Something I picked up on when browsing a related thread recently was the general reaction to a trend in making song titles uncapitalised.

 

I am not enjoying the lack of capitalization in the title. :angry:

The insufferable trend of having song titles all in lowercase continues :(

I am also not a fan of this.

It’s a trend that has been adopted by the likes of Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Tate McRae, Surf Mesa and even recently Jax Jones.

 

Of course, some artists even brand themselves as lowercase or capitalisation of themselves on their material also which adds to the trend.

 

Do you have any opinion on this when you see it in the charts?

 

I added a poll with the option of “Other” for any combination of the two, or when the first character of the words is capitalised.

I would rather a song title be all lower case than all upper case! Like 'CARDIGAN' doesn't exactly feel right to me. Whereas 'humble.' doesn't look as wrong.

 

I suppose it kinda depends on the context of the song title also. Like a softer sounding, or relating to something soft, title works in lower case and a harsher title works in upper case. ROCKSTAR works but GREECE is kinda unnecessary imo.

Now this is my kind of poll.

Lower case if they don't use regular caps.

I absolutely cannot stand artist names, song titles or album names in anything other than standard mixed case. I'm a real stickler for spelling and grammar, and 'god is a woman', 'CARDIGAN', 'YUNGBLUD' etc. just look wrong to me. Yeah I know it stands out from the crowd and all that, but I just wish they wouldn't.

Edited October 14, 20204 yr by M4NGO

I prefer lowercase just because it's more of a chill vibe rather than feeling like I'm being shouted at :lol: getting very used to it as an Ariana stan :')

I absolutely cannot stand artist names, song titles or album names in anything other than standard mixed case. I'm a real stickler for spelling and grammar, and 'god is a woman', 'CARDIGAN', 'YUNGBLUD' etc. just look wrong to me. Yeah I know it stands out from the crowd and all that, but I just wish they wouldn't.

 

There is a much bigger issue with YUNGBLUD than the capitalisation of his name x

 

I am entirely neutral on this "issue". The only thing that annoys me is when artists are inconsistent with it. Like Meduza are called MEDUZA on Spotify but (as far as I'm aware) nowhere else. Make your mind up. x

Fontaines D.C. were "FONTAINES D.C." on Spotify before Dogrel which annoyed me :lol:

I absolutely cannot stand artist names, song titles or album names in anything other than standard mixed case. I'm a real stickler for spelling and grammar, and 'god is a woman', 'CARDIGAN', 'YUNGBLUD' etc. just look wrong to me. Yeah I know it stands out from the crowd and all that, but I just wish they wouldn't.

I absolutely agree with this. When I type out my vote in the BJSC, I always correct each artist and song name to standard mixed case.

 

I too agree with the majority who state that grammar should be followed and all words in a song or album title, because it itself is a title, should be capitalised for each first character of each word, but that is it. The rest should be in lowercase.

 

Another artist name I don’t think needs capitalising is RAYE which would be fine as Raye, otherwise it suggests that RAYE is an acronym and stands for something else...

Edited October 14, 20204 yr by awardinary

tbh I'm all for it. If I had a preference, it's for upper case just because it's easier to distinguish itself in a sentence. I don't think titles of anything are at any liberty to have to follow grammatical rules, they're their own entity as soon as you put them into quotation marks. I've always thought it was a weird thing to get pedantic about though, and kind of pretentious. Names like clipping. & fun. are evocative in a way that Clipping & Fun just look flat by comparison. CHVRCHES, A$AP Rocky, SBTRKT have an eye-catching visual appeal that lowercase font looks ugly by comparison. MF DOOM's is so coated into his brand that one of his most iconic lyrics is about it. Most of all though, I like that it provides disambiguation of its own. If Taylor Swift & BABYMETAL were being grammatically correct, then we'd have two more on the pile of songs called "The One", but instead they're doing their own thing so they can easily be referred to without having to further clarify which one it is. If I want to refer to any of Post Malone, DaBaby, Mallrat, or heaven forbid, Reece Mastin's songs of similar name*, all I have to do is use their specific typeset and voila, no pointless confusion about 'did you mean the other, other "Rockstar"?' It's the pedants that are holding it back.

 

*no relevant omissions

I don't really care either way, it's just a title anyway and I'm happy for artists to make their own stylistic choices! For which one I prefer, I think all-lowercase looks more aesthetically pleasing than all-caps but both have their place I think.

hate hate hate anything other than title case. If I had to choose though I dislike all caps lock more.

