Artists You've Written Off/Pointedly Ignored because of their name

I was looking at the calendar for my local club today, and on back-to-back nights they are featuring bands with semi-amusing names and, I'm assuming, post-TMBG twee-ness that I never need bother trying to appreciate:
Apr 11 - Great Good Fine OK
Apr 12 - We Were Promised Jetpacks (with Weakened Friends)

My educated guess is that the members of We Were Promised Jetpacks are 65-70 years old, are all deeply involved in the Jonny Quest fan club, and buy Quisp cereal whenever it's temporarily reintroduced

And they all wear Hawaiian shirts

I know this from some other terrible band name thread: We Were Promised Jetpacks were named after a line in a Ricky Gervais podcast. What Gervais actually said in the podcast was "we were promised hovercrafts." However, the bandmates thought "jetpacks" would sound cooler.

In a similar vein there is Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. This is made even worse by the fact it's a solo artist, I don't like when solo artists give themselves stupid band-like names at the best of times.

“Funny” band names are a mistake unless your listeners are people who think the same joke is funny over and over again

weakened friends is a great band name (and band) imo

Cocaine Piss

Every single explanation behind every band name has made me hate the band name more

Ricky Gervais podcast ffs

Really hate it when bands take their names from sorta-but-not-really obscure film references, like Zuzu's Petals. "And you know where they get their name from?..." No, Einstein, feel free to enlighten me.

OK I just googled to check Ricky Gervais Podcast wasn’t the name of a band

It seems like the most durable bands have band names that have a whiff of shit to them. I'm thinking Arctic Monkeys, like, that has a whiff of bad to it, that whiff is necessary otherwise your band is just called Espers or Ida or The Vaccines and you have a couple albums and you're done

Really hate it when bands take their names from sorta-but-not-really obscure film references, like Zuzu's Petals. "And you know where they get their name from?..." No, Einstein, feel free to enlighten me.

― henry s, Sunday, March 13, 2022 12:46 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

just remembered there's a band calling themselves spirit of the beehive

Yeah there's something peculiarly annoying about band names that are simply the name of an old film. You need to at least alter it, like 10,000 Maniacs.

🎶 My love wears fordibben colours 🎶

> Really hate it when bands take their names from sorta-but-not-really obscure film references

my bloody valentine...

All three musical projects I had on the go a few years back were named after old films in one way or another, sorry. Kind of lazy I admit.

Was it beloved cultural critic Marilyn Manson who said that every band with a number in their name should be avoided? On the whole I don't agree (Spacemen 3, Level 42, 10cc, Gang of Four, Dirty Three), but there are definitely many examples that would seem to support this theory

can you name a band who have numbers in their name and aren't shite?

xp The theory could be “avoid bands with the letter ‘e’ in their name,” and you’d find the exact same thing (some good ones, lots of bad ones).

Smashing Pumpkens

Speaking of--and of obscure references--has there been a band called Smiling Politely yet?

just remembered there's a band calling themselves spirit of the beehive

― ✖, Sunday, March 13, 2022 1:00 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I actually don't mind their music, but have a knee-jerk reaction to the name on grounds of there can only be one "of the beehive" band, and that is Voice of the Beehive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m3C1K5b5VI

Ha, me too!

OK I just googled to check Ricky Gervais Podcast wasn’t the name of a band

― Alba, Sunday, March 13, 2022 9:48 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

After this day on ilxor.com, this made me laugh my ass off, many thanks

From the press release for the new ANALEPSY album:

"The correct pronunciation of the name of the band is 'uh-nuh-leh-psy' [ʌnʌlepsy], and it was chosen due to its (now obsolete) meaning: recovery of strength after an illness."

And yet, there's still a giant space anus on the cover.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNzeBDjXoAQmvfA.jpg

The oldest I ever felt was when I found out there's a band called Alvvays. Spelling shit in a Transylvanian accent is a thing now? No fucking way.

Anyway I later found out it was just to make the name google-able but the damage was done.

Alvvays
Chvrches
THE VVITCH
Wavves

Hovvdy

I don’t mind the VV or exchanging “U” for “V”.

