self-titled album

[Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> writes:

>>>>>
     [...]     something that always rankles me is the use of
"self-titled album" to mean an album with the same name as the recording
artist, where it always sounds to me as though the artist came up with the
name of the album without any help.
<<<<<

I see your point... and raise you one. I didn't understand the expression
the first few times I heard it on radio, but I consider its usefulness
indisputable. If you're a disk jockey, or whatever the current term is, how
many times a day do you want to say things like "Before that, we heard
Eddie from Ohio [the name of a group], with [insert song title here] from
their album also called Eddie from Ohio"? If you say "album of the same
name", "same" is likely to be misunderstood to apply to the song title.

(If that's what you really mean, you say "the title cut from their album "I
Rode Fido Home". And please, nobody tell me that that album has no song by
that name; I'm struggling for example data as it is.)

So, "self-titled album". As with "hopefully", the logical quibble is
outweighed by the expression's usefulness and the absence of a viable
alternative.

-- Mark