Tunes Consumed: the Poutine Silver Platter

Tunes Consumed is dedicated to the industry in all the shapes it can take. We’re always here to help the kids, you know, lend a hand where it’s needed, or just kick-start an aging industry. Now, behold our Summer School of Rock, where our very own team of research professionals perform statistical analyses, study the successes of our time, from that derive proven industry trends, and present YOU with some quickie cure-all tips for steering your band away from the dollar bin and into an industry powerhouse.

Step One: 
Ack! What am I gonna call myself?

Take any amateur, soon-to-be band leader and their very first concern will be “what do I call myself!?” Don’t sweat! Relax, take out a pen and some paper (plain white paper is best, but if you’ve only got lined paper on hand that’ll work too). In your best attempt at street graffitti write out your first and last name. Make sure to use lots of sharp angles and bold lines, and throw in some 3-dimensional shading while you’re at it. Now don’t lose that slip of paper, because not only is it your slick new band name, but it’s also your logo! See how easy that was?

Psychological Fact: It’s been proven that street graffitti elicits feelings of rebellion, fist fights and motorcycles, and since you’re entering the rock industry that’s exactly what you want.

Step Two:
Okay, my band name is pretty damn sweet.
Now, what do I name the album?

Alright, this one is a little more tricky, but don’t worry, our research staff has come up with a simple formula. Based on a year-long census of the 2007 entries into the rock industry, we can go through and derive an album name ourselves. Now watch, because it’s not as easy as step one. Below is a condensed list from the census, in case you were curious (honest-to-god entries!).

Guillotine
Hellride XXX
Twenty Years of Rage
We Crush Your Mind With The Thrash Inside
We’ll Live and Die in These Towns
On A Chariot Of Fire
Four Years Beast Rage
New Maps Of Hell
Cruel Melody

If you look closely you’ll notice a pattern.  Pretty simple, right? So what should yours look like? Well, as a professional wordsmith myself I can show the ropes, come up with a sample now and then you can practise on your own at home.

Clearly we’ll want to base our album name these metaphors: some death here, some rage there, and then an obscure histo-cultural reference (for distinctiveness, that way it will stand out on the WalMart shelves when you’re signed and distributed!). You may not have considered that last part by yourself, but hey, that’s why I get paid the big bucks.

Using this mathematical formula, denoting rage as a, cruel as c, death as d, and mussolini as m we can construct the following formula:

Album Name = d(m) = c + r
… … … Death By Mussolini’s Cruel Rage !

And that’s a ticket to the Top-10 for sure!

Psychological Fact: Political references that come from the past are astronomical in chart-topping album titles, because nobody can refute them, and they sound pretty sweet!

That’s it for the chapter on Naming Schemes, be sure to tune in next week for some more surefire hot tips!