Many albums are written with themes or concepts that run through all of the songs, but some artists chose to place their themes right into the song titles. Here are nine albums with a theme in their song titles.
1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (2011)
Because Justin Vernon is the type of songwriter who chooses lyrics based on how they sound, rather than what they mean, Bon Iver's self-titled 2011 album isn't a concept album in a traditional lyrical sense, but in a musical sense. Vernon has said that each song on the album represents a place, indicated by the song titles such as "Perth," "Calgary," and "Minnesota, WI."
2. The Wedding Present - Seamonsters (1991)
Many of the Wedding Present's earliest songs were given long, Morrissey-esque titles that were often complete sentences, such as "What Did Your Last Servant Die Of?" and "Anyone Can Make A Mistake." In an attempt to break this trend, the band's third album Seamonsters consists entirely of one-word song titles, such as "Dalliance," "Dare," and "Suck."
3. Slint - Tweez (1989)
Most of Slint's songs were originally written and rehearsed as instrumentals, with vocals being included almost as an afterthought, so the songs didn't exactly have choruses or refrains that could be used for song titles. For the band's debut album Tweez, eight out of the nine song titles were taken from the names of the band member's parents, such as "Ron" and "Nan Ding". The only exception was "Rhoda," which was the name of drummer Britt Walford's dog.
4. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief (2003)
Though Radiohead's sixth album is nearly always referred to as Hail to the Thief, the album's complete title is actually Hail to the Thief: The Gloaming. In fact, every song on the album has two titles. For example, the album's opening track is called "2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)," while the album's lead single is titled "There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)," though it was simply titled "There There" for its single release.
5. Sigur Ros - ( ) (2002)
Sigur Ros is a challenging band to talk about for English speakers, because its songs are either given difficult to pronounce Icelandic titles like "Svefn-g-englar", or in the case of its 2002 album ( ), no titles at all. Every track on ( ), otherwise known as "The Untitled Album" or "The Brackets Album," is untitled. However, each song has been given an alternate title such as "Vaka" or "Fyrsta," which are the names that the band members use to refer to the songs.
6. Of Montreal - The Early Four Track Recordings (2001)
Of Montreal could have easily gotten by with releasing a simple compilation of its early, seldom-heard recordings, but it just wouldn't be an Of Montreal album if there wasn't something absurd or whimsical about it. For its 2001 compilation The Early Four Track Recordings, Of Montreal re-titled each song so that the titles tell a surreal, hilarious story of Dustin Hoffman eating his bathtub, starting with "Dirty Dustin Hoffman Needs A Bath" and ending with "Dustin Hoffman's Children Don't Enter the Bathroom."
7. The Magnetic Fields - i (2004)
After releasing a colossal album of love songs in 1999 with 69 Love Songs, the Magnetic Fields went for a simpler concept on its next album i. For this album, each song title begins with the letter "I," and the songs are even sequenced in alphabetical order.
8 & 9. Boredoms - Super æ/Vision Creation Newsun (1998/1999)
Japanese band Boredoms specializes in difficult experimental music, and its song titles reflect this spirit of experimentation. Every song title on the band's 1998 album Super æ starts with the word "Super" (such as "Super You" and "Super Shine") while the songs on 1999's Vision Creation Newsun are titled with symbols instead of words, though the songs are referred to by their symbols, such as "Heart" and "Star".
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