I’ve even been tempted to switch to Apple Music just so I can edit these song titles to make my playlists look neater.

The traditional format in music magazines (which no longer exist) was 1 (LAST WEEK) (WKS) TITLE (or bold) Artist

 

and that's the format I continue to use (plus a peak position column) because it gives you the information you want upfront, makes the title stand out and stops the act blending into the TITLE. One case is harder to single stuff out visually, and if the act is in upper case then it just also looks shouty when you have acts with multiple entries and huge long lists of featurings.

I'd prefer if it was all neat and tidy and in proper case but of the 2 options, all capital letters is definitely the more annoying and unnecessary. Just screams pretentiousness to me. Good example is when Zayn dropped PILLOWTALK (I'll concede to it here to make my point) and it just stood out massively on all the chart-related lists at the time. Love the song but what a conceited effort to gain more attention.

 

Songs all in lower case on the other hand just amuse me and give me the impression the artist has terrible grammar lol.

 

With artist names I'm not as fussed as that's part of their identity/image etc. but still unless they're acronyms like BTS or JLS it's still rather unnecessary.

I'd prefer if it was all neat and tidy and in proper case but of the 2 options, all capital letters is definitely the more annoying and unnecessary. Just screams pretentiousness to me. Good example is when Zayn dropped PILLOWTALK (I'll concede to it here to make my point) and it just stood out massively on all the chart-related lists at the time. Love the song but what a conceited effort to gain more attention.

 

Wasn't it originally: PiLlOwT4lK ?

 

Hasn't had a solo Top 10 hit since and the follow-up flopped in at number 30.

 

KaRmA.

 

 

also hate them both :o

Wasn't it originally: PiLlOwT4lK ?

 

Hasn't had a solo Top 10 hit since and the follow-up flopped in at number 30.

 

KaRmA.

 

Haha I'd also completely forgotten how increasingly awful his song titles got thereafter on that first album, each one with seemingly diminishing returns in terms of success :lol:

tbh I'm all for it. If I had a preference, it's for upper case just because it's easier to distinguish itself in a sentence. I don't think titles of anything are at any liberty to have to follow grammatical rules, they're their own entity as soon as you put them into quotation marks. I've always thought it was a weird thing to get pedantic about though, and kind of pretentious. Names like clipping. & fun. are evocative in a way that Clipping & Fun just look flat by comparison. CHVRCHES, A$AP Rocky, SBTRKT have an eye-catching visual appeal that lowercase font looks ugly by comparison. MF DOOM's is so coated into his brand that one of his most iconic lyrics is about it. Most of all though, I like that it provides disambiguation of its own. If Taylor Swift & BABYMETAL were being grammatically correct, then we'd have two more on the pile of songs called "The One", but instead they're doing their own thing so they can easily be referred to without having to further clarify which one it is. If I want to refer to any of Post Malone, DaBaby, Mallrat, or heaven forbid, Reece Mastin's songs of similar name*, all I have to do is use their specific typeset and voila, no pointless confusion about 'did you mean the other, other "Rockstar"?' It's the pedants that are holding it back.

 

*no relevant omissions

 

all of this so much, limiting presentation by correct grammar styles seems so unnecessarily formal in an entertainment medium

 

it is entirely dependent upon each artist's style, I like the aesthetic and vibe a song written in lowercase brings to the imagery I associate with the song, just one way an artist can put together a message of non-conformity and/or chill, meanwhile uppercase indicates strength and a brash sound. yes, if too many people do it then there's no individuality and it's ripe for satire (and if the artist's style goes against our cultural associations of lowercase-phlegmatic + uppercase-choleric then it'll jar) but it doesn't mean that it's wrong to do it if it fits the style and presentation

 

only thing I ask is that all platforms keep it consistent.

I’m a fan of lower case when it’s for song titles. I think it looks pretty and it is kinda chilled too. I mean I think regular spelling works as fine but capital letters for song titles I don’t think works too well (although for an album itself it can work like ARTPOP for example).

 

I don’t think artists names should be all capitals or all lower case though. But for song titles and albums it doesn’t bother me if it’s consistent all the way through.

 

Remember ZAYN though! He had some great uses of various fonts with his debut album :lol: