Are these the best titles EVER?

"Mennonite Surf Party" had me laughing out loud. "Grandma Vs. the Crusher" is a close second.

How do they sound?

i wonder if that relates to the novas 'the crusher' which is the greatest song ever.

I'm pretty partial to "Nitro Burning Funny Bong" and "Party in my Pants" myself.

Anal Cunt comes to mind immediately.

In the "conflict of interest" department, I've gotten a couple of tapes from pHoaming Edison whose song titles alone make me marvel. Just grabbed the nearest one, which includes his all-time classic "French Weasle Scallions" [sic], as well as "Cralto Paste Is Still Nice," "Give Me Glexnor," "Sponge, The," "Don't Buy Tweezy," "...Unless It's Necessary," "Porch" and "Hostile Turkey Invasion."

Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys
Half Man Half Biscuit

Both take some beating in the song titles dept.

The Ral Partha Volbacher album's got "Cheap Vodka Knights" and "The Sunshine Hates Sadko's Guts and Wants to Eat His Brains," which rule to me. But "Junior's Discount Frozen Embryo World"...that's a tough one to beat.

other bands whose titles come to mind:

anal cunt (previously mentioned) charles bronson ("cous cous on the loose loose") the pissed officers don caballero/storm&stress

Guided By Voices and the Fall-uh!

my favorite is 'honky-tonk hermaphrodite'!

I have to second the soft boys - "where are the prawns?" and "i wanna be an anglepoise lamp" being other gems of titles, among others. and yes the fall!

but i think Man or Astro-Man? takes the prize, with song titles including: "Within The Mainframe, Impaired Vision From Inoperable Cataracts Can Become A New Impending Nepotism", "The Powerful Fully-Transistorized Dick Tracy Two- Way Wrist Radio", "Muzak for Cybernetics", "Static Cling (Theme from)", "The Universe's Only Intergalactic Radioactive Breakfast Bar", among other long and consistently weird titles.

I've not downloaded any yet*, so I'll have to report back, but Teenie Weenie Meanie is old-fashioned rock 'n' roll, with lyrics to match and a good line in stuttering: "I talked to my shrinkand he started to fidget / He said 'It's j-j-just not normal to love a butt-kicking midget'".

*I register requests on Audiogalaxy in large blitzes and wait for one big batch to come through before starting again.

As for the Crusher, I think that's going to be another wrestling one, along with Sleeper Hold On Satan, which I hope has a line to match Sister Wynona Carr's entirely serious "I bolo-punch for Jesus".

Has any artist ever had such a fantastic touch with titles?

If we expand 'artist' to include painters (and why not, those daubers are nearly as creative as us music artists these days), then I would nominate Sigmar Polke as the greatest titler of them all. Here are some of his:

Knitted Alps
Less Work, More Play
Sparkling Wine For Everyone
Why Not Bathe?
Flour In The Sausage
Black Bread, Wholemeal Bread, White Bread
The Starry Sky on 24 June 24.00 Hours Shows A Constellation in the Form of the Name S. Polke
Rubber Band Durer Hare
Sausages, Kidneys, Buttons
Jelly Bean Shoes, 1983
Buttons Keep The Little Hands Busy
Potato Heads
Polke's Whip
Litmus
The Three Lies Of Painting
Shaledust
Leave Lab And Enter The Office
Knife-Thrower
Franz Liszt Likes To Come Round And Watch Television
Whether Sponges Possess Consciousness
Cardboardology

television personalities!

Keiji Haino!

Scott Miller of Loud Family & Game Theory: Nearly every album's chockfull of seemingly impenetrable, then later very amusing, titles (and songs to go with them).

I second tom's suggestion. Here are some titles:

''I said, This is the son of nihilism'' "Twenty-first Century Hard-y Guide-y Man" ''The seventh heart projected'' ''Dimming, the time and scent where once you were'' ''When glittered solitude still preserved the connectedness'' ''Are you the one? The one who can console skepticism stained this deep'' ''The remnants of a tribe called "tenderness overflowed"'' ''When I visited my home, the land where a gray sun rises'' ''The secret pact between beauty--awareness and the gods of the underworld''

''1rst movement: The reverberation that pursues its own growing sparse memories'' ''2nd movement: The reverberation that becomes aware of colours in this world'' ''3rd movement: The reverberation that wishes to blur in water'' ''4rth movement: The reverberation that attempts to take back all energy into itself''

''Abandon all words at a stroke, so that prayer can come spilling out'' ''Whereto can I cast away this fragrant echo called The End, so that I may summon an awakening from the other side?'' ''I have decided to tear you to pieces Whether you become darkness or light depends on you I wonder, which shall you choose?''

''Wisdom that will bless I, who live in the spiral joy born at the utter end of a black prayer.''

''The halation born between you and I who were doomed to appear in form'' ''If I had been showered in gold blood, wouldn't my prayer have been answered?'' ''This trembling in my core, with which of your cells couldn't it hold hands''

''A reflecting, reflecting echo, my soul could perhaps become'' ''I sink down in search of your breath's abode'' ''Don't be afraid Even if your nerves snap, you can tie them to a fragment of the universe...'' ''Staring at a point in time, memorizing Vowing never to return'' ''I saw it! That which before I could only sense... (begun)''

''Execration that accept to acknowledge''

Is that enough?

That Astro-Man songtitle is boring gibberish, same for Aphex Twin's pompous crap. The best song title ever is the Missy Eliot bootleg 'Get ur 9lb cock on'. Those chunky syllables just spill out of one's mouth and i dreamt about it last night.

Frank Zappa had some great title. "A Nun Suit Painted On Some Old Boxes" springs to mind. Guided By Voices have some good ones. I like "Kicker of Elves" in particular. "Psychiatric Exploration of the Fetus With Needles", "Guy Who Gets A Headache & Accidently Saves the World", and "Hell's Angels' Cracker Factory" by the Flaming Lips are good ones. "I Just Took the Most Punk Rock Shit of My Life" may take the cake however. Can't recall the band that did that one. For band names, i like When People Were Shorter & Lived Near the Water and The Very Idea of Fucking Hitler.

Don't remember who, but SOMEONE had a song called "We Wish the Bus Fell on Lars" or something to that effect. Brilliant.