To be fair, "The Nightwatch" generally just rolls off the tongue a lot better than... "Militia Company of District II Under The Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq".

Glass Key is more than likely dry humor. What is more precarious than a key made out of glass? The painting is the answer, a mountain sized boulder perched on the spine of a mountain.

“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” Beautifully and terrifyingly simplistic

Goosebumps author R.L. Stine once held a contest where students could submit a title and the winner would have that title turned into a novel. The winner of the contest submitted a title nothing short of engrossing: "Dead Dogs Still Fetch". It'd a title that seems to contain an entire story within its few words. Its a title I think about often

I can’t for the life of me remember the artist, but I once saw a painting of a girl looking at a dinosaur skull at a museum entitled “Two Earthlings”. The painting itself was nice, but reading the title gave me a weird existential jolt. Definitely made me like it more

"The Mountains Are Learning, and I Must Run" is a unique statement I blurted out and then I realized it sounds like a really solid title for a creepy pasta. Same for "My dad died 3 months ago, and now I have to fight him".

"the month of the grape harvest" is probably one of my favorite titles, it seems so unrelated to the artwork but at the same time not contradictory enough that you'd think it was purposely mismatched. It has an eerie, sort of indie horror feel to it that way

I always liked the name of the old Nickelodeon cartoon "Ahh! Real Monsters." I liked how you have to say an exclamation as part of the title when you say it out loud, which people do, but in weird ways because it's such an unusual thing to have to do. Often it's all kind of slurred together, like "when I was a kid, my favorite shows were Cat-Dog, Goof Troop, and Ahrealmonsters." People give things impossible-to-say names all the time, like some of the music tracks you mentioned, but I like the idea of giving a children's show such an unorthodox name just because the creators would have known the name would have to be said aloud frequently, among children and on TV ("coming up next..."). It gives it an intentionality I find delightful.

Fun fact on that matter: "The Scream" by Edward Munch translates to "Fright" in the original translation and the guy isnt even screaming, he is hearing an expressional scream of nature and is in shock. The thought that the figure is screaming comes mostly from the faulty translation.

I think the use of titles for copyrighted art is fascinating. In 1996, James Cameron announced he wanted to make a flim called Avatar. In 2004, Nickelodeon had to rename their animated show to Avatar: The Last Airbender because Cameron owned the rights to the single word title. In 2009, when the film Avatar was finally released, it was marketed as James Cameron's Avatar to help distinguish itself. Production companies and marketers fight to establish their brand recognition with a simple common word, but at the end of the day, we still say, "oh you mean with the blue people?"

Another one for c418 is off the first minecraft soundtrack album, the song is called "Intro" and is the last song on the albums lineup, it's also not even included within the game... c418 says the meaning is that it's the intro into the real world after quitting the game. Tonally the song is very melancholic and introspective so the meaning for me personally is also about growing up.

A glass key is a questionable construct. If you put a glass key in a keyhole (a key's intended function is to go in a keyhole and turn the lock mechanism) it can shatter, as it is made a glass. In this scenario, the key has been precariously placed for it's function. That is, it's meant to do something, but the slightest thing can destroy it. A giant oblong boulder that is barely balanced in an unlikely and questionable way, is also precarious. Especially precarious for its presumed intended purpose, as a rock formations presumed purpose is to endure. And the ability to endure, is the very thing this that's in question for this rock formation depicted.

There’s a joke about titles you might appreciate. There was this guy walking down the road when he noticed a night club ahead. He went in, went up to the bar and asked for a drink. The bar owner, who was tending bar, said, "I've never seen you in her before." The guy says, "Yes, I'm not from around here. I'm just passing through on my way to find a job." The owner asks, "What do you do?" The guy says, "I write music and play the piano." The owner, looking excited says, "REALLY! I have an ad in the paper looking for someone to play my piano. Please sit down at the keyboard and play for me if you're interested." The guy does and as he plays the piano the owner is in awe of his talent and musical abilities. The owner says, "You play the piano more beautifully than anyone I have ever heard! What is the name of that song?" The guy says, "I wrote that song and the name is Two Lesbians Fucking Their Brains Out." The owner gasps and is taken back. He says, "My gosh, that's a terrible name for such a beautiful song. Do you know any others?" The guy smiles and plays again. Once more the owner is astounded by this guy's talent and musical abilities. He's almost afraid to ask but he does ask what the name of the song he just played. The guy answers, "I Fucked Her All Night Until She Couldn't Take Anymore." The owner again was shocked. The owner says, "OK, you play beautifully and the songs you have written are incredible. I will hire you, but you have to promise not to tell the name of your songs to the patrons." The guy agrees. That night the guy was playing the piano and the crowd was just as amazed as the owner was with this man's musical abilities. After playing two songs the crowd stood up and applauded. The guy was really pleased and stood up to take a bow. When he stood up and faced the audience, it was apparent that his zipper was open and his dick and balls were hanging out. One of the patrons close to the piano says, "Sir, do you know your dick and balls are hanging out?" The guy smiles and says, "KNOW IT, I WROTE IT!"

