So, apparently it is 'Album Title Track Day' or something like that - at least that's what it said in a Pixies tweet today.
Well, whether it is or not, I thought I'd have a stab at it anyway!
And it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I started going through some of the artists and albums that sprung straight into my head and not many of them had title tracks. There are some where the albums title is said in a song, but that isn't the name of the song!
But I figured I would stick to the theme properly, although I would have like to get "Inflammable material planted in my head, it's a suspect device that's left two thousand dead!" in there if I could.
In the end, there were a few that didn't quite make it into my top5; Working With Fire & Steel (China Crisis), Blind (Icicle Works) and The Seer (Big Country) all get honourable mentions - and then there are the countless ones I have undoubtedly forgotten during the 10 minutes thought I have given this.
So, here it is, my anything but perfect, Top5 Album Title Tracks......
5. October - U2
While it might not be the best track on U2's second album - Gloria, Tomorrow and Fire stand out for me - October is a sombre and beautiful moment on the album, as the band apparently wrestled with the contradictions between becoming rocks stars and the Christian beliefs they had been brought up with.
4. Steeltown - Big Country
Another title track from a second album. For many, this was a shock when it came out, sounding a lot different to The Crossing, as the swirling guitars and highlands spirit were largely absent. Instead, they had been replaced by the dirty haze of the Clyde and Forth rivers and the sweat and tears of growing industrial cities. Nothing epitomised it more than Steeltown - the interplay between guitar rhythms and the thunder of the drums - and the lyrics were less hopeful than before;
"All the landscape was the mill, grim as the reaper with a heart like hell, and a river of bodies flowing with the bell."
3. Together Alone - Crowded House
This album was the end for Crowded House - at least the first version of the band. Success had come at different times on either side of the Atlantic. Paul Hester was tiring of life on the road. The mood created at the recording studio, perched on the North Island's west coast at Kare Kare (where it seems the mood was also fractious at times) was sultry. Perhaps you can get a sense of all that looking back now, on this album. Any which way, Together Alone, with the addition of a Maori choir and log drummers, was certainly evocative - and the cry of the choir still sends shivers up my spine.
2. Heroes - David Bowie
Well, this kind of had to be in here. Doesn't even matter what the rest of the album is like, as this song is just a stone cold classic. It's Bowie, so I'm not even sure I need to say much more on this. It's just beautiful.
1. Grace - Jeff Buckley
The voice of some kind of angel, a sometimes twisted, sometimes almost demonic one for sure, but still an angel. I didn't even hear this album until after Buckley's sad and way, way too premature passing - but I knew from the first listen, what a classic album it was. And the title track is one of the stand-outs in an album that is pretty much all stand-outs! The guitars soar, the vocals swoop in and out and up and down, on their way to multiple dizzying climaxes.
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