Fun With Acronyms / Music

• The rapper Pitbull's debut album, M.I.A.M.I., stands for "Money Is A Major Issue".
• The song S.W.L.A.B.R. by the rock band Cream stands for She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow. And their song N.S.U. stands for Non-Specific Urethritis.
• The electronic band LMFAO. It sneaks in one profanity in it, but it's a big one. LMFAO stands for Laugh My Fucking Ass Off. The trademark had to censor it to "Freaking".
• *NSYNC: JustiN, ChriS, JoeY, JasoN, JC. After original member Jason left, the group joked that they nicknamed Lance "Lanceton" so the acronym would still work. (The acronym still works, but the "N" is in the middle of his name instead of the end.)
  • Their merchandise distribution company, ZEEKS, takes its name from the last letter of their last names (ChaseZ, TimberlakE, FatonE, KirkpatricK, BasS).
• The Japan Animationsong Makers Project, a group of various anime theme song singers.
• J-Pop band SMAP stands for Sport and Music Assembly People. This isn't even an attempt to be funny.
• An unintentional example. The rock band Jimmy Eat World. Pay close attention to each letter in front of each of the words: Jimmy Eat World. Just tell us what word those three letters spell. The band themselves Lampshaded this on Twitter:
  Advice for new bands: When coming up with a band name, make sure it’s acronym displayed really large on your artwork or t shirts won’t be complicating matters. You’re welcome.
• The Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, whose acronym, according to John Lennon, is just a coincidence, referencing a drawing from John's son Julian about his classmate Lucy O'Donnell.
  • The punk/metal band Life, Sex and Death used the same acronym.
  • As did the goth-pop outfit Love Spirals Downwards.
  • It also popped up in the Aloytah Haynes Jeremiah song "Lake Shore Drive", which is especially glaring because the Drive isn't generally called that.
  • The Flaming Lips' songs are published by Lovely Sorts of Death (which later also became the name of the vanity label that they use to release their collaborations and more experimental works).
  • A Brazilian singer had the song "Lindo Sonho Delirante" (Beautiful Delusional Dream).
  • The Blues Magoos (one of the first bands to call their music "psychedelic") had songs called "Love Seems Doomed" and "Albert Common Is Dead".
  • LSD is also a supergroup consisting of Labrinth, Sia and Diplo. They ran with the other meaning of the acronym by making the cover of their debut album a trippy Design Student's Orgasm illustration of the group members.
  • The second verse of Aesop Rock's "The Greatest Pac-Man Victory in History" takes this to a whole new level, being an unbroken sequence of words that start with L, S, and D. An excerpt:
    Late Show, Dave Letterman, shitty diner lip-slide dutch!
    Low self-discipline leaders see dead lung self-destruct!
• Korn had "A.D.I.D.A.S." (All Day I Dream About Sex).
  • Before they became Korn, the band (with a different singer) played under the name LAPD, which they claimed stood for "Laughing As People Die" or "Love And Peace, Dude".
  • While we're at it, although Adidas itself isn't an acronym, but a portmanteau (of its founder, Adolf "Adi" Dassler), a book about the brand is called All Day I Dream About Sports.
• Detractors of hip hop music insist that "rap" stands for Retards Attempting Poetry. Fans may counter with Rhythmic American Poetry.
• The Wu Tang Clan song "C. R. E. A. M" - "C"ash "R"ules "E"verything "A"round "M"e - CREAM, get the money - dollar dollar bill y'all."
  • The Clan seems to enjoy coming up with backronyms as well, such as "Witty Unpredictable Talent And Natural Game."
• Big Audio Dynamite, who came up with the acronym BAD first, then tried to come up with a name that fit their music.
• The name of R&B girl group TLC refers to its members T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chili, playing on the old phrase "Tender Loving Care".
• Naughty By Nature rose to prominence with the song "O.P.P.", officially standing for Other People's Pussy (or Penis), but the last P was cleverly and intentionally Bowdlerized in the song itself to mean Property.
• Ja Rule's name is supposed to stand for "Jeffrey Atkins Represents Unconditional Love's Existence, though in one magazine interview he said that it simply stands for Jeffrey Atkins Rule.
• In a tongue-in-cheek video promoting a recent tour Tom Waits claims the route this tour takes was specifically chosen because the names of the towns he is performing at spell the word "PEHDSCKJMBA". "PEHDSCKJMBA" is then revealed to be an an acronym for People Envy Happiness. Dogs, Though, Sense Courage, Knowing Jubilation Means Better Assets.
