Ten Albums Whose Title Tracks Aren't On Them

When an artist releases an album, they can of course give it pretty much any name they want. Many an artist goes the 'self-titled' route (some, like Elvis Presley and Duran Duran do that more than once), some give their albums abstract titles with no real connection to, well, to anything. Some (say Fiona Apple for example) give their albums ludicrous names that make them laughing-stocks or some (say Led Zepplein) give them glyphs as names and are seen as eternally cool as a result.

By far the most common way to name an album is to give it the same name as one of your songs: in most cases, that song itself is released as a single, and the resultant 'synergy' (I hate that word) helps the success of both the single and the album. The average punter, interest piqued by a hit song on the radio, knows exactly which album to buy in the store. Er, well, most of these albums go back to the 70s, 80s and 90s. You know, when that's how people consumed music.

When an artist names an album after a song, you presume (quite rightly) that the song will actually be on its namesake album. That's not always the case, though, and here are ten artists going against the grain. In each case, there is a song. And there is a namesake album. But the namesake album is not, for whatever reason, where you find the song. Just to confuse people, I guess.

1.	COLOUR BY NUMBERS BY CULTURE CLUB: With decades of hindsight to dismiss Boy George and Culture Club as 80s pap at its worst, it's a pleasant surprise to actually listen to this album again and hear with your own ears how excellent it actually is. You won't find the title track there, though: for that you'll have to look on the b-side of album track 'Miss Me Blind', which incidentally includes 'kissing to be clever' in its lyrics: making it a kind of title track for the previous album, which had no proper title track.
2.	SCREAMADELICA BY PRIMAL SCREAM: Primal Scream's 'great leap forward' smiley-face classic managed two different versions of the same song ('Higher Than the Sun') but somehow didn't find place for the ten-minute would-be title track. The dance track was sung by Denise Johnson, not normally a member of the band but the lead singer of one track that did make the album, 'Don't Fight It, Feel It'. The song 'Screamadelica' got release a few months after the album on what is titled the Dixie-Narco EP but is effectively the single of album track 'Movin' on Up'.
3.	HOUSES OF THE HOLY BY LED ZEPPELIN: Led Zeppelin composed this song, one of their better songs, as the title track of their then-current album Houses of the Holy. The story goes, however, that they felt the song didn't fit in with the other material on the album, and decided to shelve the song instead, leaving the album, Led Zeppelin's first to have a conventional title at all, with no title track. When the sessions for the next album, Physical Graffiti, produced more music than could fit on a single vinyl record, the decision was made to release it as a two-record set, padded out with outtakes from the previous albums. Thus was this track dusted off and finally released. In the end, no Led Zeppelin studio album would ever be released with a title track on it.
4.	ALMOST BLUE BY ELVIS COSTELLO: Confounding Elvis Costello's audience at the time, Almost Blue, the album, was a collection of cover versions of Country & Western songs. 'Almost Blue', the song, was an attempt at a self-composed jazz standard. So obviously, the latter didn't fit on the former, coming out instead on the follow-up album Imperial Bedroom. Interestingly, Elvis Costello also wrote a song called 'Imperial Bedroom', which - you guessed it - didn't appear on that album. It's since been included as a bonus track on reissues.
5.	WAITING FOR THE SUN BY THE DOORS: Waiting for the Sun was the Doors' third album, but it was the first one not made up of songs the band had composed before even getting a record contract. As such, 'composing on the spot' was new to them, and they found themselves unable to finish what should have been the title track. It was cast aside half-finished, only to be revived two albums later on 1970's Morrison Hotel.
6.	FRANKS WILD YEARS BY TOM WAITS: Swordfishtrombones, from 1982, was Tom Waits's first album for Island Records and his first album to ditch lounge-band arrangements for what is frequently described as 'avant garde'. 'Frank's Wild Years', from that album, is a beat-poetry telling of a suburbanite's midlife crisis. A few years later, Tom Waits took the title and adapted it into a play, which he then adapted into an album - one that did not feature the track in question. Note that this is a rare case on this list where the song's release predates the album's release. Note also that for want of an apostrophe, the song and the album don't have the exact same title.
7.	SHEER HEART ATTACK BY QUEEN: This particular would-be title track, like 'Waiting for the Sun' started but unfinished during sessions for the album it shares its name with, sat on the shelf for fully three albums until it was finished for 1977's News of the World. In this particular case, the delay was perhaps fortuitous, as by then punk had exploded onto the musical scene, and Queen was able to rewrite the lyrics to transform the song into a criticism of the genre Queen were not fond of.
8.	BRAIN SALAD SURGERY BY EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER: At a mere three minutes, this stupidly-titled song might have seemed like a strange choice for the stupidly-titled album that is primarily given over to renditions of Blake's 'Jerusalem' and thirty-minute songs. It was recorded during the sessions for that album, but came out as a b-side and later was tacked onto the floor-sweepings album Works, Volume II
9.	FRANCES THE MUTE BY THE MARS VOLTA: Frances the Mute, from 2005, was the second album from the incredibly prolific Mars Volta. The album contained only five extended suite-like songs, but lacked the fourteen-minute title track, which was released on the 'The Widow' single (as the first track, before the a-side). Fans apparently consider this a part of the album proper, playing it as the first track, preceding the album in its released form. Apparently, doing this allows for a very natural-sounding segue.
10.	DRY BY PJ HARVEY: PJ Harvey's critically-acclaimed début album did not feature its title track, which instead showed up as a b-sde to her début single 'Dress' (for whatever reason, it also showed up on sophomore album release Rid of Me). This particular gambit seems to have been quite popular in 1990s 'alternative' music since, in addition to the examples above, it also applies to Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, Pulp's His 'n Hers and Beck's Midnite Vultures among others.