My mom titled me "disappointment" and I think that's a wacky title

Magritte is probably my favorite artist of all time. His insane reasonings for his odd titles makes me just love him more

One of the most haunting titles in art's history has to be the John Brosio's painting of a woman looking at the fossilized skull of a T-rex in a museum. The name of the work? "Two Earthlings".

On David Bowie's 1977 album Low, he has an instrumental song titled "A new career in a new town" where he plays a harmonica throughout the song. On David Bowie's final song, on his last album Blackstar (2016) he has a song titled "I can't give everything away" that samples the harmonica on "A new career in a new town" from 39 years prior. David Bowie died 2 days after the release of his album Blackstar. I always loved his song "A new career in a new town," but sometimes I wondered if the meaning I got from the song was obscured by the title. Maybe the instrumental song would have a completely different meaning if not for the title? Then when I listened to Blackstar and heard the harmonica, in the context that Bowie knew he was going to die soon from cancer, it gave an even greater meaning to both songs and Bowie's thoughts on death. A new career in a new town. Blackstar also isn't the title of Bowie's final album, its official title is ★. Just the symbol of a black star.

I'm a big music fan and the title of a song can make it just that much better. I'm a sucker for cool, interesting, or just weird titles.

Solar, I appreciate the fact that you're not the kind of youtuber who cranks out a new video every week or every few days, but rather that you take the time to put together really thoughtful video essays that are always worth sitting through and often a rewatch or two. Keep up the good work, sir.

Your channel is a great example. I love the name Solar Sands, it is what caught my attention at first. Doesn't need to have, or i dont need to know, the meaning, i just like that combination of words.

One of my favorite titles is John Brosio's "Two Earthlings", the painting is of a person and a skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex in what is very likely a museum, nothing conceptually out of the ordinary, but the title really hits a chord with me.

Solar Sands doesn’t upload frequently, but when he does, it’s a blessing.

"I Can't Even Remember My Own Name" by Frums is probably my favourite Title. Frums definitely has weirder titles like 24eeev0-$ or Mdrnqxtagon, it's not even one of their most unique songs. But I feel the combination of noise, the calming melodies paired with the title just make this song something special. For me it feels like someone who's experiencing an ego death, and also experiencing true tranquility. The most terrifying thing, the realization of one's death, juxtaposed with, the realization that even dying can't prevent you from inner peace is just nonsensical and also beautiful to me.

I'm so glad you brought up C418's work! I've always felt drawn in by many of his song titles. Some titles are fairly straightforward or only take a little bit of thought to piece together, but plenty also have a strange, esoteric quality that feels like you _should_ understand what it means but can't. The odd titles are short and simple enough that its not just a random mix of words, coherent enough to not get lost, but still manage to evoke all sorts of feelings that you can't quite place.

You didn't mention the Aphex Twin album (Selected Ambient Works, vol. II) that used a collection of abstract images rather than words for the titles of its tracks. After it was released, fans had to agree on a verbal description for each image, just so they could refer to specific tracks in normal human language.

Insane that you did a video about the value of titles and didn't once touch on Japanese pop media and its use (or abuse) of the english language. "Infinite Undiscovery", "Metal Gear Rising Revengeance", "Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time", "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days", "Blue Gender", "Ergo Proxy", "Godzilla Minus One". The list goes on and on. I realize that part of it is the fetishization of english as a visual medium. And part of it is the raw translation of Japanese into English, but it's still very amusing to me.

