The Best and Worst Band Names You've Ever Heard

IT IS NOT WORTH BEING SPELLED CORRECTLY.

Something I just realized today, something that I think I should've noticed a lot earlier: "Lynyrd Skynyrd" is a terrible band name. It just baffles me on every level.

It really is very, very bad, if memorable. But better memorably bad than unmemorably so, in all fairness.

Awesomely terrible name for a band that my mom came up with while we were talking about music: Desecrated Söfa.

What kind of band does that sound like to you guys? I have some ideas myself.

Wizard Rock is stupid as a whole, but it doesn't get any more dull and unoriginal than Draco and the Malfoys.

There's apparently a local band called A Bunch Of Jerks, which amuses me if only because that's sort of a humorous name to drop in conversation: "I hope A Bunch Of Jerks come to town soon", "My favorite band is A Bunch Of Jerks", "A Bunch Of Jerks autographed my CD", etc. And of course, I'd make a guess that the reason they picked the name is that when they play live, they can introduce themselves with "Hey, we're A Bunch Of Jerks".

edited 20th Mar '14 8:26:14 PM by MikeK

That's actually not bad, in a way.

Yesterday, I heard a song by an obscure country group called The Sins. Great song, terrible name for a COUNTRY band.

It'd be a good name in certain other genres, though...

Alright, just a question because I can't seem to figure this out: what makes a band name good or bad?

Personal opinion. What one person might think is genius might be considered total bullshit by someone else... It also seems to depend on genre, as well. What works as a Metal band name wouldn't usually work for a Country group, for example. Usually.

Personally, I think it needs to be catchy and either vaguely descriptive of/appropriate to the music they make, or amusingly contrary to such. Still waiting for a Grindcore band named Fuzzy Pink Slippers or something...

Also, there's the so-called "two week test" (a name coined by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame, as far as I know), which states that if it still sounds like a good name to the one who came up with it after two weeks, it's a keeper, basically.

That kind of reminds me that I've always wanted to start a really heavy band (e.g., grindcore, death metal, or something) and have song titles that sound menacing, but the lyrics are about rather mundane and nonthreatening things (e.g., a song with a reference to needles in the title isn't about drugs or torture, but knitting).

It would be the kind of music that would probably have no fans, but I think it would be worth seeing people's confused faces when screaming or growling things like "PET THE BUNNY, PET THE BUNNY!"

That would actually be amazing, as long as ya had the music to back it up. I'd listen to that...

I've always wanted to do that too. Make ridiculously loud, obnoxious, screamy music about the happiest of things.

Yup. The opposite is also fun- bright-sounding music with depressing/angry/cynical lyrics. Naturally, there's a trope for this...

x4 Well off the top of my head there's this mock death metal track by 90s band Sugar Ray about "being nice to your sister" and such. I bet that track confused a lot of people who bought the album.

The thing that occurred to me with The Sins, is that, if you had a lisp, their name would sound exactly like The Shins.

I always thought part of the joke with that track was also that Sugar Ray basically started out as an Alternative Metal band - essentially they had one Black Sheep Hit and decided to run with it by becoming Lighter and Softer. So that's the opening track on what's otherwise a poppy, laid-back New Sound Album.

edited 21st Mar '14 8:05:29 PM by MikeK

They were a Funk Metal / Alternative Metal band to begin with, very true. They still played that occasionally thereafter, but once "Fly" (I think that's the first big one) became a hit... yeah.

Premiata Forneria Marconi, Italian for "Award Winning Bakeries", is pretty good.

Ah, so THAT'S what PFM's name translates to. Huh. I like it.

I only know about them through a music review page I've read, but the particularly interesting thing about their name is that they didn't just pick it for the sake of a Word Salad Title - they're an Italian Progressive Rock band that was somehow sponsored by a bakery. So imagine if today there were an American band named Panera Bread, who actually were funded by Panera.

edited 23rd Mar '14 10:00:47 PM by MikeK

Damn. I did not know that. Huh...

I'm still not sure how I feel about Weird Owl, whose name seems to exist solely to make sure if you ever bring them up in conversation, you're forced to explain you're not talking about Weird Al.

This is surprisingly similar to a silly hypothetical idea I had about using deliberately confusing homonym band names - for example The December Wrists, Salmon Dave, and Daze Of The Gnu ^note  As opposed to The Decemberists, Sam & Dave, and Days Of The New.

I was hitting up a wikipedia article for info about a long-running local battle of the bands, and there are some interesting names among the exhaustive list of competitors. Good names: The Jaded Salingers, Someone And The Somebodys, Dreams Made Flesh, Rods & Cones. So Bad, It's Good names: Rash of Stabbings, Rocktopus,Dogzilla, Miles Dethmuffen ^note Yes, this is a band, not a solo act, Gangsta Bitch Barbie.

edited 9th Apr '14 6:32:16 PM by MikeK