"Give a short, descriptive title."

You know what's odd? When you post a song to MeFi, it says to "give a short, descriptive title" under the field where the song title goes. That's weird. Shouldn't it say, "put the name of your song here" or something? Or is it suggesting that song titles themselves should be short and descriptive?

Also, I just noticed that when I'm previewing my Music Talk post, which I'm doing right now, it says "Song Preview" at the top instead of "Post Preview" or whatever. MYSTERIES ABOUND

posted by Karlos the Jackal (8 comments total)

Heh heh! Yeah, the "short, descriptive title" bit always seemed a little odd to me, too. I had a song on one of my records from the 90s called "Underwater Still Life in Motion with Ritual Dagger and Cloud". A descriptive title, but not short. Maybe I'll post it sometime just to see if it's automatically rejected!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:48 AM on September 22

I hate that you have to say something underneath, explaining the song. You can't just leave a blank space under the title. I think the "more inside" should be enough, if you want to say stuff about it.
posted by chococat at 7:32 AM on September 22

I struggle a lot with having to describe something - it should speak for itself shouldn't it? Also those fucking tags - I mean I know that it helps people searching for stuff but I hate categorising music in that rigid way. Charlie Parker is credited with saying there's only two types of music - good and bad. Anyway - how about this T-Rex title:

My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows

Blimey!
posted by MajorDundee at 12:40 PM on September 22

My longest titles yet: "Evil Supernatural Beings of Rotational Tremulant Sound," "Duck Lost in the Forest Being Chased by a Swarm of Angry Bees Stumbles Across the Gyrophonic Demon Carnival," and a movement from "Synaptic Constellations," which was called "The Horn of Defeat at the Siege of Constantinople, Signaling the Fall of the Byzantine Empire."

I need to post those here sometime.
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 1:43 PM on September 22

I agree! Especially about the "song title". I appreciate the description before the more inside, because if some describes their song as anything like, "My very old dog farting and snoring simultaneously", well then I HAVE to listen to it.

Have any changes been made yet? If not, CALLING PB!!! CLEAN UP IN THE MUSIC AISLE!
posted by snsranch at 4:29 PM on September 23

I like reading the song description, it's a good way to know a little bit about the songs on offer before choosing a couple to listen to. But I agree on the song title thing, that always seemed very much like a weird leftover from other parts of the site or something. Or like it wasn't anticipated that anyone on MeFi would actually title their songs, so they'd have to just come up with something on the spot to briefly describe it.
posted by edlundart at 9:26 PM on September 26

snsranch, that simply means that I am going to HAVE to post "Musings of a Plastic Cow (Poop in a Bucket)"
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 7:19 AM on September 27

Post it man, POST IT!
posted by snsranch at 5:01 PM on September 27