Songs about fonts

Top 7 songs with typographic references

Author: Johannes Schardt
Date: 18. July 2008

Top 7 Typographic Songs

Listening to “Times New Romance”, a song from the new excellent Monochrome album, I wondered if there are any other songs with typographical references. So I spent the last 7 or 8 minutes to do some extensive research on this topic. Here are the official Top 7 Typographic Songs:

1. “Times New Romance” by Monochrome
Hard to beat, the number one spot goes to the song that started my investigations. Monochrome have been one of mine and Christophe’s favourite German bands for over a decade. Although the song itself isn’t about the font or anything related, Monochrome have a strong tie to typography. Their artworks always feature carefully chosen and layouted typefaces. Buy their records and you will be rewarded with great music in beautiful packagings.

2. “GBI (German Bold Italic)” by Towa Tei feat. Kylie Minogue
“My name is German Bold Italic / I am a type face / Which you have never heard before / Which you have never seen before”. Right, never heard about this font before, but it probably looks like this.

3. “Boring Arial Layout” by Grace Period
Certainly not the best track on Grace Period’s album “Dynasty”, but good enough to make it to #3. The Boston based band has released on such great labels as Audio Dregs and Static Caravan.

4. “Typeface” by Discordance Axis
You might have some problems to understand the lyrics in this songs, but it certainly comes across that the guy is very angry.

5. “Times New Roman” by Applicants
Another song with reference to the typeface we use in our headlines. Applicants are – in their own words – “the most famous and best bloodbeat / pop and roll / electro / punk / indie / chiphop / 8-bit / smashTV / splattercore band of all time!”. Well…

6. “Comic Sans Dance” by Bold Faces
A goofy song about a goofy font. Bold Faces from Stockholm are graphic designers who spit out short punkrock songs about kerning, logotypes and file formats. All songs are available for free on their website.

7. “Die Neue Haas Grotesk” by The Slows
An instrumental, electronic track titled with the original name of the world’s most famous typeface: Helvetica.

Honorable mention: Sven Väth produced some tracks under the moniker “Akzidenz Grotesk”.

Do you know any other songs with references to fontfaces, typography or even graphic design in general?

Oh, there are 8 comments so far

  1. Seidenmatt have an (instrumental) song on their album ‘Wasserluft’ that is named after the type designer Luc(as) de Groot: http://www.seidenmatt.de/gfx/seidenmatt_lucas.mp3

    Andreas on 18. July 2008

  2. i know the song, but i didn’t know that the titled referred to de groot. thanks.

    Johannes Schardt on 18. July 2008

  3. a raster-noton release:
    bytone
    “death of typographer”

    philipp on 18. July 2008

  4. The Tupolev Ghost from Cambridge, UK, do a song entitled Helvetica.

    http://www.myspace.com/thetupolevghost

    Nigel on 16. August 2008

  5. There is band from Columbus, OH called Times New Viking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Viking

    foresmac on 28. August 2008

  6. I believe that the Baskervilles are named for the typeface. Then again, it is possible that they are named for Baskerville, Austrailia…
    http://www.myspace.com/baskervillesnyc

    Kelli on 29. September 2008

  7. Koblenzens Times New Romance sind anscheinend schon länger around als das Lied.
    http://www.myspace.com/timesnewromance

    Jan on 12. October 2008

  8. [...] rato sin encontrar nada, aunque luego, buscando y buscando, me he dado cuenta de que casualmente alguien ya tuvo hace un tiempo esta misma idea, y encontró siete canciones dedicadas a la Tipografía (Debido a la rareza del tema, me he abierto [...]

    Canciones sobre Tipografía on 6. March 2009

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