• The British dance band EMF, of "Unbelievable" fame, claimed that their name stood for Epsom Mad Funkers. However, their song "Head on the Ball" included the words "Electromotive Force" and "Ecstasy Mother Fuckers."
• Fall Out Boy's album "From Under the Cork Tree".
• Korean rock band FT Island has Five Treasure Island, and sometimes shortened to FTI.
• Korean rock band CN Blue has Code Name Burning Lovely Untouchable Emotional, and sometimes shortened to CNB.
• Korean boy band B.A.P has Best Absolute Perfect.
• In the mid-'90s, contemporary Christian artist Carman made an album called Righteous Invasion Of Truth, or R.I.O.T.
• Former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown's single F.E.A.R takes this trope to an extreme.
• The hardcore punk band MDC would change the meaning of the acronym for each release (e.g. Millions of Dead Cops, My Dead Child, M ILFs Date Cougars, More Dead Cops)
• Japanese Hardcore Punk group GISM stands for... actually, that seemed to change every five mminutes. One album cover credits it as "Guerilla Incidiery Sabotage Mutineers", but that's far from the only one.
• And then there's Van Halen's 1991 album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge...
• To some fans, Slayer jokingly stood for "Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot". The band actually had this printed on the liner notes of Divine Intervention, and before that, in the inner cutout of the original vinyl release of their debut album, Show No Mercy.
• The "Beastie" in Beastie Boys has been broken down in a tongue-and-cheek manner as "Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence".
• Aerosmith's song "F.I.N.E. (Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional)".
• Bob Seger's song "U.M.C. (Upper Middle Class)".
• Kevin Bloody Wilson's song D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. (Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck?)
• U.S.D.A. or United Streets Dopeboyz of America.
• Just Undeniably Some of The Illest Composers Ever. or J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League
• Renaldo And The Loaf did "Meanings of W.E.I.R.D", with verses ranging from Whisper english intone religious dutch and White elephants injure repugnant dogs
  • The song was originally written as part of a contest to determine what the name of W.E.I.R.D., The Residents' fan club, would actually stand for: The winning entry was We Endorse Immediate Residents Deification.
• Gossip Girl's soundtrack album Original Music From Gossip Girl.
• Lupe Fiasco 's album Lasers is a backronym for Love Always Shines, Everytime Remember 2 Smile.
• The song 'S.H.E.' from IAMX's album The Alternative stands for "Secret Harmonic Emotion".
• French metal band named T.A.N.K (Think of A New Kind).
• Italian noise artist Fukte took advantage of this: A recent release was entitled "RAM", which could either mean "Raped And Murdered" (after the only track on the album) or "Random Access Memory." (It had a paint-covered RAM chip glued to the back)
• My Chemical Romance's last album had the fictional MegaCorp company Better Living Industries, or Bl/ind (they're evil and oppressive, if you hadn't guessed).
• When Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction co-headlined a tour together, they of course called it NINJA.
• In 1970, there were rumours that Jimi Hendrix would be member of a new supergroup called Hendrix, Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
• In an little-known CD album from 1991 called "Sandi Patti and the Friendship Company: Open for Business", the characters are discussing a name for their new club (they eventually decide on "Friendship Company"). Infield says "I make a motion we call our club ?Kind Creatures Caring for Companionless Kids?! Zig invokes this trope when she says "I vote for the name ?Organization of International Nice Kids Erasing Reasons for Sadness?! It has a certain, oh, sound for sophistication!" A few seconds later, meaningful acronyms are forgotten when she suggests "The International Association of Nice Kids and Creatures in the Officinal Professional Business of Friendship... Incorporated," At which point she realizes that it's too long.
• The short-lived supergroup XYZ, who never officially released anything: It stood for Ex Yes and Zeppelin, as the lineup consisted of Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin and Chris Squire and Alan White from Yes. They had wanted Robert Plant to join too, by the way.
• Kansas City indie rapper TechN9ne has a knack for naming his songs and albums this way. One of his albums is titled K.O.D. It stands for King Of Darkness.
• Post-hardcore band Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows.