Ten Unusually Short Albums

Since the advent of the CD, we've grown accustomed to seeing the CD's 75-minute running time as a typical 'upper limit' for an album length. A rough average might be an hour, though in the post-CD era, an album could be any length the artist desired, really.

Historically, of course, an album was a slab of vinyl twelve inches in diameter. A vinyl album is actually capable of holding almost as much as a CD (there are records clocking in at just shy of 70 minutes), length on an album comes at the expense of sonic fidelity, and resistance to getting scratched. The majority of albums released during the vinyl era clocked in at about 40 minutes.

There are exceptions, though. Some albums are really terribly short, perhaps because the songs on them are short, or perhaps because the artist felt the work was complete as it stood, or perhaps because the artist simply ran out of creative inspiration - or studio time. Whatever the reasons behind them, the following albums are all incredibly short - shorter than some EPs or even some singles, in fact.

1.	WHO KILLED THE JAMS BY THE JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU (29:54): The earliest form of the duo who would become the KLF, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu released a seven-song début in 1987 that still managed, through various forms of trickery and nonsense, to be 41 minutes long. Its little-known follow-up, however, kept the number of songs and dispensed with the additions, coming in eleven minutes shorter. Less than two years later, half of this group would team with DJ Alex Patterson as the Orb and release a single that was 19 minutes long. Two years after that the Orb would release "Blue Room", a single that was ten minutes longer than this whole album.
2.	BOOKENDS BY SIMON AND GARFUNKEL (29:51): In fact, Simon and Garfunkel's two previous albums were even shorter. But Bookends is not only brief, it's even padded: that less-than-thirty-minute running time includes two versions of the same song, devotes most of its side two to rounding up previously-released singles, and includes two and a half minutes of old people talking, with no music at all. With the reaminder also including The Graduate rejects, what remains would barely have qualified as an ep, and it's remarkable how well the album holds up.
3.	RAMONES BY RAMONES (29:04): At 29 minutes, this is actually longer than the other albums on this list. Yet it actually crams fourteen complete songs, ranging from 90 seconds to 155, into that timeframe. The Ramones are considered by most to be the first punk band, and this the first punk album, defined largely by a fat-free to-the-basics aesthetic. Compare it to Never Mind the Bollocks, which has only three songs shorter than three minutes and two longer than four.
4.	REIGN IN BLOOD BY SLAYER (28:56): This, Slayer's major label début, was considered one of the first and most seminal 'thrash metal' albums, where 'thrash metal' mostly means metal played really fast and really short. At 4:51, the first song on this album "Angel of Death" is positively prog-like (and highly controversial, being about Josef Mengele), but after that the songs fly by, with none of the next seven breaking three minutes. In the 1960s, it was commonplace for songs to stay below three minutes, but it was largely the heavy metal genre (where songs would drag) that broke that barrier, so it was tough in 1986 to accept that a song could even be called 'heavy metal' if it was less than, oh, five minutes.
5.	PINK MOON BY NICK DRAKE (28:22): Pink Moon, Drake's third and final album, is short. But it seems in this particular case like its very brevity is largely the point of the album: the whole thing is the simplest of whispers, sparse and demo-like, with songs that don't go on longer than they need to. Oddly enough (considering its 'classic' status), its producer John Wood has said of it, 'you really wouldn't want it to be any longer'. Drake himself is said to have commented on the length by saying, 'that's it.. that's all I have', a sadly prophetic statement given that it would be his last album released before his death at 26 by overdose.
