Utensils have become popular names for bands recently-- the Knife, Spoon, even the Utensils. While these bands don't push the creative limits with their names, their music more than makes up for their lack of apparent ingenuity. Spoon will be releasing its new album on July 10, entitled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga -- possibly the worst album name ever, right next to Too Fast For Love by Motley Crue and Fungus Amongus by Incubus. I hope that the members of Spoon put more thought into naming their children, then into their albums (although Gimme Fiction and Kill the Moonlight are great titles). Spoon's semantic blunder got me thinking about how bands name their albums. Where does the inspiration come from? Is it the music? Some random idea? Do they pull names out of a hat? Or flip through a dictionary into they find a word that sounds funny?
I remember my brother saying that any title from a song on the album was worthless -- it was a black mark on the band, officially killing any hope of that album ever achieving any commercial, underground, cult popularity. I didn't agree with him. I was listening to Phish's Farmhouse at the time, one of my favorite albums. I had By the Way and Californication from the Red Hot Chili Peppers in rotation. All successful albums in their own right. And there was a multitude of classics that fell under the same category -- Radiohead's Kid A, the Beatles Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour, Blur's Parklife. So what was my brother talking about?
I took his comments in vain for a long time. I listened to a lot of great albums with titles from the songs. I got caught in the hype of the music, the enjoyment of listening. I wasn't until I attempted to make a electronic postmodern album on Garageband (email me for copies) and had to think of an album title that I realized my brother was right. Artists can't name their album after one of the songs. Its absurd. Why put so much effort and time into an album and limit it to one single song? Why not just put out an EP with that song? Market it as a single - put the track in the Itunes music store and let people download it for 99 cents.
The title song defines the entire album. There may be other good tracks, but the final review comes back to that one song. It makes more sense for the artist to just make up a name -- look around your room and pick anything that sticks out: Pabst Blue Ribbon, the color Purple, anything, as long there is some freedom for the rest of the songs.
I understand that this approach is more marketable. Names can be powerful and if gets tossed around enough, people will pay attention and buy the product (like the Axe body wash in my shower or the Starbucks coffee on my desk). Why do you think drug companies give out free stickies and pens? Take By the Way for example. It was the first music video off the album. It played non-stop on MTV and on the one hour that VH1 now shows music videos. People watched the video and remembered the name. Its an easy plug for the whole album.
Music, unfortunately, is a product. It needs to be sold. Artists often succumb to this pressure and sacrifice their creativity and talent for more money. Its a trend that is becoming even more difficult to break and avoid.
But there is hope, especially after Vincent Chase turned down Aquaman 2 for Medellin.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Brandy
