What is the worst rock band name ever?

Stiltskin

Id also like to say the most ironically appropriate title for a band would be "Default", because really, they're the default rock band.

and other 'ironic' mis-spellings

I mean, is the concept of an angry speedhorn supposed to scare me or something?

The name "Toad The Wet Sprocket" was thought up by Eric Idle, as a deliberately bad and stupid band name title.

RATT

Lynyrd Skynyrd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_and_Ball_Torture

Hell Yeah

Some friends of mine at one point in time were talking about starting an 'erotic grindcore' band and I don't recall the hypothetical name but it was somethin like that.

I mean if I had moved into a place and found a shoebox full of erotic poetry that would have been my first inclination too but just sayin, the idea doesn't really lend it self to really good band names.

Dr. Dog

relient k

Cock and Ball Torture is a fantastic name

I always kind of regret not buying the tape by Barney Rubble and the Cunt Stubble that I saw in 1991.

lb otm

On the same note,

The Genotorturers

"They proclaim themselves to be 'The World's Sexiest Rock Band'."

Whoops, Genitorturers.

Cock and Ball Torture is afantastic name

I have the genitorturers' first album.

I'm not proud of this.

Beatles. Well, there's a band here called Engineers from Hawaii and they are nearly as awful as their name

cerebral ballzy

cerebral ballzy

G. Love and Special Sauce

Hoobastank

cerebral ballzy

― livin' next door to phallus (electricsound), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:06 (43 seconds ago)

that's a neat deconstruction of the alt/bro, apollonian/dionysian schism of ROCK, and not without paranomastic elan

Without question Hoobastank

Raging Speedhorn

Reminds me of piss, wrong coloured denims and drastic hair

Paranomastic Elan

boiled sick

Barf Martyr

Foxygen

tUnE-yArDs

Elvis Depressedly

My Bloody Valentine (people call them MBV all the time so they don't have to)

Fat Mattress (people by contrast avoid mentioning them in any form)

Asia
Japan
Wang Chung
Huang Chung

&

Gentle Giant (who I love but wow that name never gets better)

əkoostik hookah

the history of apple pie

Joy Orbison

Yeah, The History of Apple Pie is a terrible name. Which is a shame, because I didn't mind that album they put out.

Fat Mattress (people by contrast avoid mentioning them in any form)

Toe Fat (memory of which people have suppressed as too horrible to contemplate)

Yeah, and Joanna Gruesome

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

How to Dress Well

Ducktails

Real Estate
Sunny Day Real Estate

really if you name your band Real Estate you are just telegraphing that you are a boring as shit indie rock band

Boston
Chicago

Huey Lewis & the News. (Just the "Huey Lewis" part.)

dan le sac vs scroobius pip

If it had been Huey Lewis with the News that would have been better.

Gentle Giant (who I love but wow that name never gets better)

What's wrong with this? As prog band names go, I mean. It's no Spock's Beard.

Blues Traveller

yes! blues traveller ghastly name

the major English prog names are comparatively good I think: King Crimson, Yes, Genesis. Gentle Giant isn't a terrible name but it's faintly embarrassing, which might be worse. Probably just bugs me because they are the only major prog band I still listen to. I can't stand looking at that first album cover (or looking at them though either).

If it had been Huey Lewis with the News that would have been better.

If they had put out an album called "I'm Huey Lewis, Here Now the News," they could have ruled the "Horrible '70s Album Titles" thread.

Ducktails

― marcos, Thursday, December 11, 2014 9:49 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Real Estate

― marcos, Thursday, December 11, 2014 9:49 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

booo

wait, i meant to boo this one

really if you name your band Real Estate you are just telegraphing that you are a boring as shit indie rock band

― marcos, Thursday, December 11, 2014 9:50 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the new real estate album is good. it's definitely unobtrusive and "boring," sure, but in a melancholy, wistful way. a lot of chillwave-affiliated music is in the tradition of satie and (ambient) eno -- it's not supposed to be exciting.