The ones that always make me want to check something else are the ones that look like gamer chats, changing letters for numbers: 0 as O, 1 as I, 3 as E, 4 as A…

Eg:

CRIM3S, UNIIQU3, N3URO, N4NO, F4ST

And they usually have to style their names with ALL CAPS, so it doesn’t look extra stupid.

I swear I once saw an artist called QU33N L4TIF4H which I thought was extra annoying because I also dislike parody names (with counted exceptions).

I can’t find the name in spotify or youtube so maybe I dreamt it.

Not gamer only sorry, the correct name is “leetspeak” which I don’t usually mind, but hate seeing it on band names

this reminded me of Le1f - not that I minded his name. Spotify helpfully re-routed me to “Kalifa”, which he apparently goes by now (although Wikipedia is unaware of this yet).

confirmed by his Insta tho: https://instagram.com/khalif?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

At first I thought that artists were starting to use sentences, numbers, signs and replacing letters because every artist name in existence had already been used. Now I have my doubts.

So yeah it's not easy to take completely seriously artists named 1da Banton, Kizz Daniel, Blaq Diamond, Da Muziqal Chef, Spellz or BNXN fka Buju to take a few examples from the Afro-Pop/House generation. Maybe it's the French tradition of orthography in me. There are worse offenders in indie pop, cloud rap and vaporhouse I'm sure. Or things like iamamiwhoami irrationally raise my apprehensions up.

I'm also weirded out by artist names that look deceptively like a person's name but they're a group. Or the converse. I'll put that one under a touch of OCD though.

J3THR0 TVLL

Mashing up the previous three posts:

J3THR0 TVLL. The Man

I take some of these kind of names as enforced outsiderness, since they're resistant to search, proof you are in the word-of-mouth circle, the way punk bands chose names unprintable in family newspapers. See also Four Tet pseudonyms, etc.

I remember hating the idea of Ned's Atomic Dustbin because the name sounded like a stupid parody band. As if they were going out of their way to be zany. But they're okay. Generic and all their songs sound the same, but they're a credible early-1990s buzzsaw indie Madchester / Grebo / Whatever-style band that sound a bit like the Wedding Present. "Until You Find Out" is okay.

God Fodder got to number 4 in the UK and, amazingly, it cracked the Billboard 100! It's mind-boggling than anybody in the US bought Ned's Atomic Dustbin's debut album, let alone enough for it to reach #91.

It's particularly weird because their song titles were fine. The album titles were okay. But the band had a stupid name. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine could abbreviate the band name, but Ned's Atomic Dustbin defies abbreviation. Ned's AD? NA Dustbin? NAD? They couldn't even call themselves Ned's.

I mean, Kissing the Pink was a little bit clever, but Ned's Atomic Dustbin was just bad.

It's a Goons reference, which was a bit odd given their ages

They were usually referred to as The Neds iirc. Music best described as "thrashy".

Maybe this belongs in the "stolen names" thread but I used to see listings for a local act called Dylan Nirvana (not sure if a guy or band) playing around the EV/LES.

Idk what more to say about that other than "no".

The 1975

I just listened to Just Mustard last night and really like them, but if I had encountered their name alone (outside the context of a rave review) I would have recoiled.

I just listened to Just Mustard last night and really like them, but if I had encountered their name alone (outside the context of a rave review) I would have recoiled.

Likewise. As great as they are (they’re from my current place of residence, too), that name is all manner of cringeworthy.

They're also hoping to be confused with 70s folk legend Must Justard.

The 1975

The Dirty Hit label alone has them, Wolf Alice, and beabadoobee, all three of which I wrote off for varying periods of time because of their names

Kurt Vile & Joanna Gruesome.

I always assumed Kurt Vile was a punkier pun on the Weimar era composer and Mr Lotte Lenya. Apparently it's his real name though.
Thought it was a pun cos it was one I'd at least mentally played with myself a few decades ago.

I'd at least mentally played with myself a few decades ago

Don't worry, Stevolende. It's perfectly normal to do that.