Nice video, but you've missed such a wonderful example of weird titles when you've mentioned Aphex Twin. He's notable for using ambiguous titles with seemingly random numbers and letters, that's for sure. He even used to name tracks with old Scottish words. But the peak of his naming always would be his second album under his alias Aphex Twin - "Selected Ambient Works pt.2". There he named every track from the album with *pictures*. There is no official verbal titles for this album's tracks, everywhere they titled with their index numbers or with what the person, that described tracklist, saw on these pictures. I mean, Twin's famous track "Stone in focus" isn't originally named that way. Its name is a picture of stone-like surface with parts of it blured and part of it in focus. The track "Tree" is named with a picture of a tree. And only "Blue calx" is named verbally: its picure is blue rectangle with words "blue calx" written in bottom-left corner of it.

Yo Solar, this is so cool to see. Legitimately an interesting video I can learn a lot from! I've been watching since the Deviantart days, back when I, myself, was an "edgy, angy teen". Then I got cancer and mellowed out just a little bit, and it's so gratifying to come back and watch you upload these long-form, well thought-out video essays with so much heart and intrigue poured into them. Not only that but seeing the tremendous amount of support and thoughtfulness these videos invoke in the comments is really fantastic. I'm just so stoked. Looking forward to seeing more content that makes you happy.

I'm surprised Everywhere at the End of Time wasn't mentioned here. I feel like the names used in that project are such a huge part of the impact of it, as if they'd been too direct or too vague it would have shifted the tone out of the sweet spot the work hits between esoteric artsy chaos and an easily understood yet brilliantly concise commentary on dementia.

One of my favorite titles is “Finnegans Wake” by James Joyce. It refers to the Irish song “Finnegan’s Wake” in which a man falls off a wall and dies and at his funeral is resurrected when someone spills whiskey on him. The title leaves out the apostrophe as if Joyce is tells all of the Finnegans in the world (the common man) to wake up. Finally if you break the title down you get “Finn” which means end, “Egan”which sounds like again, and wake which can refer to the wake at a funeral or someone waking up or Finnegan waking up from his own death. This encapsulates the whole book which is itself a dream and a circle, representing the circle of life, death, and history. It was also one of Anthony Burgess’ favorite books.

Personally a big fan of the way Will Wood titles his songs, too. They seem to be the perfect balance of absurdity that you really have to dig into to understand, and something that can give insight and meaning before you even listen to the song. Some of my favorites are "Marsha, Thankk you for the dialectics but I need you to leave", "I/Me/Myself", "Mr Capgras encounters a secondhand vanity" and "The First Step". They all give you something to think about, like an easter egg in the song without actually being part of the song

4:22 "Giving birth astride a grave" is reference to Samuell Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, that we glimpse consciousness for but an instant before we're back in nothingness.

I don't really mind longer titles, but I see why some people might not want to remember such a long title.

C418's Minecraft tracks are so emotive i often find myself trying to imagine the music describing a story about the title Like if it was the soundtrack to a movie, changing mood depending on the current actions displayed on screen Especially the track "Mice on Venus", "Cat" and "Sweden"

14:29 ah yes the original Isekai novel

"if you were to get what you deserve, you would know what the bottom of a tire tastes like" is my favourite

I’d kill to see you do a retrospective on your channel. See what made you shift interests from laughing at cringe art to sharing educational essays that are down to earth.

The Canadian post rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor has some really creative titles. Some of my favorites are “She Dreamt She Was a Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone in an Empty Field” and “Cancer Towers On Holy Road Hi-Way”

I’m really surprised that no one here has mentioned will wood and the tapeworms! They have crazy long and intriguing titles that take a hot second to scroll across the screen. My personal favorite right now is Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity: Tulpamancer's Prosopagnosia/Pareidolia (As Direct Result of Trauma to the Fusiform Gyrus)

It seems that both modern art and isekai Light novels have one more thing in common now, that thing being the sheer LENGTH of their titles. Those writers must've taken inspiration from Dali when deciding what to name their fantasy/post-apocalypse books.

Father sands has blessed us with enough sustenance to survive another month

The way he pronounces “foliage” 😂

The usage of titles in Midwest Emo music has always fascinated me. Many artists in the genre tend to use absurd, humorous, often lengthy titles that make frequent reference to things that might sometimes invoke nostalgia through their references. I always thought that this enhanced the music, as it made the works appear jovial and fun on the outside, when in reality they are more often than not quite sorrowful and depressing. I always thought this served as a good metaphor for the people the music is intended for, as the demographic of Midwest emo fans tends to be people who bottle depression and present an outwardly quirky or joking self to mask their insecurities.

I used to write fanfics and I always found it the most difficult to find a title. It depends on your standard for finding a title. I used to try to find a title by condenscing the overall theme of the story but that made it so I had to wait til the story was finished to get a full picture and my fans waited for my weekly uploads lol. So I started titling my stories based on the characters' personality trait plus the setting.

