No, The Grey Album isn't self-titled.

Wilco have just released the seventh instalment of their ongoing series of alt.country albums hugely anticipated by rock critics and mostly ignored by the general public. The cheeky buggers have dubbed it Wilco (The Album) with the lead single being Wilco (The Song). This self-awareness is terribly droll, and the quivering rock snobs of the media have been enjoying the construct, with Wilco (The Article) and Wilco (The Review).

Jeff Tweedy’s little joke, and the fact that I’m currently involved in an email interview with metalcore chart-toppers Killswitch Engage who have just named their fifth effort after themselves, got me thinking about the idea of defining eponymous album.

Often it will be a debut that shares a name with the artist. Since a debut essentially comprises the best (and only) work the act has produced so far, it makes sense to go for the band’s name as an introduction. Eponymous debuts have come from enduring (for good or ill) artists such as the Doors, Crowded House, the Rolling Stones, the Cars, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

It also bears out that for most bands born in a garage, the first album will also be the last. They spent so long devising a band name that they should be able to get good mileage out of it. Even larger projects that were still probably considered transitory at their incarnation – Garbage, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, Gorillaz – went with the self-titled first album.

But in certain genres there seems to be an unspoken rule that you absolutely must name your first album after yourself. The Gods of Valhalla must have decreed it as an edict for hard rock and metal, considering the volume of bands whose initial introduction to the world was proudly personalised: Slipknot, Korn, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Rage Against The Machine, Danzig, Extreme, Wolfmother, Motorhead, W.A.S.P., Stone Sour, Saxon, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Blue Oyster Cult, Queen, Skid Row, Suicidal Tendencies, System Of A Down and Van Halen.

The Bronx by the Bronx

Punk bands also took the easy way out at the start of their careers, if you include Ramones, the Stooges, the Clash, the Offspring, New York Dolls, the Living End and Blondie in the never-ending debate about what is and isn’t punk.

Then there are the bands who choose a significant moment in their career for their solipsistic title. Pearl Jam chose their eighth album, which was generally agreed to be a return to their roots. Metallica’s breakthrough was the Black album (their fifth). Blink-182 also matured on their fifth effort; although not enough to stop them suggesting that they were going to call it Use Your Erection I & II. Blur broke away from Britpop on album number five to wider success. Sublime’s third album was their major label debut. And it took the Cure 12 albums to name one after themselves in 2004. Handled by metal producer Ross Robinson, it was meant to be a “heavier” effort.

Some bands got in fairly early, with both Alice In Chains and the Velvet Underground using their third albums to have the group’s name as the title. The Beach Boys waited until their 22nd.

Often it wasn’t even the band’s choice. The most definitive of definitive albums – the Beatles’ White Album – was to be called A Doll’s House, but a prog band from the UK called Family released an album called Music In A Doll’s House earlier that year.

Also The Bronx by the Bronx.

Rapper Nas considered calling his eighth album Nigga but eventually went with the slightly less inflammatory Hip Hop Is Dead. He bandied Nigga around for his ninth album, resulting in so much controversy that he claimed he got a call from the White House at one point. He eventually settled on a self-title but said, “people will always know what the real title of this album is and what to call it.”

Local grindcore jokers Bloodduster said that they only named their fourth album after themselves because no matter what they titled it, it would always be a disappointment after their third album: Cunt.

And we all know the groups who take it to extremes by not bothering to name their albums at all. Weezer are the most notorious. Their 1994 debut was self-titled but has been reverse-engineered into The Blue Album after they self-titled their third album from 2001 (known as The Green Album) and their sixth album from last year (appropriately referred to as The Red Album).

Riotous LA rock band The Bronx messed up iTunes playlists the world over by not bothering to name their three albums, which soon took on the Led Zeppelin-esque monikers of The Bronx I, II and III.

The Bronx by the Bronx a third time.

Danzig’s second and third albums had subtitles after their numbers, until the dark Elvis decided he didn’t want to tarnish the cover of his fourth album cover with any text whatsoever, so stickers were added to the CD jewel case with 4 and a tiny ‘p’ next to it, alluding to a possibly apocryphal Satanic cult called The Four P (or Four Pi) Movement.

And some bands think their own name is so nice that they did it twice: Cheap Trick in 1977 and 1997, Duran Duran in 1981 and 1983, and Fleetwood Mac in 1968 and 1975. It’s worth noting that the first ones from all three bands were debuts.

In fact, Killswitch Engage’s debut was also self-titled. Whether Killswitch Engage II is their defining album or not remains to be seen. Whether the band think it’s their defining album remains to be seen also, since they haven’t emailed me back yet. We’ll keep you posted.