After the cool band names threads and stuff I wondered about album titles.
I have a few which I have seen
A prayer under the pressure of violent anguish
We have come for your parents
Chocolate starfish and the hotdog flavoured water 
The hour of the bewilderbeast
Bow down to the exit god
The fat of the land
These are all real album titles.
It makes you wonder sometimes.
Rick
It’s always fun to learn why bands titled their band or album the way they did.
I’ve heard the phrase “Mona Lisa Overdrive” but I don’t know what it refers to.
A novel by William Gibson.
There are a lot of odd album titles. For instance:
Saturate before using (Jackson Browne’s first album)
First Pull Up, then Pull Down (Hot Tuna – Bonus Points for the album’s more mundate alternate name)
You Can Tune A Piano, but You Can’t Tuna Fish (REO Speedwagon)
She Broke My Heart So I Busted Her Jaw (Spooky Tooth)
The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse (Bonzo Dog Band)
The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get (Joe Walsh)
Too Much Joy almost called one of their albums “Don’t Worry, Bea Arthur”, which I think is a great title. They never did use it, so I guess it’s up for grabs if anyone else wants it!
Cool ones:
Bread and Jam for Frances
Ixnay on the Hombre
“Bringing Down the Horse” - possibly too clever for its own good
“Weasels Ripped My Flesh” - and I’m not into Zappa (PS. “Rzzzzzzzz”)
“Revolver”
“Out of the Blue” - ELO, NOT Debbie Gibson
“…but, seriously folks” - MISTER Joe Walsh
“Plastic Surgery Disasters” - Dead Kennedys. I mean, Jello Biafra?
“Dream Police” - Cheap Trick (cool band name, too)
“Face the Music” - ELO
“Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply” - Slade
I seem to recall an album called “Scrape the Foetus Off The Wheel”. I don’t know if this was the group or the album title, but it has stuck with me since high school. Also a really good indie album by a group called SNFU titled “If You Swear You’ll Catch No Fish”.
Well…that album was also the name of the band, at the time. It’s a project of Jim Thriwell(sp?), also seen as You’ve got Foetus on your Breath and Foetus Inc.
" In Case You Didnt Feel Like Showing Up" -Ministry , a live album
" Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" - Kid Koala , not so weird after you heard him scratching
plus theres a Kid 606 track called " it takes millions in plastic surgery to make me black" (as opposed to Public Enemys “it takes a nation of millions to hold us back”)
oh,teh funnay !
Well, not an album title, but one album with some pretty good song titles is Don Caballero’s American Don. They include:[ul]
Uncle Meat (Frank Zappa)
Lark’s Tongue in Aspic (King Crimson)
have to start with, back from high school days, the dayglo abortions’ “feed us a fetus.” my friend ben got sent home about every other week for wearing the shirt to school.
recent times:
stars “a lot of little lies for the sake of one big truth”
the silver jews who put out a single billing them as “the silver jews and nico”
ultra bide (a japanese noise band) have an album called “god is god, puke is puke.”
i never heard the album, but soul asylum’s “soul asylum and the horse they rode in on” always makes me laugh when i see it flipping through the used CD racks.
oh yes, heavenly’s “the decline and fall of heavenly.” the cover has a picture of a tiny charcoal-black kitten wearing a laurel wreath on its head surrounded by roman columns made of cut-out paper- it’s so cute it just kills me every time, the picture and title together.
the sixths like to annoy their fans by making their album titles (and their own name!) hard to pronounce- “wasp’s nests” and “hyacinths and thistles.” stephin merritt is a curmudgeon.
i forget the band, but they’re hardcore i think, and the song title is “i’m like yeah but she’s all no” and that cracks me up, it’s so short yet speaks volumes.
stuff i just don’t get: kendra smith named her last album “five ways of disappearing” but she never alludes to the title anywhere on the album or in the liner notes. what does it mean?
it’s hard to think up general stuff that isn’t funny because of in-jokes! fun thread. my favorite so far is “don’t worry, bea arthur.” that just cracks me up, anamorphic. i think i had cereal killers?
-fh
Not a music album, per se, but still great: Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers.
– Bob
SNFU is a great band. Other title from SNFU
‘Better than a stick in the eye’
‘Something green and leafy this way comes’.
I highly recommend them.
How about Trust In God, But Tie Up Your Camel by Bill Ding. Also by Bill, “The Horrendously Named” EP and And The Sound Of Adventure.
BTW, Hot Tuna’s label nixed their first band name, Hot Shit, for obvious reasons. They didn’t catch the joke on the second choice, so Hot Tuna it was.
We won’t even TALK about the Lovin’ Spoonful…
I always thought Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” was a cool title.
Fastball “All the Pain Money Can Buy” or one of George Carlin’s CD’s “What Am I Doing in New Jersey?” are also funny.
If we’re going in for comedy, most of the Firesign Theater albums had great (and wierd) titles:
Waiting for the Electrician, or Somone Like Him
How Can You Be Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All?
I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus
Not Insane or Anything You Want To
Everything You Know is Wrong
The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra
Give me Immortality or Give Me Death
Ah…the name of a wonderful children’s book I used to adore! The Frances Books!-anyone remember?
Wasn’t Cereal Killer from Green Jelly?
Of course, there’s always
“Saergent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
Alanis’s “Jagged Little Pill” title always intrigued me, as did Bush’s “Razor Blade Suitcase.” And of course, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.”
An old one from Brian Eno; Here Come the Warm Jets.
It features such songs as:
Needles In the Camel’s Eye
The Paw-Paw Negro Blowtorch
Dead Finks Don’t Talk
and my personal favorite,
Baby’s On Fire