Five albums that don’t sound anything like their titles
Whether by flippant in-joke or carefully considered conceptual anchor, the album title is an overlooked but essential feature of any self-respecting artist’s new record to the world.
It’s important. Some leap into the imagination with comic spectacle, such as The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, others add another layer of cosmic intrigue, as is the case with The Dark Side of the Moon, or on occasion, instil some surreal disquiet just like Locust Abortion Technician.
However, a few albums will out-and-out lie. Perhaps deceit is too strong an accusation, but a handful of records out there have made the conscious decision to sit on shelves and invite an unwitting purchase based on their erroneous title alone. You’d think the faithful hadn’t picked up Songs of Faith and Devotion, expecting a gospel sermon praising the Lord, or the dirty old man slyly lifting This Is Hardcore, anticipating a mucky milkman and housewife porno narrative, but perhaps there are other LPs out there sat in record collections via the misleading error of their specious title?
Whoever’s to blame, we take a look at the albums that wryly or innocently didn’t quite offer what it said on the tin.
Five albums that don’t sound anything like their titles:
Queen – ‘Jazz’
Release Date: November 1978 | Producer: Queen and Roy Thomas Bake | Label: EMI
Now, Queen are well-known for an impressively disparate musical songbook, even crushing multiple far-flung styles into one mini-epic à la ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’s chamber pop bluster. After New of the World’s tougher reaction to the punk, Jazz retreated a little closer to their much-loved theatricality, counting return to form hits like ‘Bicycle Race’ and ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ as they rode out the turbulent end of the 1970s with their rock stature intact.
But jazz? While Queen’s seventh LP effort careens around everything from hard rock, proggy pop, white boy funk and a little sweeping balladry, there isn’t the faintest whiff of jazz to be detected, with the possible exception of ‘Dreamer’s Ball’s old-timey swing pastiche at a push. It turns out that the title, in fact, was inspired by the Montreux Jazz Festival just around the corner from the Swiss Mountain studios where they were recording.
Pixies – ‘Bossanova’
Release Date: August 1990 | Producer: Gil Norton | Label: 4AD
What’s the logical album name for one of the leading forces of the US alternative rock wave as the 1980s passed into the 1990s? A nod to Brazil’s famous samba soundtracks, of course. Frontman Black Francis always possessed a lyrical eccentricity, even from the early days of the Caribou EP, but a new thematic fancy of UFOs and sci-fi over the prior violent surrealism that clouds Doolittle brought Pixies to embrace their third album’s suitably off-kilter and misleading name.
Portuguese for “new trend”, Bossanova will let down any of its namesake fans, but perfectly illustrates the energy that surrounds Pixies’ egaer shake off of expectations, coating their first album of the 1990s with an evocative blend of surf rock and space-age sheen that marked a band decisively entering new terrain.
The Beach Boys – ‘Surf’s Up’
Release Date: August 1971 | Producer: The Beach Boys | Label: Brother/Reprise/Warner Bros
The halcyon days of California’s surfin’ and hot roddin’ felt like ancient history when an exhausted and creatively unsure Beach Boys began work on their 17th studio LP. The surf was very much not up, and the good times felt far, far away through principal songwriter Brian Wilson’s mental health issues and the band’s crisis of credibility through the whirlwind upheaval of the surrounding counterculture.
Such fraughtness permeated all over 1971’s Surf’s Up’. With younger brother Carl at the helm, The Beach Boys dreamed up a record every bit as ruminative as its weary cover. Boasting some fantastic final classic from the band, including the hauntingly brilliant ‘’Til I Die’, The Beach Boys’ last bona fide LP gem is a gripping entry in their pop oeuvre, but don’t expect any sunny pop numbers Surf’s Up’s title winks at.
Dean Blunt – ‘Black Metal’
Release Date: November 2014 | Producer: Dean Blunt | Label: Rough Trade
There’s certainly a cover to match. Save its artfully retained Parental Advisory warning, London producer and jovial cryptic Dean Blunt decided to adopt the full Spinal Tap and drape his second solo album in a total sheet of hard, unforgiving pitch-black.
One listen to Black Metal reveals a veiled half-truth to its title, however. Yes, heavy metal fans will be disappointed, and you’ve got Venom’s same-titled 1982 sophomore if that’s what you’re after, but Blunt certainly brews his intriguing blend of post-punk, folk, and dark grime into a potently shadowy brood, at times sincerely moving while also dramatically engulfing. The title’s in keeping with Blunt’s coy sleight of hand persona, but one listen to ‘Grade’s abyssal terror makes the Black Metal name make all the more sense.
Throbbing Gristle – ‘20 Jazz Funk Greats’
Release Date: December 1979 | Producer: Sinclair/Brooks | Label: Industrial
There’s no greater album title prank than the industrial provocateurs’ third LP offering. Back in 1979, Throbbing Gristle were a firmly underground purveyor of transgressive belligerence without any of the relatively mainstream recognition the “wreckers of civilisation” enjoy today.
So, posturing as a cheap, easy-listening compilation to be picked out of a bargain bin at Woolworths, 20 Jazz Funk Greats could quite plausibly be lifted from the shelves by the hopelessly naïve taken by its pleasing front cover of four smiling band members and a pretty green cliffside surrounded by charming yellow wildflowers.
Needless to say, 20 Jazz Funk Greats erroneously contained quite the opposite of its title’s promise, conjuring Throbbing Gristle’s signature industrial menace and terseness of brittle electronica at the height of their controversy. Imbuing their belying cover with further subversive bite, the cliff face the quartet are posing by is in fact the UK’s Beachy Head on the Sussex coast, one of the country’s most notorious suicide spots.