6.	WEEZER BY WEEZER (28:20): Weezer has so far released three colour-coded albums with the same name. While the first and the third, referred to by fans as "The Blue Album" and "The Red Album" repectively, were each 41 minutes plus, this 2001 'return' (after five years without an album release) had a green cover and a 28:20 running time. Weezer seems to like the short album, with each of their most recent three releases (all within the last 14 months) runnin little more than half an hour, but it's not the result of a lack of inspiration: Weezer is one of those groups that litter songs across limited-edition releases and single releases. It just so happens that only half or so of all the songs Weezer records make it on the album.
7.	HISTOIRE DE MELODY NELSON BY SERGE GAINSBOURG (27:57): Seeing as how it clocks in at less than 28 minutes, it's odd that Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 masterpiece has only seven songs on it (three of them two minutes or less, and the epics that open and close the album being largely the same song). After all, it's not like there was no room left on the twelve inches of vinyl. Looking at the album as a collection of seven pieces diminishes its value, though. It's more like a single piece of music split into seven parts (one doesn't really notice one track changing to another while listening). With that being the case, wouldn't anything else be superfluous?
8.	NASHVILLE SKYLINE BY BOB DYLAN (27:14): What's weird about Nashville Skyline isn't merely its brief ten-track and 27-minute running time (with a remake of a previous Dylan song and an instrumental too); what's weird is that it comes from Dylan, who on other occassions had released albums of epic length: his second album, 1963's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was 50:04, his first full electric album, Highway 61 Revisited was 51:26. Subsequently, in 1976, he would release Desire, whose nine songs were 56:13 and whose four-song side two was longer than this whole project. Dylan escaped criticism for this album's length by allowing criticism to focus instead on the fact that it consisted entirely of country make-weights with banal lyrics crooned in a 'smooth' voice completely atypical of Dylan. It's since been critically re-evaluated, though it remains shorter than a TV sit-com.
9.	EVERYBODY'S ROCKIN' BY NEIL YOUNG AND THE SHOCKING PINKS (24:55): The wildly erratic Neil Young had released brief albums and lengthy ones before this one (and a few years after this would release a five-song ep that still managed to exceed this album in length). Yet this deserves special note for being short and chintzy as well, a Sha-Na-Na style 'rockabilly' throwback whose ten songs feature four 1950s covers. The legend goes that Young had presented his new record label with a country album, which they rejected, asking for a 'rock and roll album'. With the willfulness that defines him, he gave them exactly what they asked for. He also claims, though, to have had two longer and more substantial songs ready for inclusion but that his label wouldn't pay for another session to record them. So who knows for sure?
10.	IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD'S FAIR BY ELVIS PRESLEY (21:58): How short is this album? Well, it's a mere ten songs, six of which are less than two minutes. They're all knock-offs recorded for the soundtrack to another in an endless series of mid-sixties Elvis movies. Each side averages less than eleven minutes, and the whole collection could comfortably fit on one side of vinyl. You could fit it three and a half times on a single CD. But the best sign of how chintzy this record was is this single striking fact: Even Colonel Parker thought it was a rip-off. That's right: the ex-carny who managed Elvis, the man who released an album of Elvis's onstage between-song banter, the man who kept him in Hollywood in the 60s and in Las Vegas in the 70s, the man who milked Elvis product to the tune of fourteen albums and twelves singles in the years 1970 and 1971 alone... the man whose very name is associated with exploitation of artist and fan... even he thought fans were cheated by the length of this album. A stronger condemnation you will not see anywhere.

