The original band called Death, however, was a proto-punk trio from Detroit. There was a documentary about them a few years back.
Can you be a little more clear about what you’re WTFing?
Crowbar
Bolt Thrower
Mazzy Star
Daisy Chainsaw
Lunacicks
The total non-sequitur post that has nothing to do with the subject of this thread.
Ah, I see it now.
Reverend Horton Heat
Bread
Kaptain Kool and the Kongs
Europe. (It’s the final countdown…!) 
It’s a Beautiful Day. Most of their work is lovely and melodic ballads (though they did do some harder stuff).
Matthew Sweet - he’s a guy named Matthew who makes sweet pop rock music.
Coldplay. Hands down. Has anyone ever thought of their music as a really hot kind of sound? They’re like the opposite of Miami Sound Machine (already nominated.)
Downchild Blues Band sounds exactly like a blues band that would choose that very name. Maybe that’s cheating; Blues Traveler, The Blues Brothers, blues bands tend to wear it.
Gordon Lightfoot was a Canadian soft pop artist (still is, I guess) and with a first name that Canadian, and the last name “Lightfoot,” he had to be.
If you know what NWA stands for you know they had to be a gangsta rap group.
Florida Georgia Line sounds exactly like a band would sound if they made music for the kind of people who live near the Florida-Georgia state line. Dixie Chicks aren’t exactly an ironically named act, either. Rascal Flatts is clearly not an R&B group. Lonestar, shit, I wonder where they’re from?
Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers - it’s both who they are and what they do.
Plenty of pop punk bands sound like they play pop punk: basically any band with “boy” or “kid” in the name. In addition Knuckle Puck and Real Friends sound like they are indeed pop punk.
A lot of posthardcore bands have posthardcore names, but the ones that sound the most descriptive are Crown the Empire and Pierce the Veil.
There’s a lot of bands here that I have never heard of and I have no idea what music they play. I can infer from context usually, but this tells me that a lot of these examples really don’t fit the definition.
Metallica…yup, unambiguous. Dixie Chicks…totally predictable.
Europe, Bread, Cake, Enya? Nope, not at all obvious (yes, I know these bands but those names don’t confer much by themselves).
I agree. There is a difference between a band name that evokes their sound and a band name that can be easily associated with their music.
I have no idea what Bread should sound like. I do not know what the sound of Europe is; I’ve never even heard of an Enya except for the singer.
But the first time I saw the name Metallica, I was 99.99% sure that it was going to be a heavy metal band. When I see The Oak Ridge Boys on the marquee, even without knowing who they are, I would picture a country or bluegrass act, not an EDM act with 2 DJs or a grindcore band, etc. No one sees a Slayer album and thinks it’s a folk group with acoustic guitars and tambourines.
If you hear the band name and know what kind of music they play before you hear it, that fits.
Even some of the biggies don’t work.
The Rolling Stones…eh, I suppose you can pick up the rock and roll pun easily enough, but if you’re slow on the uptake that name could be a folk band or a country band or prog rock.
Coldplay? No effing way. If I was an alien with no cultural awareness I’d probably first guess they were emo or trance or maybe electronic.
Queen, definitely not. Sure there’s a couple puns there, but this could be just about any band playing any kind of music. It’d be a great name for a British Invasion coverband. Or for a Lady Gaga/Madonna-esque pop star.
I think their name perfectly evokes their music, although some of it works retroactively. The term “rolling stone” was so ubiquitous in blues (when they formed and chose their name) and became so in rock (Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone”, the magazine etc.) that their band name is one of the most iconic in rock and blues, the fields they mostly worked on.
But I ask you all: what about “Pink Floyd”? Long before I learned how they got their name (from the combination of the first names of two blues musicians), for me that name always sounded like the psychedelic grand rock they did, and it still does. I cannot assess how I would categorize the band name “Pink Floyd” uninfluenced and if it would provoke the same impression.
Pink Floyd sounds like a 1960s wrestling name IMO. I picture him as looking a lot like Henry Winkler’s The Lover, only more Liberace-y.
That sort of illustrates my point I think. If I imagine myself as someone familiar with music but not with this band’s songs, that name evokes a blues band or a folk band because I’d assume they were directly trying to reference those lyrics. Certainly the Stones had a lot of blues in their style so it sorta works, but you have to squint at it a bit.
I think Blue Oyster Cult gives a pretty good idea of at least the general theme of their songs.
Freezepop.