Art titles and uncertainty behind them were sometimes a nightmare in art school, especially when they were translated not once, but often twice, from the original language to english and then from english to language the school was teaching in. Finding some of the paintings after classes was just straight up impossible, they turned out to be different pieces or the translations everywhere on the internet were so different, that finding anything in my native language was... Hard. I remember well when the class was studying for the tests after impressionism and it could get really stressful, because you need to know around 2000 certain pieces for the standardised test at the end of high school, some of which you can't find ANYWHERE.

I love everything you make, solar sands!

Easily one of the most entertaining channels I’ve found on UKposts. Everything is so thoughtful and real. Keep doing it

Solar Sands acknowledging Jacob Geller in his video is something I didn't think I'd see, but I'm so happy I did. Collab when?

I'm hard-pressed to find another channel that can get me immediately interested in a topic within literally the first minute of the video. You really need to write a book, my man.

you know the video essay was hitting when it made you open your notes app and journal some thoughts. well done solarity sander

Genuinely excited when I saw you posted a new video

Time for our monthly dose of quality entertainment

I love how this is the only legit cool art channel on UKposts. You learn more from Solar Sands thab any Art teacher or Wikipedia page.

Surf's Up by The Beach Boys is great because the song isn't actually about surfing, it's like the phrase "the jig is up." It's a perfect reflection of the midlife crisis kind of slump the group was in at the time which is also reflected in the music on the album: Activism, nostalgia, whatever Feel Flows is, unemployment, and very thick depression. (Feel Flows is really just a song about nothing, the words are just supposed to flow nicely for this cool kinda psychedelic atmosphere.)

Always a pleasure to search your channel name again after some time and finding a new video or two, Solar. I aspire to have stuff like what you make

I once noted during a Bach performance (Matheus passion), that the titles of the peaces preformed, where just the first sentence of the lines sung. It was quite hilarious once you noticed it. Later I learned, that the pieces preformed had no real title, but it is just a way for the preformers to distinguish between them. 😅

One of my favorite examples of titles in music some might consider weird are the two tracks in the band Pet Symmetry's debut single "Two Songs About Cars. Two Songs with Long Titles.", which obviously describes exactly the two titles; incredibly long, extremely wordy, and highly descriptive. They play a huge part in adding to the idea that these two songs are about incredibly specific times and events in the artist's life, captured in pure nostalgia that bleeds throughout every part of both songs. This nostalgia is so intense that even if you have no personal relation to either described event or stage in life, you will still likely catch a large portion of it. This single holds an incredibly special place in my heart exactly because of all of this: its unique, its weird, and its a feeling captured like lightning in a bottle.

a solar sands upload day is always a good day

i come back after two years to watch solar sands, and hes out here with yet another one of the most self reflective, artistically inspiring, thought provoking videos ever. we love your videos! please keep it up!

These videos always leave me with such a deep feeling of sadness, but also hope, it's something I don't really feel anywhere else.

Wait until this guy learns about anime light novel titles. I think that would be an interesting case of weird titles that wasn't talked about in the video.

I viewed the "Enjoy your worries., you may never have them again" a bit more direct. Like a climber may be worried about falling, until one day he never has that worry again...

Dude you will never stop being my favorite youtuber

Dude I was literally thinking about this channel today, like all day.

My favorite thing about my own art is chosing the tittle, sometimes giving a name that gives It extra meaning, or Just a gag based on the art

Loved the meditative note you ended the video on. Thank you for this

I think you hit the nail on the head with your commentary on autechre and rdj. I really like that aspect of their naming schemes.

I submit to you: Camellia - Superluminal Absolutely EXTRA-TONE-ordinary "Bumpy Ride" (Shredding Whole Your Belonging Space-Time System At The Speed of 1,600 Times the C_0) and Camellia - Tentaclar Aliens' Epic Extraterretterrestrial Jungle Dance Party Inside Of A Super-Ultra-Mega-Gigantic U.F.O. (It Maybe U.U.F.O.) Silently Flying Over Illinois St. Unironically, Camellia is my favorite artist and one of the few who extends their existing songs and then elongates their title, adding in a related phrases. For example: Camellia - # 1f1e33 (# 00102g version) and Camellia - LOST TECHNOLOGIE ("Data scraper" Long ver.)

