the.com/title track
the song that got naming rights, whether or not it's the best one
means The song on an album that shares the album's name, usually signaling it's the thematic or commercial centerpiece.
from A straightforward compound of 'title' (from Latin titulus, an inscription or label) and 'track' (music industry slang for a single recorded song, borrowed from the physical grooves cut into vinyl records). The phrase itself is a 20th-century music-industry coinage, rising with the album era, when a record needed a name and one song was chosen — sometimes by merit, sometimes by marketing — to lend it that name.
- not always best
- often filler, not the album's strongest cut
- naming logic
- shares name with album, nothing more required
- marketing tool
- usually chosen for mood, not quality
- exceptions exist
- thriller and purple rain actually earned it