The Best and Worst Band Names You've Ever Heard

Speaking about umlauts, Spinal Tap is a kinda good name, too.

X-Ray Spex and X. Also, if you cheat a little The XX (Technically that starts with T, but itunes' alphabetization doesn't count "the").

Um, so... Bands I like with names I don't like:

• Archers Of Loaf
• Blind Melon
• Supergrass (and by connection Superdrag and Superchunk. Somehow Supertramp gets a pass though).
• Yuck
• For Squirrels
• Estradasphere

edited 29th Apr '11 11:08:23 PM by MikeK

Hell, this is too tough. I'm just limiting it to artists on my iPod. I like most of these bands anyway.

Great band names:

• Anamanaguchi
• Autechre
• Bitch Magnet
• Calexico
• De La Soul
• The Exploding Hearts
• The Flaming Lips
• Giraffes? Giraffes!
• Kyuss
• Mudhoney
• The National
• Primal Scream
• The Sex Pistols
• Slayer
• Teenage Jesus & the Jerks
• Unwound

Bad band names:

• Alcest
• Avenged Sevenfold
• Dirty Beaches
• Disappears
• Gang of Four
• Girl Talk
• Lazlo Bane
• Our Lady Peace
• The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
• The Pineapple Thief
• Slint
• Sun Kil Moon
• Talk Talk
• Yuck

Hey, I like "Our Lady Peace" and "The Pineapple Thief".

I've always been partial to cLOUDDEAD, weird caps and all.

El-P's nickname Lazerface has also always struck my awesome chord.

Really? I always thought this was a good name wasted on a crap band.

The name reflects the band: It initially sounds awesome... (*Beat*) ...Or not.

edited 30th Apr '11 7:22:50 PM by inane242

I must agree.

I always thought Avenged Sevenfold was a cool name. The band...less so.

edited 30th Apr '11 9:37:55 PM by Nyktos

Worst: Pounded Clown, Wow, owls!, The Cute Lepers, Poopfist, Eccentric toilet, Gay for Johnny Depp, Gay Cowboys In Bondage, Bunny Clogs, Steaming Wolf Penis, I Would Set Myself On Fire For You, Wookie Hangover, Happy Butterfly Foot, Dumpy's Rusty Nuts,

edited 30th Apr '11 9:54:51 PM by lolacat

Worst: Escape The Fate, Limp Bizkit, 30 Seconds To Mars, etc.

God Lives Underwater and Empty has got to be the coolest band/album name combo I've ever heard. I'd rather have some incredibly nihilistic and bleak music to go with it - just look at the album cover! - not bog-standard '90s angsty "industrial" rock.

edited 1st May '11 6:40:21 AM by Litis

Good band names beginning with X?

Xerath.

While we're at it... "X-Japan". What kind of name is that?

If I recall correctly from wiki-walks of old, X Japan used to be just X until the American X sued for breach of copyright.

I know that story. And I don't know whether it makes it stupider or otherwise.

Suede suffered from the same thing and published their materials as "The London Suede" in America. At least that sounds somewhat more tasteful.

Worst: Cute is What We Aim For, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Anaal Nathrakh
Worst genre for band names: WITCH HOUSE! I put this on here because not only can I not pronounce them, I don't have the unicode set for half of them!

edited 3rd May '11 3:41:42 AM by iamathousandapples

good name: Caroline's Spine (sample), Ludo (anyone thats seen Labyrinth knows why), Cavo (sample)

bad name: 3Oh3

yes the last 2 bands on my good name list are local...i always show local music love

edited 3rd May '11 7:56:01 AM by vanthebaron

In addition to the names I listed in my first post, I'm also quite fond of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, The Raincoats, Primitive Calculators, Prurient, Caldera Lakes, Bitch Magnet, Ungdomskulen, Merzbow, Gastr Del Sol, Dome, Hox, Hair Police, A Certain Ratio, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Spherical Objects, The Monochrome Set, Eyeless In Gaza,The Door and the Window, Glutch, Contortions, 8-Eyed Spy, Beirut Slump and The Gerbils.

It's debatable whether or not British Nirvana counts, since as far as they're concerned, they're just Nirvana. But I like the former name a lot better.

...Does the fact that not only have I heard of this band, but also know it's a reference to Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy make me a music nerd?

Also I can't figure out weather Mnemic is a good band name or not. Good music either way though.

Local artist names? Atmosphere is a lousy name for a group, Brother Ali sounds generic, Cullinguists is just puerile... Stupid indie Hip-Hop scene hogs all the local bandwidth.

edited 3rd May '11 9:27:04 PM by inane242

@vanthebaron: The band on your worst list was a local from where I'm from (Denver). Denverites like the name because 303 is the Denver-Boulder area code.

Bit late in replying, but deliberately misspelled band names annoy the fuck out of me regardless of their origin - and yeah, I did know how Led Zep's name was formed.

edited 4th May '11 4:04:23 AM by pagad

Half Man Half Biscuit is an amusing name. Though it's one of those names where, after a few years, the novelty wears off and the stupid remains.

But would anyone outside of Denver get the reference?

Another bad one: BB Mak. They also had one of the worst first names for a band member: Ste.