monday, 27 January 2003 20:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't there also the theory that anyone who names their album FOREVER is dooming themselves? (Bobby Brown, Spice Girls, Puff Daddy)

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 27 January 2003 20:44 (twenty-three years ago)

two months pass...
Abbaration - A Tribute To ABBA
CD
£3.99

This one's real and not a joke or anything. I reckon they got confused between 'adoration' and 'abberation' somewhere.

mei (mei), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:08 (twenty-three years ago)

i answered this here

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Not an album title, but Shalamar's last UK Top 20 single was called "Disappearing Act"

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't there also the theory that anyone who names their album FOREVER is dooming themselves? (Bobby Brown, Spice Girls, Puff Daddy)

In P.Diddy's case, the album title was just a description of its playing time...

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:09 (twenty-three years ago)

"Let It Be" was kind of a good description of what probably ought to have been that particular album's fate....

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Alex in NYC: BORN ON A PIRATE SHIP is funny as a title (though the band in question are crap). You know the origin of that, don't you? Try saying it with your fingers in your mouth and see how it sounds.

Um, I've tried, but I haven't really come up with anything. Help!

Also: Does this mean this record belongs here?

OleM (OleM), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 21:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Joe Walsh, Got Any Gum? remains the all-time bad-album-title champ

M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 22:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Supposedly, Andrew WK's new album will be called 'Blow Your Bone' which sends me into giggling fits.

Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 22:35 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...
Revive.

Pretty Boy Floyd- Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz.

Does it get any worse?

cdwill, Saturday, 13 November 2004 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

"Let It Be" was kind of a good description of what probably ought to have been that particular album's fate....

Don't think they weren't aware of that...

Bob Six (bobbysix), Saturday, 13 November 2004 10:32 (twenty-one years ago)

cdwill, you DJ at KXLU?

Anyway, Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz isn't nearly as unfortunate as the band's fate, but that album title is exactly what they were trying to project, and it's unforgettably amusing. So, can't say it's unfortunate.

Todd Rundgren owns this thread:
* Todd Rundgren Runt: The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren
* Todd Rundgren A Wizard/A True Star
* Todd Rundgren Todd
* Todd Rundgren The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect

Felt completely own this thread, and their albums are even better
* Felt Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty
* Felt Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death
* Felt Forever Breathes The Lonely Word
* Felt Absolute Classic Masterpieces Vol. 1 (and Vol 2. as well)

(Actually, in all of the above, the more unfortunate the album title, the less unfortunate the actual album is.. and vice versa)

Others where the unfortunate album title was a signal for the album quality:
* Built To Spill Ancient Melodies Of The Future ("I know! we'll, uh, have two conflicting words in the title... oh forget it")

* Starship Knee Deep In The Hoopla ("Someone's always playing corporation games!... who cares, they're always making shitty album names!")

* Liliput More Songs (fine band, until this album.. the title pretty much describes the enthusiasm in the record perfectly... "oh.. well.. yeah.. some *yawn* songs")

* AC/DC '74 Jailbreak (EP of great outtakes that were all released after 1974... exactly what the title implies. ?????)

* A House On Our Big Fat Merry-Go-Round (Winner of the Out-Morrissey-the-first-Morrissey-album-title contest of the year 1988)



donut bitch (donut), Saturday, 13 November 2004 11:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Donut, I'm on the other coast. So I won't be asking for donations to the 'Fundrazor' anytime soon.

cdwill, Saturday, 13 November 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Gary Glitter: Touch Me

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 13 November 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

No mention of Biggie Smalls' Ready to Die?

Well, quite. The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album, released when he was alive, was 'Ready To Die'. Then his follow-up, released when he was dead, was 'Life After Death'.

Momus (Momus), Sunday, 14 November 2004 11:40 (twenty-one years ago)

By the way, Biggie continues to enjoy an odd sort of life after death, the kind that only art can gift. Here's Jerry Saltz on Paul Chan's exhibition at Greene Naftali:

'In a darkened gallery at Greene Naftali, Chan has suspended a long, narrow, two-sided screen. Projected on both sides is a desolate landscape with a barren tree. Smoke billows and birds gather, stars traverse the night sky, sunrise and sunset come and go, and an interval of Rothko-like haze appears midway. Early on, a vulture pilfers Biggie Smalls's coat and brings it to a naked man (supposedly Pasolini) on the reverse screen. Later, photographers fire flashbulbs, lovers kiss, and hunters kill the birds. In one of the seven sequences, reams of paper blow through the air in a Jeff Wall/Hiroshige-like tempest. Finally, an army of suicide bombers triggers an Armageddon. All this to the sound of chirping birds and ringing cell phones. Chan combines history, desire, and revelation with nightmare—what the Bible called "the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen."'