Ten Good Christmas Number Ones

The 'Christmas Number One' tradition is an interesting tradition that the British keep that on this side of the pond is completely ignored. In short, whatever song happens to be the chart-topper the week December 25th falls in is remembered as a 'Christmas Number One' and gains an unofficial status as a Christmas standard, whether or not it has anything at all to do with the season.

As befits Coca Cola's favourite holiday, many Christmas number ones are sickly-sweet concoctions that make you cry out for Boxing Day to come so they'll be taken off the radio. But here are ten you can listen to well into the New Year. From British charts, obviously. Links to Youtube included. Ho ho ho.

(As a side note, it turns out that the Christmas number two list is probably actually better, featuring "Build Me Up, Buttercup", "YMCA", "Caravan of Love", "Ice Ice Baby" and "Chocolate Salty Balls" from South Park.)

1.	MOON RIVER (1961): Just to drive dyslexics crazy, the Christmas Number One version of this chestnut from Breakfast at Tiffany's is not Andy Williams' version but the one recorded by South African Danny Williams. Really. If this was a cheap effort to grab a few extra sales à la the guy who ran for office as a "Literal Democrat" or the company that makes "SQNY" electronics, the deceit is the white guy's, as this version is older. At least as beautiful too, but that beauty really belongs to Henry Mancini. A gorgeous song. Youtube Link
2.	WE CAN WORK IT OUT (1965): This makes the list because it was technically not the b-side of Day Tripper but the 'other a-side' of a 'double a-side'. Either way, this moody little miniature is the best of the Beatles' five Christmas number ones between 1963 and 1967. Youtube Link
3.	BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (1975, 1991): I hesitated to include this Queen canard. It's a bit.. well, it's a bit overdone, isn't it? Epic, best-song-ever, blah blah blah... it's tough to just hear it as a cool song anymore. But a cool song it is, with both the piano ballad at the beginning and the guitar screamy bit at the end enjoyable even if they're entirely overshadowed by the Scaramouching in the middle. That's what makes this more than 'just another song', and the part of the song that divides the world into two: people who will admit loving it, and people who pretend they don't. This song hit the number one on two different Christmases, the only song not containing the line "thank God it's them instead of you" to do so. Youtube Link
4.	MARY'S BOY CHILD / OH MY LORD (1978): Among the Christmas Number Ones on this list, you'll find few of my choices actually have seasonal content. The truth is they're too often cheesy. This is not only cheese but is the stinkiest of continental blue cheese, but it's irrepressible fun as well, as much of Boney M's bizarre Caribbean/German disco/calypso hybrids were. Youtube Link
5.	DON'T YOU WANT ME (1981): Nothing more Christmasy than a breakup song, is there? Not that this Human League monster sounds like a weeper, with its driving ringtone musical backdrop and charmingly artless lyrics. It is pretty much just nonsense, but it's truly wonderful nonsense, one of the best songs ever, in my humble opinion. Youtube Link
6.	ONLY YOU (1983): The original was where Vince Clarke, after failing miserably with Depeche Mode, got machines to replicate human emotions. So it's a strange choice for an a capella rendition, but The Flying Pickets (who?) got a well-deserved Christmas number one with this, the first a capella song to hit the top of the charts. Youtube Link
7.	ALWAYS ON MY MIND (1987): This not-even-slightly-Christmasy song kept the best Christmas song ever, the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York", from the top, for which it deserves to be on Santa's naughty list. But it's a great song nonetheless, sentimental in the Elvis and Willie versions, here filled to the brim with that emotion unique to Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant, the emotion that manages to be sincere and ironic at the very same time. Youtube Link
8.	EARTH SONG (1995): Jarvis Cocker be damned, this is just a great song. Complaining that this song is bombastic is like complaining that the sun gives off light. Like Michael Jackson's infamous performance of it at the BRIT Awards, this song is as bombastic as they get; it's just that it turns bombast into high art. Youtube Link
9.	MAD WORLD (2003): Several of the songs here are covers, interestingly. What makes a cover great is rarely fidelity to the original; a great cover is one that brings something new to the composition. Recorded by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the Donnie Darko soundtrack, this beautiful cover of Tears For Fears' already gorgeous original is pretty much the definition of 'haunting' - fragile, still... it sounds like a demo. And after hearing it once, you'll thereafter never hear the Tears for Fears original as the 'proper' version. Youtube Link
10.	KILLING IN THE NAME (2009): Yeah, it's mostly the stick-it-to-the-Man iconoclasm of last year's guerilla effort to shove this song in Simon Cowell's face that wins this song its slot on the list. I actually hated this song, and Rage Against the Machine generally, when it first came out. But now that its dime-store revolutionary sloganeering plays like nostalgia, I can call it charming. So it really is festive then. Youtube Link

