The Nameless

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is bad album names.

Yesterday I was listening to Harry's excellent radio show (Tuesdays 5-6pm on University Radio York) and he played a song by Californian whinge-rockers Hoobastank, from their album For(N)ever. This got me thinking, is that the worst name for an album I've ever heard? Yes. But recently there have been a swarm of terribly named albums, so I thought I'd give you my 10 Worst Album Names Ever. Then I remembered that I'm lazy, so decided to limit it to last year. It's also worth noting that most of these are included because I have a problem with the actual artist. So here are my 10 Worst Album Names Of 2011. As usual, conducted with zero research and even less consideration.

10. Michael Bublé: Christmas - I would love to have been in the primary school classroom in which this name was chosen.

9. True Widow: As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumference Of The Earth - I've never heard any True Widow, but if their music is as unwieldy and pretentious as that album name, I never want to.

8. Owl City: All Things Bright And Beautiful - gggfhvghgggggg Oh sorry, I fell asleep on the keyboard.

7. Jennifer Lopez: Love? - No?

6. Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues - When naming albums, some words should just be avoided. On that list, above Residue and Pudding is Helplessness. It's barely even a word. And it feels like it goes on forever. Which is appropriate, because it's by folksy bore-block Fleet Foxes.

5. Adele: 21 - Don't hate Adele for her appearance; hate her for her music. Hate her for complaining about having to pay tax on her earnings from the sale of 6.5 million copies of her first album. She said that upon receiving that tax bill, "I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire." It's almost a shame she didn't, because she'd have been sent to prison, where she wouldn't be able to release more albums. That first album was called 19, because that's how old she was when writing it, and this one is called 21, because that's how old she was when writing it. That seems face-punchingly lazy, but in fairness, she does look sleepy on the cover.

4. Earth: Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light I - Having looked them up, Earth seem like a band I might really like. Which is a shame, because I will never ever listen thanks to this laughably self-important album name which sounds like Dan Brown-meets-Spinal Tap. Here's a tip: Never release albums split into Part 1 and Part 2. You're not writing Henry IV. Let's look at the rest of Earth's album names:

Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version

Phase 3: Thrones and Dominions

Pentastar: In the Style of Demons

Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method

The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II

Ok I've genuinely changed my mind, those are brilliant names, I'm downloading them all now.

3. Beyoncé: 4 - So called because it's her fourth album, making Adele's system look like creative wizardry.

2. Ed Sheeran: + - For me, Ed Sheeran is filed under "Things I hate despite never having heard or seen them", alongside the Zooey Deschanel sitcom New Girl. Incidentally, I just looked her up to find that her albums are called Volume One, Volume Two and A Very She & Him Christmas. Nice how these things all come together. But when I found out that Ed Sheeran had called his album + I spent days and days deliberately and repeatedly stubbing my toe on a brick.

1. Florence + the Machine: Ceremonials - Florence Welch and her brother The Machine Welch are seemingly omnipresent; the Abi Morgan of music. One of their typically whiney songs was used in this week's episode of How I Met Your Mother, as if a special committee had got together to specifically design the worst thing for me. Album names of a single word can be brilliant, but only when that word is well-chosen. Unlike Ceremonials, which just sounds too similar to Cereal or Chlamydial.

Thanks for reading, I'll leave you with the Slipknot song that this blog is named after, from the suitably terribly-titled album Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses). Enjoy!