I’m not sure if they even count as a band, but Boyz II Men (or however the hell they spell it) has always sounded like a NAMBLA offshoot to me.
When I was in high school a group of us used to make tapes of very poor music under the name Meatloaf* many years before Mr Loaf appeared. We used to publish a magazine detailing the lives of a string of non-existent bands. Once in a while we would produce posters for a “Woodstock” like event, usually to be held at public toilets somewhere. Among our array of bands were:
Annabald Bracegirdle and the Deadpan Fish Fries
Hot Cottage Biscuit Peel
The John Smith Trio (all 5 of them)
Snot
Mmmmmmmm (with an ever changing number of m’s)
We would paste up the posters for the imaginary event. Sometimes we would meet people (girls) at parties who had “seen” Meatloaf and were fans of their work.
*The band name came from one of the band members, We all made up names for ourselves because this was embarrasing stuff. So we had names like Ezekiel Meatloaf and Pierre Lingerie.
There was a quite funny (IMHO) commercial parody a few years back on Saturday Night Live of an ad for the soundtrack to the movie Valentine. Some of the named bands are real, most aren’t. This is the band-related text of the voice-over:
My favorites are “Mr. Hameye” and “Gravel Fork”. “CL”, by the way, was pronounced “cull”.
I remember that skit, Max Torque. If I ever have a band, I’m naming it “Pi Eating Contest.”
Anyone ever heard of Eye Hate God?
But some of those bands, like Blink-182, added the number only because they had to in order to avoid duplicating another band’s name.
Considering the riduculous number of mundane, banal explanations The Who have caused, they get my vote.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahaheheheh… ehhhh.
I’d like to second Hoobastank. Listen, you can have an incomprehensible name OR a disgusting name, but not both, since if it’s disgusting it should be humorous too!
I am curious why Linkin Park would be considered a bad band name- espeically after naming things like Krispy Ambulance or The Sea and Cake. Is it because they spelled Lincoln incorrectly?
You would think after the fiasco that was The Blow Monkeys, people would know not to do this. You’re just setting yourself up for a snarky reviewer: “They said “blow”, and they were right!” Then came Hootie and the Blowfish. Won’t someone think of the children?
Lisa-Go-Blind:
Now, now…let’s not get irrational.
The Gaye Bikers On Acid,
Attack Of The 50 Ft. Jesus,
The Giant Crab Cometh,
and I can’t believe we could get this far into the thread w/o anyone mentioning…
The Mamas & The Papas!
Our list beats the crap out of Guitar One’s list. Are there explanations? Why is the Beatles a bad name?
I think angelicate and Lamia nailed it. What the fuck is it with every band having a number now? Blink 182, Matchbox 20, Maroon 5? MAROON? Were all the good colors taken? What the fuck? Band names are not sports scores! “Tonight’s final score: Eve 6, Maroon 5. Eve clinches a playoff spot. Highlights at 10.”
Hoobastank is the worst band name ever. I cringe when I read it (nevermind listening to their shitty music). Godsmack is a bad name too - your band is already an Alice in Chains ripoff, so it was a bad idea to draw attention to that fact by naming yourself after an AIC song.
The Dead Kennedys is a great name. It’s punk music, deal with it. They didn’t capitalize on the deaths of JFK and RFK - their music never actually dealt with the Kennedys. They were a political band and one of the cleverest punk ever produced.
The only good thing about Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit is that their shitty names accurately reflect their shitty music.
I never said they capitalized on the Kennedy’s deaths. They just thought it would be funny and irreverent to adopt the name and I think they’re assholes for doing it. Being punk doesn’t give you the right to shit on people without consequence. Undoubtedly, there are people who think it does, and you are probably one of them, but it doesn’t! They are assholes!
This band had more members than the starting line of the Detroit Lions and produced obnoxous, repetitive songs about drinking and fighting.
Who is *Chumba Wumba?[/I}
Correct! Choose again!
Chumbawumba’s songs were mostly about social protest. The drinking and fighting songs were the ones that got on the radio.
I like Eve 6 because they’re named after an X-Files character. The Barenaked Ladies were called “Free Chicken and Beer” but they couldn’t get put on a marquee anywhere.
My fake band name in high school was “Puppy Soup”. That’s pretty awful.
I agree with Hoobastank, though it does make for a nice set up in bar trivia when one group is named Hooba and the other is Stank.
Some of these are local (Kansas City/Lawrence)
Cake, though I like their music.
Ben Folds Five only had three members.
Megadeth
Queensryche
N*SYNC (it has an ASTERISK!)
Twysted Kyttyn (Shannon Moon’s of Blind Melon fame first band)
Twisted Sister
Backstreet Boys
Blackstreet
Color Me Badd (a second)
Ratt
Whitesnake
Extreme
Duran Duran (it’s from Barbarella, for Og’s sake)
Train
Blue Oyster Cult
Anthrax
Jethro Tull
Butthole Surfers
MC 900 Foot Jesus
Lucas with the Lid Off (this may just be a song title)
Cracker
Everlast
Phunk Junkees
Squirrel Nut Zippers (yes, I know where their name comes from)
The Elevator Division (they’re friends of mine from HS, but I still don’t get the name)
8 Degrees
(mostly local from here down)
Anything but Joey
Camarosmith
Charlatan Heston
DV8ter
Eminent
GutRunner
Hard Rein
Nutsnack
Post Orgasmic Trauma
Satan’s Trucking Company
Choad
Cruxed
DJ not a dj
The Hardcore Acoustics
Mac Lethal
mi6
Toast
measureXmeasure
N’Dependents
Puddle of Mudd
Sister Mary Rotten Crotch (though it is fun to say)
Uncle Dirty Toes
Zero Turning Radius
sotonightimaysleep
Str8jakket
Ukes of Hazzard
And, of course, the best band name of all time:
Wyld Stallyns!
Oh! I actually know the story behind this one. They did an interview on MTV a year or so and explained the name. Seems that when they were first playing together, they’d played a lot of hopscotch (really) while trying to figure out the lyrics. Wherever they were while doing this, they upset a grounds and roads-type employee who didn’t speak English. Apparently he’d point at the chalked hopscotch set up and scream at them in another language. The best aproximation of what he was yelling is Hoobastank. They said they never did figure out what language it was, or if he meant hopscotch or was berating them about a mess. Not how I’d pick naming a band, but…
Is that really true? I had thought they might have some other explanation, and that the name might not be as stupid and unoriginal as it sounded. Because it sounds like they wanted to call their band “Blink”, but there was already a “Blink”, and they were too dumb to think of another name so they just stuck some numbers on the end. Like I said, naming your band shouldn’t be like choosing an IM handle. There are plenty of words out there! Think of another one!
Because it’s a “cheap pun.”
Since I can’t find this list anywhere on the Net, but it’s on a zillion news pages, I’m going with the assumption that they created this list as a publicity stunt press release and knew that putting The Beatles first would draw lots of attention.
Worked, too.
Ken Dodd’s Dad’s Dog’s Dead
Dunno who or what they are but that is stoopid name.