Ten Atheist Musicians

Atheism is much more prevalent in some fields of work than others. Scientists, for example, espouse atheism at a rate significantly higher than the general population, while, well, priests do not (that Mel Gibson film notwithstanding). I don't know where musicians show up on the list: given how many Grammy winners thank God at the podium, maybe not very high. Yet atheists show up in every walk of life, and here are ten musicians who don't seem to likely to break out into a renedition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" any time soon.

1.	BJÖRK: The Icelandic symbol for weirdness has been quoted as saying, "If I get into trouble, there's no God or Allah to sort me out. I have to do it myself."
2.	SIMON LE BON: Simon Le Bon, onetime tabloid fixture and lead singer of Duran Duran, speaks in detail about his spiritual journey: "Losing my faith was very gradual." He adds, "I started thinking, 'Well, what if it's just people trying to personify life? To personify the fact that there is matter, and that there is a universe? If there is a God, that's it. God doesn't have a brain, God doesn't think, God is just existence.' And when you get to that point, you realise, if that's what God is, then there's no such thing."
3.	PAUL HEATON: Frontman not only of the Beautiful South but also of the Housemartins, a 1980s band known in part for explicitly Christian lyrics penned by him, Paul Heaton is an unexpected name to find on this list. Yet Paul Yeaton is quite avowedly atheist, despite the message "Take Jesus - Take Marx - Take Hope" appearing on the cover of the Housemartins' début.
4.	TRACEY THORN: Half of the popular English duo Everything But the Girl has the following to say: "I've always been an atheist. We grew up in a village and I was like, 'I'm not joining the Christian Youth Club'. Believing something that's unprovable is not how my mind works."
5.	MICKY DOLENZ: One of the Monkees, of course, and he was interviewed by The Onion as one of a wide range of celebrities to whom the question, "Is there a God?" was put. His interesting answer: "No. God is a verb, not a noun."
6.	ROBERT SMITH: The lead singer and sole constant member of decades-old institution The Cure, Robert Smith has stated, "I don't believe in god. I wish I did."
7.	LINTON KWESI JOHNSON: Perhaps less well-known than the other names here, but a personal favourite and a legend in the rather arcane musical field of 'dub poetry'. Jamaican-British, he speaks of the Rastafarian tradition in this way: as an atheist, "I couldn't reconcile myself to the idea that Haile Selassie was God."
8.	SHIRLEY MANSON: The lead singer of 90s band Garbage has been openly atheist since she was twelve years old and denounced religion as "bullshit" while at her dinner table.
9.	RICHARD RODGERS: Of an older vintage than the other names on this list, the famous composer of American musicals is described in a biography as follows: "Richard became an atheist, and as a parent he resisted religious instruction for his children. According to his wife, Dorothy, he felt that religion was based on 'fear' and contributed to 'feelings of guilt.'"
10.	BRIAN ENO: Understanding Brian Eno can at times be a difficult and frustrating exercise, but give this one a try: "Well, I'm an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call the last illusion. The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. That's the last illusion. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that knows what's going on but that the planets know what's going on. Astrology is part of the last illusion. The obsession with health is part of the last illusion, the idea that there's that if only we could spend time on it and sit down and stop being unreasonable with each other we'd all find that there was a structure and a solution underlying plan to it all, for most people the short answer to that is God."

