There are some albums where everything comes together perfectly: the music, the lyrics, the cover, the title, everything. However, some of the greatest albums of all time were given titles that don't serve the music at all. Here are nine great albums that were given awful titles.
1. The Beatles - Rubber Soul (1965)
Paul McCartney came up with the title Rubber Soul as a play on the term "plastic soul," which was once used to describe Mick Jagger, but Plastic Soul sounds much cooler than Rubber Soul. Honestly, I think of condoms when I hear it.
2. Green Day - Dookie (1994)
The original title for Dookie was the infinitely grosser Liquid Dookie, but I would have preferred it if Green Day just named it something else entirely. I'd probably talk about Green Day a lot more if I wasn't forced to say and subsequently think about "dookie" when talking about the band's best album.
3. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)
The Smashing Pumpkin's first two albums, Gish and Siamese Dream, have very strange yet mysterious album titles that totally work. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, on the other hand, is not only a nonsensical pun (is "Mellon" an actual first name?), but it also leaves absolutely no sense of mystery.
4. My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything (1988)
While I'm not a big fan of any of My Bloody Valentine's album titles (Loveless is too mopey, and mbv is lazy), Isn't Anything is my least favorite because of its sheer blandness. I would have assumed it was one of those titles that are supposed to be said along with the band name, as in My Bloody Valentine Isn't Anything, but the album title doesn't even appear on the cover.
5. Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children (1998)
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, and even if it did mean something, it would still sound clunky and awkward, which are two adjectives that never come to mind when listening to Boards of Canada.
6. DJ Shadow - Endtroducing... (1996)
DJ Shadow named his debut album Endtroducing... because it was the "fourth and final chapter" of work he was doing with "a certain sound, a certain tone, a certain atmosphere." Still, a bad pun is a bad pun, even if it actually means something.
7. Real Estate - Days (2011)
I can't think of a more boring album title than the one Real Estate chose for its second album. Even The would have been a more exciting title, because it's not a word we're used to seeing on its own. "Days" is a word that doesn't bring anything at all to mind by itself.
8. A Silver Mt. Zion - He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms... (2000)
The fact that there's an ellipsis at the end of this absurdly long title suggests that there's even more to it, so at least the band isn't totally pretentious, or they would have included all of it.
9. Cap'n Jazz - Schmap'n Schmazz (1995)
Technically, this isn't the real title. The real title is Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On, and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over. Any one of those by itself could have been a good title, but putting them all together ruins every one of them.
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