When an album is named after a particular track, there's an unspoken expectation that this track will be somehow exceptional, and one of the album's best. However, these six albums were named after songs that ended being their weakest.
1. The Smiths - Meat Is Murder (1985)
When I saw Morrissey live in 2012, he predictably played "Meat Is Murder," as I imagine he does on every tour, and left the audience checking their watches until it was over. The problem with "Meat Is Murder" isn't in its vegetarian message, which is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice, but in its preachy and accusatory tone, not to mention its logically questionable lyrics (killing an animal to be eaten is not "death for no reason," and "death for no reason" is not always murder). The lyrics might be forgivable if Johnny Marr's music was typically exceptional, but instead it's a formless dirge that brings the album to a grinding halt and anticlimactic end.
2. Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
Dear Catastrophe Waitress was the turning point in Belle & Sebastian's sound, when it went from playing lo-fi, '60s-inspired folk pop to its current mode of slick, '70s-inspired pop. Though the album has plenty of classic songs, from "Step Into My Office, Baby" to "If She Wants Me" to "I'm A Cuckoo," one song where the band faltered with its new sound was the title track, which has an intrusive orchestral backing track that sounds like it was taken from the same sessions as "Live & Let Die." Thankfully, it's the shortest track on the album.
3. Cleaners From Venus - Midnight Cleaners (1982)
The Cleaners From Venus album Midnight Cleaners is split into two distinct halves: the "Pop Side" and the "Art Side," and the kind of music on each side should be self-explanatory. The "Art Side," however, gets off to a weak start with the album's title track, a five-minute song (the album's longest) of spoken word vocals over a drum machine, xylophone, some sparse bass, and an incessant saxophone. Luckily, the album picks up immediately afterwards with the stellar "Factory Boy."
4. The Bats - Daddy's Highway (1987)
I wouldn't say that the title track to "Daddy's Highway" is a bad song by any means, but it's still the album's weakest. Coming at the end of the album, it feels more like a rehash of the previous 11 songs than a tremendous album closer. Other than the killer bassline in the intro, there's really nothing else to set it apart.
(I can't find the song on Youtube, so I guess nobody else thinks it's that great, either. Here's another Bats song, instead.)
5. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Maybe it's due to its placement so late in the album, but by the time I reach the title track to Highway 61 Revisited, I find myself wanting to skip over it. It simply comes off as someone other than Dylan trying to write their own Dylan song, and assuming that singing about Bible stories with slang like "puttin' me on" is all it takes.
(Dylan's music isn't on Youtube, so here's PJ Harvey's cool version of the song, instead.)
6. The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1966)
The instrumental title track to Pet Sounds was originally written as the theme for a James Bond film, even though its quirky, tropical atmosphere makes this very difficult to imagine (I suppose that's why it wasn't used). Instead, it was used as Pet Sounds' penultimate track, though when placed after the masterful "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," it definitely seems more like a bizarre detour than anything else.
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