Ten Things Popular Music Wants You to Shake

"Shake" must be one of the most popular words in popular music. Usually it's shorthand for 'dance', because for some reason pop artists believe that if they don't remind you to every now and then, it would never occur to you to dance to music.

Just what they ask you to shake, though, is frequently strange, to say the least.

1.	YOUR BOOTY: As suggested by KC and the Sunshine Band, among others, this practical advice is great for pirates who want to know what's in that treasure chest before they open it, just like your sister used to do with her Christmas presents on the 24th of December. Alternately, it's good advice for babies who want to exercise their rapidly-developing leg muscles.
2.	YOUR TAIL FEATHER: Ray Charles rather famously suggested that freakish human-bird mutants not be denied the opportunity to dance on the dance floor. Alternately, of course, it could have been the call of a chicken farmer trying to confuse his produce before beheading them (or cheering thm on after). Ray Charles always seemed like he might have been a farmer at heart. He did record country music, after all.
3.	YOUR BON-BON: The multilingual Ricky Martin certainly got his linguist on with this song, which suggested that people who speak French shake their candies. His song never suggested which ones, although Milk Duds for example make a decent rattle in their boxes. Or Bridge Mixture. After all, that stuff ought to be good for something, right? It sure ain't for eating.
4.	YOUR KITTY: PETA's angry with Lady Gaga for her 'meat dress', a dress she wore for the cover of a Japanese magazine that was made of nothing more than dead animal flesh and sheer desperation. But she should have been on their hitlist already, for never has a more flagrant exhortation to feline abuse been recorded. Poor kitties: is this really the treatment they deserve?
5.	YOUR MONEYMAKER: This one reminds me of Tom Hanks busting in on Leonardo DiCaprio in France on Christmas Day at the end of that Spielberg movie. If only Leo had given his ol' printing press a good shake, it might have impressed Elmore James, the Black Crowes and Ludacris, all of whom have asked that this be shaked. If you want to stay within the law, of course, your only hope is to shake the U.S. Mint. Good luck.
6.	YOUR TREE: Actually, Steve Miller doesn't want you to shake your tree, he wants to do it for you. Because he loves your peaches. In fact, lovey dovey all the time. If that doesn't make much sense, don't worry. Few Steve Miller lyrics do, unless you're a midnight toker. Using 'I want to shake your tree' as a sexual metaphor is an example of the Pompatus of Love, the mystical tongue spoken by Steve "Maurice" Miller.
7.	THE DISEASE: Trust Depeche Mode to bring the gloom. Soundtracking teenage angst for several generations now, Depeche Mode can always be counted on to include references to darkness, death, decay and other words starting with 'd' whenever possible. Shaking the disease is actually something that, apparently, is hard for Dave Gahan to do. So this isn't actually a call to dance, which is good, because I wouldn't want to go on that dancefloor. Not without a bottle of Lysol, anyway.
8.	HANDS: Ah, good old sexless Nickelback. While everyone else is thinking up metaphors, they just want to affirm an agreement. Yeah, probably with the devil in exchange for their souls or something, but still... you've got to admire their old-fashioned values... except that that's not how the song goes. It's actually an attempt to make a joke. The woman in the song doesn't shake hands. What she shakes is, in fact, her moneymaker - a phrase way creepier out of Nickelback's mouth than some old blues guy. This is how they remind me of why I can't stand them.
9.	THE FOUNDATIONS: AC/DC is perhaps asking you to shake the part of your house that goes into the ground and keeps it stable, which I wouldn't advise for obvious safety reasons. The unaging Australian hard-rock combo might, alternately, be asking women to shake certain products in their make-up box. Which has no known safety risk associated with it. Of course, they might be asking you to shake a charity organisation. Like perhaps the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If, of course, they mean shake down Bill Gates, I'm all for it.
10.	WHAT YOUR MAMA GAVE YOU: If you ask my mother, she'd say this means you should shake a decent education, a roof over your head, and the best years of her life. But presumably that won't get many parties started.