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4. Mk.gee: “Untitled”
Earlier this year, the producer, singer and guitarist Mk.gee — co-signed by none other than Eric Clapton — released his debut album, “Two Star & the Dream Police.” Before that, the 26-year-old rising star had been putting out a steady stream of self-recorded music, including this murky, atmospheric 2019 single.
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5. Kate Bollinger: “Untitled”
“The worst thing you could do is leave when I tell you, ‘Just go,’” the Virginia-born singer-songwriter Kate Bollinger sings in a jazzy, run-on cadence on this track from her 2019 EP “I Don’t Wanna Lose.” “Don’t listen to me, don’t listen to me, no.” The song is untitled, as if to echo the tongue-tied emotional indecision of its lyrics.
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6. The Cure: “Untitled”
The closing track on the Cure’s great 1989 album “Disintegration” is another untitled song about an inability to communicate: “Never quite said what I wanted to say to you,” Robert Smith sings in his morose croon. “Never quite managed the words to explain to you.” In a retrospective piece in honor of the album’s 25th anniversary, the Billboard writer Kenneth Partridge offered another theory, calling the song “so depressing that Smith couldn’t even give it a name.”
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7. R.E.M.: “Untitled”
Only 10 songs are listed on the back cover of R.E.M.’s 1988 album “Green,” but there is actually an 11th: this beautifully bittersweet hidden bonus track. Since a song needs some sort of name in order to be copyrighted, the band initially registered the track as “11,” but on digital editions of the 2013 “Green” remaster it is listed as “Untitled.” Whatever you want to call it, it’s a great song.
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8. Neutral Milk Hotel: “Untitled”
Not sure what to name a song without lyrics, like this 10th track on Neutral Milk Hotel’s cult classic “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”? There’s always “Untitled”!
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9. Blink-182: “Untitled”
And finally, from my favorite album of all time circa sixth grade, I will play you out with the buoyantly bratty eighth track off Blink-182’s “Dude Ranch.” I am convinced that Tom DeLonge wanted this song to have a name but that no one else could understand what he was saying so they just left it untitled.
Read More: Untitled (The Playlist)