• Pink Floyd's live box set P.U.L.S.E. just has the periods in the title to look cool, and doesn't actually stand for anything. However, one fan-made FAQ jokes that, depending on how you feel about the David Gilmour-fronted incarnation of the band, it could either be "Pinkfloyd Ultimate Light & Sound Experience" or "Pretty Uninspired Light Show, Essentially"
  • Also their song Shine On You Crazy Diamond, in reference to former band member Syd Barrett.
• The Horrorcore Hip-Hop group []Esham Natas]]. The name is Nation Ahead of Time And Space. It's also "Satan" backwards.
• Feminist rapper Monie Love had "Born to B.R.E.E.D. (Build Relationships where Education and Enlightenment Dominate)".
• Vanilla Ice's Wisdom, Tenacity and Focus.
• KMFDM's name was often thought to stand for "Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode," but it's actually "Kein Mehrheit fur die Mitleid" or "Kein Mitleid fur die Mehrheit," which is loosely translated from the German as "No pity for the majority."
• Australian anonymous alternative band TISM stands for "This Is Serious Mum" due to their often ridiculous lyrical themes and politically incorrect humour
• 801, the occasional band created by Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera, is sometimes assumed to be based on an acronym of Eight Nought One. Eno has denied this, saying, "Ingenious, but...", and Manzanera has performed with 801 without Eno.
• Sound Horizon's Elysion album features five songs with English titles that don't seem to be connected at all to El's story told in the other five. So why are they there? The final El song, "El's Paradise [Side: A]", offers a solution:
  The fourth horizon, the true face of paradise.
  Ark
  Baroque
  Yield
  Sacrifice
  Stardust
  If one falls straight down, without being tempted by the four paradises ("El"s) in between, ABYSS is right there.
• The Spinto Band were being pressured into adding lyrics to a brief wordless bridge in the song "Late", an idea they weren't too fond of. While the proper album version has the song as the band originally wrote it, some leaked promo copies do have these added lyrics. See if you notice anything unusual about them:
  Trapped Here In Some Select Universe, Can't Keep Still...
• KISS, despite being in all caps, it's just the word - even if it coincides with the concept of Keep It Simple, Stupid. Given the time period in which they got their start, Moral Guardians were quick to adopt them the title Knights In Satan's Service or Kinder SS (when both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are Jewish, and even made a modified variant of their logo so the double S would be closer to "ZZ" than Schutzstaffel; the latter was used in countries where the lightning-bolt KISS logo would be considered illegal such as in Germany and Simmons' native Israel).
• W.A.S.P. is either We Are Satan's People or We Are Sexual Perverts depending on your preference.
  • When Blackie Lawless was asked in an interview what it really stood for, he deadpanned, "We Ain't Sure, Pal."
• The name of hip-hop duo N.A.S.A. stands for "North America South America" - One member, Squeak E. Clean, hails from the United States, while the other, DJ Zegon, hails from Brazil.
• Drake's catchphrase YOLO (You Only Live Once)
  • "YOLO" by The Lonely Island featuring Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamar uses it to stand for the same thing, but deliberately misses the point of the slogan, using the Spoof Aesop that you should take absolutely no risks in life because "you only live once". So at the end of the song, it also stands for "You Oughta Look Out".
  • And then there's the Hindu-inspired send-up of it by M.I.A., YALA (You Always Live Again). MIA's own Stage Name fits - it's a pun on her nickname, "Maya" (short for Mathangi), while also meaning "Missing In Acton" (no, not "action", the London neighbourhood, albeit with inspiration from a cousin who went missing in action during the Sri Lankan civil war).
• The Unrest compilation B.P.M. [1991-1994] - In music, "B.P.M." usually stands for "Beats per minute", but here it also stands for the band members' first names - Bridget, Phil, and Mark.
• On the P.D.Q. Bach Fake Radio Show Album WTWP, the initials of the eponymous radio station are said to stand for Wall-To-Wall Pachelbel.
• LL Cool J's G.O.A.T. - the full title as printed on the album cover is G.O.A.T. Featuring James T. Smith: The Greatest of All Time.
  • He has released a single inspired by his acting in NCIS, titled "NCIS: No Crew Is Superior".
