Results Of The Twitter Hive Mind Favourite Album Title Vote

I’d had all this planned out. Riffing through our favourite album titles – Set phasers to pun as opening line, followed by a merry jaunt through the Half Man Half Biscuit back catalogue.

Only, with every LP ever released technically eligible (the single exception being Muse’s Black Holes And Revelations, which is fit only to be making an appointment with the veterinarian to be put down), the voting patterns were fleeting and indistinct. A veritable Rorschach test of album title nomenclature, in which the four nominations you were kind enough to throw in my direction (or 400 if your name is @japaneseforms) bore very little relation to the records anyone else was voting for. Don’t get me wrong – the conversations were manifold, and fascinating in that music geek fashion (including a debate down the pub that evolved into this blog post – thanks @Chops_Top_Fives). Yet despite more than a hundred albums suggested (full list, as always, in the comments), only 14 received more than one nomination. Which all goes to show that we’re a bloody eclectic lot, with a collective knowledge and appreciation that we should be proud of – hence the wide understanding of a grand album title: erudite, knowing, thematically linked to the suite of songs – or just plain amusing, and filled with naughty words.

The top ten:

Equal #9: Press The Eject and Give Me The Tape by Bauhaus, and Underachievers Please Try Harder by Camera Obscura – the latter released in other territories as Popfrenzy, which carries none of the lustre of the original title.

#8: Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will. Probably the finest album of this top ten. To say that I’m just a little excited by the new Mogwai album (due Jan 2014) is an understatement.

Equal #6: The Difference Between Me And You Is That I’m Not On Fire by Mclusky, and Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot by the much-missed Sparklehorse.

Equal #4: Microdisney’s We Hate You South African Bastards (re-released under the much-less dynamic title of Love your Enemies to reflect the fall of Apartheid), and Achtung Bono – as if Half Man Half biscuit were ever going to be missing from this list.

Equal #2: One of these two were nominated by me; triggered a smile that at least a handful out there agreed. The only surprise being that Belle & Sebastian guitarist Stevie Jackson’s solo disc (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson beat the best titled Belle & Sebastian album – Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant. The other record with an equal number of votes: Snuffsaidbutgorblimeyguvstonemeifhedidntthrowawobblerchachachachachachachachachachachayouregoinghomeinacosmicambience, by (surprise surprise) Snuff. Needs another cha, if you ask me.

And #1: Well yes; you could no doubt pull any of their album titles from a hat and generate a grin. But the biggest Half Man Half Biscuit grin of all is reserved for Trouble Over Bridgwater. Set phasers to pun, indeed.

Next week: I’d be siding up to you in a hectic, voguish bar and asking for your four favourite albums from Birmingham. As with the Scottish album vote month or two back, I’ll decide what does and doesn’t qualify, but anything from West Midlands-related acts (Birmingham, Wolverhampton, the Black Country) is generally the kind of thing I’m looking for.

And as for Birmingham, Alabama: hell, why not? At least Lynyrd Skynyrd were from Florida…

Leave your four favourites – in order – either in the comments or at @lazerguidedblog; results Sunday 24 Nov. Cheers.