Saturday, February 21, 2009

A Sense of Self-Entitlement

I recently became amused by the notion of a musical act having a self-titled song -- or at least the act's name being part of the song title.

The examples I initially thought of, They Might Be Giants' "They Might Be Giants" and Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," are pretty goofy. But as I went through my music collection, I was surprised at how many I found and how varying they are in style. Some are more on the "serious" side; some seem to be a sort of theme song for the artist; others don't seem to have anything to do with the artist himself/herself.

I put together a mix of some of my favorites and a list of the others I found. Some aren't exact, like the Raveonettes' "Let's Rave On," and some are indirect, like Flake Music's "The Shins" (explanation below). The ultimate -- and I was really hoping to find one of these -- is Buena Vista Social Club's "Buena Vista Social Club," which is on the album Buena Vista Social Club. Oh, the symmetry!

Note how many of these self-titlers are Scandinavian artists. (Although I do have a lot of music from that region, it's still a relatively small percentage of my collection.)

Mix: Self-Entitled
1. Monks - Monk Time
2. The Hives - The Hives--Introduce the Metric System in Time [Scandinavian]
3. Delta 5 - Delta 5
4. The Raveonettes - Let's Rave On [Scandinavian]
5. Annie - Anniemal [Scandinavian]
6. El Coco - Cocomotion
7. Röyksopp - Röyksopp's Night Out [Scandinavian]
8. Buena Vista Social Club - Buena Vista Social Club
9. Jens Lekman - Jens Lekman's Farewell Song to Rocky Dennis [Scandinavian]
10. Belle and Sebastian - Belle and Sebastian
11. Plastic Mastery - Shaggs' Own Thing [Shaggs cover -- I don't have the original, unfortunately]
12. All Night Radio - All Night Radio

Also:
Air France - Sweetness of Air France [Scandinavian]
Mr. Magic - Rappin' With Mr. Magic
Soulja Boy Tell 'Em - Crank That (Soulja Boy)
They Might Be Giants - They Might Be Giants
Love as Laughter - Sam Jayne = Dead [Sam Jayne is the frontman of Love as Laughter]
Flake Music - The Shins [Flake Music was the precursor to the Shins]
Patrick Wolf - Wolf Song
Howlin' Wolf - Howlin' for My Darling

Please share others that you guys can think of.

11 comments:

Paul said...

Inspired post. Great stuff, T. Three off the top of my head:

The Dandy Warhols' T.V. Theme Song

Mutiny on the Ark of the Blood Brothers (another song on that album references Jordan Billie, one of the lead singers, by name)

Young & Sexy

Chris said...

A couple more...

Stray Cat Strut: Stray Cats
Blur: B.L.U.R.E.M.I (Kind of a weird one)

Thomas McMahon IV said...

Good ones. I thought of two more, both '90s hits:

Fun Lovin' Criminals - The Fun Lovin' Criminal

Vengaboys - We Like to Party! (The Vengabus)

Turns out that the Vengaboys also have a number of other "Venga" songs.

Paul said...

I think this fits the bill.

Kevin said...

Two favorites:

Erik B. and Rakim: Erik B. Is on the Cut & Erik B. Is President

Erik B. also wanted a track on Paid In Full called "Erik B. is the $60 Pope", but Rakim wanted one called "Erik B. is a selfish dick". They compromised and left both off the album.


Also,

Dungeon Family: 6 minutes (Dungeon Family It's On)

Thomas McMahon IV said...

So Erik B. was actually the first black president?

Here's an outstanding new addition to the canon:

Artist: Wavves
Album: Wavves
Song: Wavves

Boom!

Daniel said...

Artist: Clearlake
Album: Lido
Song: Clearlake Lido

Daniel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Best-Of Friends said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ricky said...

"Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" by Backstreet Boys

Ricky said...

P.S. - Great post, Thom.