The The

The Music

My defense of Real Estate would be that they're going for a jangly Yo La Tengo/later day Feelies/ late 80s early 90s college rock vibe. I understand when people perceive them as "Indie Generic - version: Wilco" in the indie universe but I wouldn't say they are completely devoid of character. They stand out for a reason. Days is one of my very favorite albums of the last 10 years.

I hate "The Band". That's a bullshit name.

Better than ...

http://images.45cat.com/jaime-robbie-robertson-rick-danko-richard-manuel-garth-hudson-levon-helm-the-weight-1968.jpg

Hed PE (also known as (hed) Planet Earth and stylized as (həd) p.e. or as (Hed)pe or (Hed)PE) or (həd) Planetary Evolution, is an American rock band from Huntington Beach, California.

They named the group "Hed", which stands for "higher education".

Legal issues forced Hed to change their name, adding "PE", which stood for "Planetary Evolution (later changed to planet earth) ".

Butthole Surfers
Limp Bizkit

Fat Chick From Wilson Philips
Jon Cougar Concentration Camp

For me, nothing matches the sheer punchability of Shpongle

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Strictly more bland crossover country-pop than rock, but Lady Antebellum is a strong contender.

T/S Lady A vs The Chicks

The other thread on this subject was also revived recently:

Worst Band Names

Still annoyed with The Dixie Chicks for stealing the name of / effectively erasing Chicks.

Dogs Die In Hot Cars

I mean what else was on the shortlist for the vote?

maybe Humpy Bong or the Butts Band

haven't heard the name dogs die etc for years but it always upset me, you have to be a real arsehole to want that image to accompany all of your music

I used to hate Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning and Pissed Jeans all because of their names -- and then I heard their respective music, and love them all.

Name I'll never abide by:
- Car Seat Headrest (I mean, seriously, fuck you!)
- Diarrhea Planet (again, go fuck yourselves)
- King Gizzard and the blah blah fuck off back to Dr. Seussville with that bullshit.
- Deer Tick (eww)
- Deerhoof (yawn)
- American Football (please go die)

that this thread is 21 years old but no-one has mentioned dumpy's rusty nuts yet is a crime tbh

It's a better name than Porridge Radio.

- American Football (please go die)
― Alex in NYC

Mike Kinsella from American Football is very much alive and well and in a new band called....

Their / They're / There

I used to hate Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning and Pissed Jeans all because of their names.

...or maybe it was because of an embarrassing incident in your past?

::::rimshot:::::

the Beatles is pretty dumb

Still annoyed with The Dixie Chicks for stealing the name of / effectively erasing Chicks.

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

^^^^

Harvard (aka HRVRD)

I used to hate Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning and Pissed Jeans all because of their names.

These guys really need to do a shared tour

Big Head Todd and the Monsters

Pink Cream 69

which is fucked up cos now they're all in their 50s/60s and still performing under that name

In a similar vein, Bed Wettin' Bad Boys is one of the worst name but also hilarious and they are good so I have to give them a pass

(xpost in a similar piss-drenched vein, I mean)

that this thread is 21 years old but no-one has mentioned dumpy's rusty nuts yet is a crime tbh

Re:piss. I bought the Yellow River Boys album thinking it was going to a be a pleasant album of Chinese folk tunes…

uhhhhh

The Diarrhea of Anne Frank
(saw them open for the Jesus Lizard in the 90s)

Re: Dumpy's Rusty Nuts

Main guy is called Graham "Dumpy" Dunnell
The music and look is based around old-school Brit biker culture
"Rusty nuts" is a double entendre referencing both poorly maintained motorbike parts and rarely used sexual apparatus
Hence Dumpy has both a potentially dangerous vehicle AND isn't getting any

So in many ways this is closer to the best rock band name ever, rather than the worst.
Hope it all makes sense now!

uhhhhh

Garcia People’s
Drive by Truckers

Five Finger Death Punch

Saw it on a t-shirt the other day for the millionth time but for some reason it just struck me... DEF LEPPARD is a truly terrible name for a band...

Slint.

The correct answer is Slint.

Stunned to realize that neither Umphrey's McGee nor əkoostik hookah have been mentioned yet itt. I consider both band names to be acts of violence.

