When I'm shopping for CDs, which I still like to do despite my halfhearted embrace of the digital revolution, it doesn't take much for me to pick something up. A recommendation from a friend, a half-remembered entry from an old music reference book, a $3.99 price tag, all these can lead me to bring a disc up to the counter. A title alone isn't enough. But sometimes it's almost enough. Here are four albums I've come close to purchasing just because I like the title. Am I missing anything?
1. Fear, Have Another Beer With Fear
I like punk just fine and some of it I love. But my love is limited to the early, obvious stuff and pretty much anything from after the golden is a mystery to me, except for the stuff you'd guess. (There are plenty of staffers whose devotion more than makes up for my own.) Beyond X I've never had a lot of love for West Coast punk, so the chances of me picking up a mid-'90s comeback (of sorts) album from the infamous Fear isn't too likely. But Have Another Beer With Fear is an awesome title. Could the music even come close to matching it?
2. Salt N Pepa, A Salt With A Deadly Pepa
I was alive in the '80s and I had ears so naturally I've heard tracks from this album. I like Salt N Pepa just fine, even if I've never felt the need to buy a whole album. (The six tracks I've cobbled together as a greatest hits EP is fine with me.) If I did buy a whole album, however, it would be this one. (Incidentally, a salt with a deadly pepa carries is considered a felony in most states.) By the way, Spinderella's not a fella but a girl DJ.
3. U.T.F.O., Skeezer Pleezer
This is the first album U.T.F.O. (best known for "Roxanne, Roxanne") released after the departure of The Educated Rapper. A "skeezer" is a woman of easy virtue, yet all those shirtless guys together doesn't really suggest that it's skeezer's they aim to please. Weird. While I can't speak to the quality of this album, I can highly recommend U.T.F.O.'s Doctor Ice's 1989 solo album Mic Stalker, if only as a repository of every hip-hop trend floating around at the time. (He's hardcore! Now he's Jamaican! Now he's referencing Blair Underwood.)
4. Killing Joke, Laugh? I Nearly Bought One!
This is greatest hits album from the band that brought you "Eighties." I have no idea what the title means–maybe it's a nod to hardcore fans who wouldn't need a hits album–but I've long waited for the opportunity to slip this phrase into a conversation. Still waiting…
Maybe someone could say to me, "Hey, that's a great title but the album's so terrible you'd mock anyone who owned it."
And I could say, "Laugh? I nearly bought one."
But that's probably not going to happen.