  • And his song "Fuhgidabowdit" concludes a series of Professional Wrestling Shout Outs with "WWF stands for When and Where we Fuckin'"
• Daft Punk have a DVD consisting of music videos from the album Homework, which has the title D.A.F.T.: A Story About Dogs, Androids, Firemen and Tomatoes. The title refers to prominent elements of the five featured videos: "Da Funk" and its sequel video "Fresh" have an anthropomorphic dog as a main character, "Around The World" features dancing robots, "Burnin'" features firemen rushing to the scene of a fire at a skyscraper dance party, and "Revolution 909" includes a montage of tomatoes being farmed, packaged, shipped, purchased, and turned into tomato sauce.
• Fat Joe named two albums as Jealous One's Envy and Jealous Ones Still Envy (the cover even painted the first letters differently).
• The Black Eyed Peas' The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies).
• System of a Down has a song called "P.L.U.C.K." It means Politically Lying Unholy Cowardly Killers.
• The lyrics for Ninja Sex Party's "FYI I Wanna F Your A" are composed mainly of acronyms for unrelated things being changed to stand for sexual stuff. For example:
  ''Let's play a sexy RPG
  While we watch ABC
  And eat a bowl of MSG!
  Meaning that I'll Really Pound your Groin
  While you Achieve Butt Climax
  And Make Sex Gravy!
• The Dead Milkmen's "V.F.W.", where the chorus is "We're all Veterans of a Fucked up World". The wordplay involved is that VFW is also the name of an organization of American war veterans, standing for "Veterans of Foreign Wars".
• Jack Bruce, Bill Lordan, and Robin Trower worked together on an album called B.L.T.. The cover art even depicts a Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich.
• Sepultura, on Roots (1996) "Cut-Throat" ends with the words "Enslavement, Patethic, Ignorant, Corporations", which spell out their former record label EPIC.
• Nick Cave's "Loverman" (later covered by Metallica) does this twice with the title:
  L is for LOVE baby, O is for ONLY you that I do, V is for loving VIRTUALLY everything that you are, E is for loving almost EVERYTHING that you do, R is for RAPE me, M is for MURDER me, A is for ANSWERING all of my prayers, N is for KNOWING your loverman's going to be the answer to all of yours
  I'll say it again: L is for LOVE, baby, O is for O yes I do, V is for VIRTUE, so I ain't gonna hurt you, E is for EVEN if you want me to, R is for RENDER unto me, baby, M is for that which is MINE, A is for ANY old how, darling, N is for ANY old time
• FFS is a Supergroup consisting of the members of Franz Ferdinand and Sparks. It of course stands for Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, but they're probably also playing off a piece of internet slang, For Fuck's Sake.
• The Cab were originally stylized as The CAB, as they got their name from the two founding members, Cash Colligan and Alex DeLeon, and it literally stood for The Cash and Alex Band.
• GaMetal was previously named Nintendo Experienced Shred before the name change, which changed it into a Punny Name instead.
• Slipknot has AOV which stands for approaching original violence and nothing else...
• D.A.R.K. were a supergroup consisting of Dolores O'Riordan, Andy Rourke, and Olé Koretsky.
• From the album art of Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick, the literary competition where the title poem was read was hosted by the Society for Literary Advancement and Gestation or S.L.A.G., for short.
• Florida Georgia Line's "H.O.L.Y.", which stands for "High On Loving You".
• Alabama had a hit in late 1993-early 1994 with "T.L.C. A.S.A.P." (Tender Loving Care, As Soon as Possible).
• Played with by Dan Seals on his 1990 hit "Love on Arrival", where a correspondence with his lover has common abbreviations such as "TLC" and "PDQ", but ends with "LOA". He questions what the last of these means, and she tells him that it means "Love on Arrival".
• Spanish band La Maravillosa Orquesta Del Alcohol ("The Wonderful Alcohol Orchestra") sometimes resorts to its acronym La M.O.D.A. "Moda" is Spanish for "fashion", and according to the band members themselves, it's particularly convenient in two situations: a) when festivals can't fit the full band name into their posters, and b) when explaining their mothers what they do.
• Averted with the Black Sabbath song "N.I.B.", which stands for nothing - the title comes from a joke about Bill Ward's beard looking like a fountain pen nib. Hasn't stopped fans from giving it backronyms such as "Name In Blood" or "Nativity In Black", the latter of which was even used on two Sabbath tribute albums.
• As a prank, anarchist punk group Crass wrote and recorded a Sickeningly Sweet parody of easy-listening love songs called "Our Wedding", then convinced the publishers of a magazine aimed at teenage girls called Loving to give away flexi-discs of the song with issues. To hide their identity, they claimed to be an organization called Creative Recording And Sound Services.
