I wanted to explore this, it seems like it mostly happens in classic rock. I like it because it’s like the group delivering a thesis statement for the content of their music or their intended commercial trajectory.

I think it works even better when it’s done by a band later into their career, like they’re reflecting on the culmination of their work. Can people link me examples? I’d love to see if this has happened more outside of the rock genre

Off the top of my head:

Bad Company (debut album)

Black Sabbath (debut album)

Damn Yankees (debut album)

Blue Öyster Cult (11th album)

Dimmu Borgir (8th album, black metal)

Run the Jewels (debut album, rap)

Eyes of Noctom (debut album, black metal, fun fact: this is Nicholas Cage’s son)

Highwaymen (debut album, country)

    • sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      6·
      16 days ago

      Ooh, that should have been obvious. Iron Maiden was always a bit of a blind spot for me but that song inspired something:

  • ThomasWilliams@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    15 days ago

    Then there’s the band Flowers that released an album called Icehouse, and halfway through the release changed their name to Icehouse - to not be confused with a Scottish band called Flowers - so the early albums are called “Icehouse by Flowers” and the later ones “Flowers by Icehouse”.

    • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
      2·
      15 days ago

      You missed the fact the last track on the Icehouse album is also called Icehouse.

      The international release is icehouse by icehouse containing the track icehouse

  • SandLight@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    16 days ago

    They Might Be Giants have a self titled track (but not album) included in their third album Flood

  • Cardigans@lemmy.zipEnglish
    7·
    16 days ago

    Slave to the System by Slave to the System on their album Slave to the System.

    I thought this was the tackiest shit ever when I was younger, but looking it up now I guess they were a super group so the very on-the-nose-ness of it feels a little bit less bad. I have no idea how I came across the album but I listened to loads of random music.

  • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
    5·
    15 days ago

    Ramones covered R.A.M.O.N.E.S. by Motörhead on their final album, Adios Amigos.

    Wilco (the song) appears on Wilco (the album), which is the seventh studio album of Wilco (the band).

    • sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      2·
      16 days ago

      I like this vibe. Shoutout to music videos that are just the band members goofing around doing stuff that they construct to give a short narrative.

    • sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      1·
      15 days ago

      Oh hell yeah, I wish I had known about that Rammstein one long ago. I need to catch up with their music. The video was adequately sexually charged and disconcerting for what I would expect from them

      • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        15 days ago

        adequately sexually charged and disconcerting for what I would expect from them

        Sadly this seems to apply in the worst possible way to Till Lindemann on a private level as well. 🤮

        • sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
          3·
          15 days ago

          Indeed. One of my favorite people said that there’s something more deeply wounding about sex crimes when they’re perpetrated by people from countercultural and alternative art movements. Like a huge thesis of counterculture is that there should be nothing to fear in the darker aspects of the human experience. But then a guy like Till or Manson or Victor Salva will fuck it all up. They reinforce the cultural narratives about fear of the other, social hierarchy, and the invincibility that their fame earns them.

          Those ones really fuck me up

          • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
            4·
            15 days ago

            Yup.

            Another issue I have is when artists make art about the fucked up sides of human nature, and you buy into it and think they are brilliant for portraying it. And then you find out that nope, they’re just giant creeps who tell on themselves. It makes it pretty much impossible for me to enjoy their art after.

            I believe, in some degree, in separating the art from the artist. I can listen to the Beatles even though Lennon was a wife beater, though the line “I used to be cruel to my woman I’d beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loves” hits a bit harder than it should. But when the art mirrors the artist it becomes impossible. The jokes of Louis CK would have aged a lot better had they not all been about behaving like a total creep. With Rammstein I can’t help but feel that the trademark uneasiness is just Till telling on himself, and I feel like a gullible idiot for using to enjoy it without realizing it wasn’t an act. Like the joke was on me.

            • sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
              2·
              15 days ago

              That’s EXACTLY what it is. Like, oh you weren’t portraying anything artistically this is just how you live.

              Same, I like to think I can and prefer to appreciate art sperate from the artist’s private lives. But that’s the kind of transgression that rewrites and recontextualizes the work. Also that Louis CK shit is wild because if you listen to him talk about it afterwards he still doesn’t really understand what went wrong with what he was doing. Now that I’m thinking about it this might have been why I never checked in on Rammstein after the last time I heard they were still making music

  • Ertain@feddit.onlineEnglish
    3·
    15 days ago

    I heard one yesterday from the band Hammerfall (I’m sure you can guess the name of the song).

  • pet the cat, walk the dog@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    15 days ago

    Self-titled albums were a big thing in the sixties, when the record industry was still starting properly. David Bowie’s first two albums are both named ‘David Bowie’. With some artists, it’s a bit difficult to track all this crap, since vinyls were basically issued whenever anyone was at the factory and not when the artist had a particularly artistic vision.

    Weezer had a gag about it, putting out seven albums named ‘Weezer’ over thirty years, the latest one upcoming in a week.

    Songs are different, of course, but the reason you see them in classic rock is probably because those dudes are old.

        • sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
          1·
          15 days ago

          You know seem to know a lot of lore about the music industry. Do you have any documentaries you’d refer me to? I’d like to learn about all the weird ways industry has shaped art like that. One that caught my interest years ago was Barely Sociable on youtube made a 80 minute one about payolla.

          • pet the cat, walk the dog@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            15 days ago

            Unfortunately I’ve learned about it in snippets of Wikipedia articles snatched here and there. So can’t point you to any particular doc as the source of truth.

            With Youtube, what worked great for me is looking through the recommendations on any good video, and saving promising ones in a ‘watch later’ playlist — or rather a dozen of such playlists per topic. I now have a year or two worth of videos saved this way.