Titling an album is tough, especially in the era of people being averse to giving a hoot about new music. How do you sum up your artistic intentions in a few words that will look good on a five-inch-square piece of cardboard jammed into a big-box retailer’s rackspace? Unfortunately, some artists have been tripped up by the process so badly that we had to step in and gently tell them that they may not be rocking such a great look, word-wise. After the jump, five examples of really bad album titles that are on the way to a music retailer near you. (NB: Mew’s No More Stories Are Told Today I’m Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories the World Is Grey I’m Tired Let’s Wash Away gets a pass today, because their set at the Pitchfork Music Festival last night was absolute bliss.)
ARTIST: Tokio Hotel.
ALBUM: Humanoid.
RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2.
WHY IT’S A BAD TITLE: My objection is not so much rooted in the title itself—c’mon, frontman Bill Kaulitz looks like a fusion between a person and a robot—as a statement on the album that MTV got a hold of: “This word is pronounced differently in the English and German language but is written the same way in both languages. Bill wanted the new record to have only one name worldwide: Humanoid.” German and English hegemony? Kind of a scary future there!
ARTIST: Mariah Carey.
ALBUM: Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel.
RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25.
WHY IT’S A BAD TITLE: 39-year-olds are too young to be writing memoirs, especially ones whose wonky titles don’t turn into good acronyms. Can we blame Elizabeth Wurtzel for this? (And for the cover, too?)
ARTIST: Lil Mama
ALBUM: Voice of the Young People: I Am That.
RELEASE DATE: Unknown.
WHY IT’S A BAD TITLE: Lil Mama, I love your flashy style, but you might want to work on updating your branding—you’ll be 20 soon, and that’s a little long in the tooth to be claiming any youngster-related generational mantles.
ARTIST: 50 Cent.
ALBUM: Before I Self Destruct.
RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29.
WHY IT’S A BAD TITLE: Given the number of delays this particular project has seen, you’d think that the self-immolation in question was at least as overdue as Curtis’ stripper-pole-stuffed mansion’s sell-by date.
ARTIST: Jet.
ALBUM: Shaka Rock.
RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25.
WHY IT’S A BAD TITLE: Four Monkeys Pissing would have been so much better.
i love how you think lil mama is almost 20.
@silkyjumbo: ha, i’m just proving that she’s too old to be called ‘young’ even if you believe her publicist-approved birthdate!
Woot!!! A Tokio Hotel Mention.
I love the I Am That in that Lil Mama title, as though simply naming her album Voice of the Young People did not declare her self-appointed position quite strongly enough, anticipating future reviews in which critics would be all, “Is she really the voice of the young people? IS SHE?” and heading them off at the pass, because you know what? She is that.
Wait. Huh? Humanoid is scary because it is the same word in English and German?
So it matters not English is from a Germanic language?
A lot of English words have roots in German, and lot of computer, techy, English words are being used in other languages.
@BradNelson: Agreed. I think it’s hilarious.
Also not sure why you have a problem with the Mariah album title…you DO know it’s a Mariah Carey album, right? I mean, you know who this woman is? This would be merely a dumb/goofy album title for most artists, and would be far too intending-to-be-serious for a Madonna album, but in the context of Mariah Carey, I think this album title is literally perfect - even better for its cheese/camp/ridic value than “E=MC^2″ or “The Emancipation of Mimi.”
And the cover art is very 90’s-retro for me - another good look for Mariah, as those were her glory years.
@Incandesent: Their next album will be Hamburger. Or maybe Volkswagon.
@Maura: Plus it probably won’t be released until 2014 or so…
@k-rex: Fahrvergnugen?
I don’t give a crap about what the next Tokio Hotel album is called. I’m just sad that I live in a world where it exists.
And, oh man, I just read that Mariah title! Yeowch! That’s the title of someone’s now defunct LiveJournal!