• Incubus' album S.C.I.E.N.C.E. just uses the periods for aesthetic reasons, but they came up with some jokey answers to give in interviews when inevitably asked what it stands for... Such as "Sailing Catamarans Is Every Nautical Captain's Ecstasy" and " Southern California's Incubus Enters Nevada Carrying Equipment".
• Penguin Cafe Orchestra's "Cage Dead" is built from two four-note sequences: C-A-G-E and D-E-A-D. It's also a Shout-Out to John Cage.
• Kathy Mattea's "BFD":
  It ain't no BFD, he's got his CMT
  No S-E-X but that's OK
  At least he ain't no SOB like that Ph.D
  That took his E-X and ran off to L.A.
• Japanese trance artist xac's name is an acronym for his three favorite trance artists: X-dream, Above and Beyond, and Chicane.
• Peter Gabriel's Rated PG, playing off the artist's initials and the MPAA rating system (where it stands for "Parental Guidance"). Fittingly, it's a compilation of his songs that were written for or featured in movies.
• Tierra Whack's "Cable Guy" generally involves a lot of wordplay about watching television, but since a lot of television networks have three letter acronyms, there's some of this involved:
  Yeah, it goes like
  ABC (all boys cry)
  MTV (men touch vaginas)
  BET (bitches eat tacos)
  You wanna be seen with me
• The radio station in Parliament's "P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)" is called WEFUNK.
• Against All Authority named themselves as a play on an organization's initialism, the American Automobile Association. Lest you think it's a coincidence, they sometimes used a logo parodying that of the AAA as mashed up with the anarchy "A", and called an album 24 Hour Roadside Resistance (the other AAA offers "24 hour roadside assistance")
• Surf-punk band FIDLAR's name stands for "Fuck It Dude, Life's A Risk". Similarly, Canadian punk band PUP's name stands for Pathetic Use of Potential.
• Mims was born Shawn Maurice Mims, and titled his debut album as a backronym: Music Is My Savior.
• The Evelyn Evelyn track "Tragic Events - Part II" at one point has the conjoined twin sisters cross paths with two ironically-named groups: The Foundation for Always Separating Siamese Twins Everywhere Now (who want to separate Evelyn and Evelyn due to believing Conjoined Twins to be a sacreligious abomination) and the Society for the Preservation of Linked Identical Twins (who oppose F.A.S.T.E.N. because they believe conjoined twins to be necessary to prepare for Judgment Day).
• ABBA's name is an acronym of the band members' initials: Anni-Frid, Benny, Bjorn, and Agnietha.
• Ian Van Dahl's first album is titled ACE after Annemie, Christophe, and Erik.
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" is a famously sad example: the song is about lead singer Karen O's relationship with her then-boyfriend Angus Andrew of the band Liars, which ended shortly after the song was released—with the title being an acronym for "My Angus, please stay".
• Beulah's album Yoko has semi-title track, "You're Only King Once". The initialism has also been interpreted as an oblique reference to Yoko Ono and the public perception that she'd caused the breakup of The Beatles - in interviews Beulah had said it was a strong possibility this would be their last album together as a band, which it was.
• Hempton Manor, the final album by UK Electronic Dance Music act The Shamen released on the One Little Indian label, has the first letters of its 10 tracks form an acrostic for "Fuck Birket", referring to label founder Derek Birket, who wanted the group to move back into more commercial territory after Axis Mutatis.
• Fundamentalist Christians latched onto the Disco craze of the seventies by coming up with the backronym Dancing In Satan's Company in their effort to associate the worldly, hedonistic music genre with the snares of the devil. Then again, by that time people have been burned out by the oversaturation of the genre anyway.
• "Freaky Undulations ~Noble Knights of Tune~" by Indonesian musicians Jehezukiel and KURORAK is a reference to funkot, an Indonesian genre of electronic dance music.
• In 1965 songwriter and producer Bert Berns started a new label with Atlantic Records executives Ahmet Ertegun, Nesuhi Ertegun and Jerry Wexler as investors and minority partners, called Bang Records. In this case, Bang stood for Bert, Ahmet, Nesuhi and Gerald. They also partnered in a publishing firm called WEB IV Music, with WEB standing for Wexler, Ertegun and Berns (and IV because there were four of them).

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