Momus (Momus), Sunday, 14 November 2004 12:05 (twenty-one years ago)

What about that wanker that covered Tears for Fears for the Donnie Darko soundtrack. Wasn't his album called something like 'Trading Snake Oil for Wolf Tickets' or something?

Sasha (sgh), Monday, 15 November 2004 00:33 (twenty-one years ago)


http://www.cmt.com/shared/media/images/amg_covers/200/drf400/f404/f40435zmoj4.jpg

How disappointed I was to pick up Dottie West's Suffer Time only to discover is wasn't really her roots reggae album at all.

briania (briania), Monday, 15 November 2004 03:19 (twenty-one years ago)

this thread is a treasure b/c (a) DONUT BITCH IS BACK YAY! and (b) momus seems to be a fan of biggie!!

Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 15 November 2004 03:57 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

is it possible that the new Dave Matthews Band record, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King takes the WOAT award? it's almost so bad it's good, especially when you see the cover, but not quite.

the dessert speaks (gabbneb), Monday, 25 May 2009 02:31 (seventeen years ago)

I'm still coming to grips with the fact the the 11th track on that I Am The World Trade Center album was called "September"...that is some weird, wild stuff...

henry s, Monday, 25 May 2009 02:40 (seventeen years ago)

I pass by this restaurant at least three times a week.

•--• --- --- •--• (Pleasant Plains), Monday, 25 May 2009 02:40 (seventeen years ago)

And really, any album title that is "____ _____ and the _____ ______" is rather unfortunate.

•--• --- --- •--• (Pleasant Plains), Monday, 25 May 2009 02:41 (seventeen years ago)

Isn't there also the theory that anyone who names their album FOREVER is dooming themselves? (Bobby Brown, Spice Girls, Puff Daddy)

This didn't happen with Wu-Tang though. They're still around, and they followed Forever with an even better album.

Tuomas, Monday, 25 May 2009 07:43 (seventeen years ago)

Again not an album title, but the last song Eddie Cochran recorded before his fatal crash was "Three Steps To Heaven".

Geir Hongro, Monday, 25 May 2009 09:22 (seventeen years ago)

Re upthread. "Bankstatement" was not Tony Banks' first solo album. It was his fourth, except it wasn't a solo album because Bankstatement was the name of the band the album was supposed to be recorded by.

He has done the same trick later too - maybe thinking the fact that he doesn't sing himself makes him more likely to succeed if being marketed as part of a band (kind of the way Mike Rutherford has actually succeeded)

Geir Hongro, Monday, 25 May 2009 09:26 (seventeen years ago)

And really, any album title that is "____ _____ and the _____ ______" is rather unfortunate.

http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/e/elton-john/album-captain-fantastic-and-the-brown-dirt-cowboy.jpg

Slowly Rotating Black Man (Pancakes Hackman), Monday, 25 May 2009 13:42 (seventeen years ago)

hmm

http://c.ilike.com/w/0343/353/0343353735_l.jpg

the dessert speaks (gabbneb), Monday, 25 May 2009 14:20 (seventeen years ago)

"Forever" by Roy Wood, not regretted by the artist.

Mark G, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 10:12 (seventeen years ago)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TiGcteoUXNw/SOfwm51hxII/AAAAAAAAAO0/2rgDBNXC7Hc/s320/Rod+Stewart+-+Out+Of+Order.jpeg

I saw several negative reviews referring to this title as very descriptive indeed.

Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 10:30 (seventeen years ago)

one year passes...

no kill no beep beep

kkvgz, Saturday, 2 April 2011 23:24 (fifteen years ago)

Aerosmith - Honkin' on Bobo

corey, Saturday, 2 April 2011 23:28 (fifteen years ago)

five years pass...

"Dead Bees on a Cake"

*shudder*

Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 21 June 2016 15:34 (nine years ago)

four years pass...

Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet

it's not that bad, but as a kid I took it to mean God was playing basketball and got called for traveling

Filibuster Poindexter (Neanderthal), Saturday, 24 April 2021 13:36 (five years ago)

Rubber Soul

Ha ha ha.

pomenitul, Saturday, 24 April 2021 13:52 (five years ago)

Aerosmith - Honkin' on Bobo

― corey, Saturday, April 2, 2011 6:28 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

No. Absolutely not. In 50 years no one will remember a single Aerosmith song but they will remember “Honkin on Bobo”

frogbs, Saturday, 24 April 2021 19:56 (five years ago)

ten months pass...

Many people did.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Dfl4GEd+L._SS500_.jpg

Portsmouth Bubblejet, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 10:14 (four years ago)


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