4:30 pair of winged dragons on a candlestick shaft is such a profound title. Cant wait to see you again in a month to bless us again

This is my favorite video from you, partly because I am SUPER FASCINATED with titles of all media.

"when those worries change, you'll know that that chapter of your life has ended maybe forever" hit me hard 20:15

I love aphex twin because he literally said in an interview that he “has no idea what he’s doing”

Another video. What a treat! ❤

Solar Sands, you catch my attention all the time with your amazing content. This video about titles is so inspiring to me. Thank you.❤

So glad to see you doing art history again! I hope one day we can talk about art together.

7:14 NEURON ACTIVATION

Pedantry? In the art world? Surely not.

Solar Sands you got me hyperfixated on these topics yet again. Well done with another amazing video man.

SOLAR i love seeing you grace my feed

16:05 Type O negative also has a few bizarre (and in some cases long) song titles (especially on their earlier albums), but ones that generally actually do make sense and are tied to the subject matter of the song.

Another beautifully created video! Great work as always, Solar Sands

When I did High school trivia competitions, we had a fine arts category that usually tasked us with saying the painting or artist’s name when given a physical description of a painting. There were so many famous works I literally only knew by name and description, without a visual mental image. This rote method inadvertently made the title the most impactful part lol

I get so much to think about out of each of these videos. Solar Sands always manages to cover his topics thoroughly, while still leaving plenty of room for the viewer to think about the subject matter for themselves. This might be the best channel on youtube, at least for provoking thought

I really loved this video, might honestly be one of my favorites that you have produced!

sometimes i wonder what a solar sand is

Your content has improved so much over the years. I specially love your segue where you ask if Dali singlehandedly increase the length of titles, and then went into statistics. It reminded me a ton about the way Vsauce can change the topic in an entirely seamless way that keeps you curious about the topic.

cannot state how much I love your content, thank you for your work 🙏

James Ferraro has some amazing titles for his songs. They’re a mishmash of buzzwords, slogans, and phrases crammed together in a way to illustrate the absurdity of modern advertising’s almost desperate attempts to get our attention.

//Woo Nero's Day t Disneyland! She has the strangest track names. Words and pictures convey different things, whether you title art or not, it becomes a piece of the picture (or at least to me). Even an untitled piece conveys an air of silence. So naturally my favourites are those like Magritte's titles as they add another interesting element the painting which makes you think.

As an independent musical artist, I find the sentiment of the video's subject quite moving. Giving meaning to something before even beginning to take in its contents. To be frank, I've had my eyes opened. Thank you.

Thanks you for this video, it definitely helped me see how my titles could be structured in a way I haven’t thought of before

thank you so much for shining a spotlight on c418's more obscure works. that album in particular has such an interesting backstory

Sometimes coming up with titiles for my music/art work is the hartest part of the piece. Haven't come up with too many profound things but some of my favorites I made were Heartworm Neptune street The march of many crustaceans Love to the coward Beached jellysish The world is ending, and I couldn't be more happy Dummies don't feel pain Nightmare carousel In ten thousand corners Brain matter Nothing beyond our shores Let the puppets dance kill the dreamer even down here the flowers still bloom The treussure in your heart all the sunflowers are dead And what I'm currently working on "these aren't your memories" hope I didn't toot my horn too much, I just thought I'd share

I’m a young artist who titles works based on Nahautl words (Aztec language) because that’s my heritage. I also have started using words from other languages when they have a specific word that’s untranslatable in my native languages (spanish, english, nahautl). This video made me appreciate philosophical long/short titles even more. I love The Clockwork Orange book/movie, Damien Hurst’s titles, and Dali’s titles and art. and as an aside, Panic at the Disco’s old long song titles and Kikuo’s subversive Vocaloid song titles. I think that if i can find a balance between playing with world languages and thoughtful phrases, I can better tie in a lot of the works in my portfolio. 🫶🏽🫶🏽 Love this vid!

I really like this video. I like all your other videos, but this one… I connect to it a lot.

I love watching your videos cuz I have discovered many cool artists thanks to you

15:27 The [163.97] at the end is the tempo.

I love the idea of getting a group of friends to find a title. You could start with a description of the painting, and then people could say things that that description makes them think of and get a new title, and then repeat for a few steps until the title seems almost completely detached from the original piece, despite actually following a clear path away from it

This is the best art channel on the internet, thank you for the effort you put in this videos

My friend you have no idea what your videos mean to me. I have sat and just listened to you with such intent. I truly love your videos and listen to them quite often. Keep up the fabulous work!