Shpongle

This made me laugh a lot, I love it

also Bathtub Shitter, but it's also one of the best ones simultaneously

my friend's wife grew up in Youngstown, OH and years ago, when i had a fb acct, her little brother excitedly wrote on her wall "hey sis! i got us costumes for Shpongle!"

i legit thought that's what they call Halloween in Ohio for months afterwards, until she told me otherwise.

came here to post king gizzard or w/e but its taken so i will offer:

infected mushroom

I guess (hED)PE is more “horribly formed” than “bad”. I should have started a new thread.

the jam band world is littered with terrible names (apologies to those already covered by astute ilxors):

Deep Banana Blackout
The Disco Biscuits
Dopapod
ekoostik hookah
Goose
Hypnotic Clambake
Leftover Salmon
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
Shpongle
String Cheese Incident
Twiddle

Rage Against the Machine

genuinely great band name imo

Spoon

genuinely great band name imo

Fucking awful imo, but then again I hated their music too. The Clash without the wit.

i just encountered BlueBucksClan

Theory Of A Deadman
Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong
The The
Therapy?
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
Portugal. The Man
Pretty Girls Make Graves

My favorite bad band name is Ralph Macchio And The Steaming Dumps

A local band that was widely derided for having a terrible name (that I always thought was great, imho): Hamburger Hotdog

Bathtub Shitter is an amazing band name.

Fatuous Rump, on the other hand...

Hypnotic Clambake

Agreed, but I loved these guys' accordion-driven hijinx.

The Front Bottoms.

Get Cape Wear Cape Fly

I always liked this name, it reminds me of text adventures.

i thought it was an intentional reference! particularly since the name is I think "get cape. wear cape. fly."

Drink potion

Oh yeah, I think it probably is intentional, I just wasn't sure so didn't want to assert it as fact.

tbh this reminds me that I've always struggled to come up with an apt comparison to "Car Seat Headrest". It's such a perfectly maximized trio of mundane, arbitrary and clunky. The perfect worst band name ever. Like naming your band Bottom Left Cabinet Hinge or something else from a random page of a product manual.

― Evan, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 15:29 (two years ago) link

Gay witch Abortion

Just "Gay Witch" would be pretty good.

good band!

The Front Bottoms.

― husked, tonal wails (irrational), Tuesday, May 23, 2023 2:00 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this one makes me cringe more than any other

Audioslave

Eyehategod

It really may be the Front Bottoms

idk someone pointed out "ekoostik hookah" and now I'm not so sure

Has anyone said Perfect Pussy yet?

Garcia People’s

^^ genuinely love these dudes and couldn’t get into the name at first but have since gone to appreciate its youthful sincerity.

Gay Witch Abortion is one of the best band names, wtf?

Just got a promo email about an artist (not a band, just a guy) named Cautious Clay.

Perfect Pussy is a great band name

Imperfect Penis is not as good

And yeah Audioslave is a really bad band name

Eyehategod

― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Tuesday, May 23, 2023 5:43 PM bookmarkflaglink

ahem u meant this for 'best band names' thread

yall weird af

i'd say 'does it offend you, yeah?' has to be up there

yes omg terrible

does it offend you to clap your hands and say yeah yeah yeahs?

their disasterpiece of a logo redeems the name somewhat and casts it in a different light imo

https://i.discogs.com/JID8KDdRyCA5Xgr9ZzymnZxDOE3U5PuUoQcORKYCjY4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:500/w:500/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTM3MjY4/MzMtMTM0MTkzNTU4/OS0yMDU5LmpwZWc.jpeg

Came across this one last nite: http://thebellwetherla.com/events/mild-high-club-230726

(I guess it's actually not too bad, but sure made me eyeroll)

haven't heard the name dogs die etc for years but it always upset me, you have to be a real arsehole to want that image to accompany all of your music

― your original display name is still visible (Left),

otm ... there are plenty of names mentioned in this thread that are "ugh no" because they refer to things that are gross in an embarrassing way ... like all the piss and shit names ... but dogs die in hot cars is gross and depressing