Worst Band Names

a moon beneath the grindsludge.

And Ladytron is a shockingly good name for the band (and it is an excellent song by Roxy Music...erm...wrong thread).

the worst of all is Soul Coughing

What's wrong with Ladytron?

Nothing of course...excellent band.

But I remembered another very bad band name (since were into the question of 80s revivalism): Johnny Hates Jazz.

saidflorence - insisted on awful name being spelt lower case.

Fretblanket - no comment needed really.

YES. I should think that Killing Jesus would be worse than Killing Joke. THERFORE, Killing Jesus is a worse band name than Killing Joke. Yes.

Yes, Virginia. There is a worse band name than Killing Joke.

Jester 86 Understands Something.....

Jester Eighty Six LOVES JESUS!

PEACE.

PS.....Cheese is Rice.

Yours In THEE LOVE of JESUS CHRIST,

CAL,

or in other words...

j86.

Apart from Taunton, of course. But then they didn't really exist ...

Grand Prize Winner for this category goes to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Papa Roach. The name is about as bad as the music.

Deep Blue Something (in the Sixpence None The Richer bracket)

Limp Biskit

(grim, but quite apt I suppose) Muse (hateful. conclusive proof that you can judge a book by its cover, unless it's by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and it's err.. not a book

Echoboy (yeah - cause that'll really make your band stand out)

The Style Council (was this self parody?)

Stereophonics (90s band name by numbers)

Dub Federation (might have been OK if there wasn't already a Dub Syndicate. at least ADF added an 'Asian' bit for interest)

Almost all those one-word names chosen by every shitpop chancer in mid 90s Britain.

Also, any 90's band name with "Super" in it.

Radiohead.

Coldplay.

The Cranberry Saw Us.

a) It's a Monty Python ref.

b) They represent the West Side. Goleta Power.

LOVE and TOMORROW are contenders.

but maybe THEM predates?

(non-rock answer - tho of course they played rock support slots at the key moment - wd be AMM: explanation of which acronym I notice Keith Rowe is still keeping shtumm abt, in current Wire)

Also "Northern Uproar" did suggest boring meat 'n' 2 veg britrock of the most ZZZzzz-inducing sort. Fortunately.

x0x0

Killing Joke is actually a pretty good band name.

But hands down, the two most unforgivable band names I've ever heard are oddly enough, both 'soul' related - The Soul Attorneys & Blessid Union of Souls. p.s. Soul Coughing is a really bad name too.

Also, Third Eye Blind is a bad bad name.

She's... back?!!

https://i.imgur.com/5oDect6.jpg

...Oh.

https://i.imgur.com/THxAfOX.png

Could mean the Whitney museum on tour too..

Oh, I wanna sit awkwardly on a bed with somebody

I wanna wear a shirt with somebody

“@“

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/at-mind-palace-music/

Not sure if it’s because their music is generally terrible but I hate the name “Imagine Dragons”

Yeah me too. It's one of those superficially clever band names because one can read it in the imperative: "imagine (that there are) dragons." Or one can read implied punctuation such as "imagine... dragons!" as in sheesh, what the fuck are dragons doing here?

Ditto "Cage the Elephant," which has an imperative reading: "cause that elephant to be caged," as well as the slightly twee notion that there is an elephant named Cage, hence an implied comma: "Cage, the elephant, wishes to be fed more peanuts."

Lots of band names can just die in fire. Maybe bands should all just be issued a number like the Social Security system.

I am guilty too; during an especially weird part of the twentieth century I was in an experimental jazz band that spelled its name differently for every show. I vaguely wish I had kept some of the posters. Curds and Whey, Kurds n Way, Curds + Weigh, Kurds & Whey, etc.

Oh, I wanna sit awkwardly on a bed with somebody

I wanna wear a shirt with somebody

Underrated post

It's one of those superficially clever band names because one can read it in the imperative: "imagine (that there are) dragons." Or one can read implied punctuation such as "imagine... dragons!" as in sheesh, what the fuck are dragons doing here?

Ditto "Cage the Elephant," which has an imperative reading: "cause that elephant to be caged," as well as the slightly twee notion that there is an elephant named Cage, hence an implied comma: "Cage, the elephant, wishes to be fed more peanuts."

🤯 tbh

Hed PE

Is it a Public Enemy reference?

i always thought it was an abbreviation for "planet earth"

hey i was kinda right

Hed PE (also known as (hed) Planet Earth and stylized as (həd) p.e. or as (Hed)pe[12] or (Hed)PE[13]) or (həd) Planetary Evolution, is an American rock band from Huntington Beach, California.

also lol @ all those different variations and me still sitting here going, "so is it like, head pee or HEAD PEE EE?"

Their / They're / There

oh jeez

Makes sense considering the three members were previously in such bands as Cap'n Jazz, Into It. Over It., and Loose Lips Sink Ships.

might as well name their next one Well, Akshually

Pretty good song titles

There's a local shit deathcore band called Catcher And the Rye

I am fairly sure they're just idiots that think that is the title of the book. They are humongous douchebags

probably for a different thread, but cant find one suitable, what's the most obvious band name that hasn't been "taken" yet? Taken by a somewhat notable band who would stop someone else using it I mean.

I have been thinking about this. Animal names are popular - Eagles, scorpions, Owls, Wolves, Coyotes, Worms, Otters, Bonobos, Giraffes, Zebra, Naked Mole Rats, Wallabies, Sloths, Tardigrades, Yellowjackets, Fruit Bats, Bandicoots? Apparently all taken.

But there are some still sitting out there unclaimed. I am not aware of a band called the Ring-Tailed Lemurs, or the Earwigs.

The sneakiest move would be to call your next band The Beetles. Technically it hasn't been taken.

Earwig has already been used - early 90s shoegazer band who later turned into Insides

I once read that the most common band names in America are Paradox; The Rain; and some third one I forgot. Googling confirms that Paradox is a top 10 name, as are Apollo, Atlas, and Zero.

These are fun things to check out on last.fm, for example

https://www.last.fm/music/Paradox

The 1960s was a huge landgrab for common words. You just had to plant a “The” flag in front of it.

xxxpost, I check every once in a while, but there's never been a hardcore band called Lifetime of Abuse

there is Life is Abuse but I don't like the ring of that as well

I was pretty upset to discover Moni Jitchell recently - I thought we'd agreed to stop doing this shit

Buckcherry should have been the last word in that nonsense

pro-tip - if you used to be in the band Saliva and you want to go on tour and do their songs, but Saliva still exists and you can't legally use their name, perhaps best not to use the naming convention "Josey Scott's Saliva"

lol

i had a really good "worst band name" idea last night, but forgot it! it was 2 words and one of the words was 'Pizza'

Sounds like band-name trauma induced by this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1F4B-7agAEotGg?format=jpg&name=large

Pizza Great Guy

The "ILM Best of 2023 Tracks Nominations" playlist just served me up a song by needanamebro.

they got a new name now bro

https://www.instagram.com/saynow

they're great but I'm glad they changed it that name wasn't doing them any favours

ruby the hatchet

...I had avoided "Amp Fiddler" until a couple weeks ago due to the truly dire choice of name, but turns out he's great!