Has anyone noticed that few new bands these days go by a name such as “The ___”. For instance, there’s The Beatles, The Doors, etc. but most of these acts are from the 60s to the 80s. If there are any newer acts that use this naming convention, I have not seen very many of them. Did this practice just seem to fall out of favor in recent years or have all the cool-sounding “The ___” names been used? Is the “The” somewhat optional, that is, some people include it and some people don’t [e.g. (The) Deftones] ? I realize that “The” isn’t always used anyway. For example, I wouldn’t say “My friend found his The Doors CD in the closet.” I would simply say that he found his Doors CD.
There was a lull, but this practice is coming back. Current examples include “The Hives”, “The Vines”, “The White Stripes”, and “The Strokes”.
Yeah, I was wondering about that, I was thinking there are way too many “the” bands these days.
Erek
Notice all the new “The” bands suck ass, whereas for the most part, the 60s and 70s “The” bands were good.
j_kat: yeah, i was thinking that all these bands really wished they were “The” Stooges.
Erek
That’s a rather pointless statement, since ALL new bands suck these days. 
All new bands have always sucked
True fans of one particular band will recognize that they were usually billed as “The Pink Floyd.” The band went downhill when they stopped using “the.”
And someone should bring up “The The.”
…also that Talking Heads weren’t THE Talking Heads, but Talking Heads.
And Jesus Lizard was always “the Jesus Lizard” but the Cows were always just “Cows”.
At least the trend lasted longer than the crop of “_______[someone’s name] and the ________ [bandmates]” trend, ala Bob Seger, Tom Petty, Joan Jett and the Silver Bullet Heartbreaking Blackhearts.
I actually like The Strokes, The Hives, and The White Stripes. I’m sorry that The rest of you prefer The boybands and The pop tarts and The ego driven shock-rockers and shock-rappers out there today.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the reasons for the dropping of the “The” was the overuse of the word by the advertising world during the 70s and 80s, starting with “Le Car”. I think it was done in an attempt to mark their product as the definitive example of the product.
I remember shopping for a bicycle seat, and they had one named “The Seat”. There were a host of other products like that, however I have fortunately (or unfortunately for this discussion) forgotten most of them.
Of course, there was (is?) a band called the The, which makes up for a lot.
I think this really started in the 70’s, or even the late 60’s, with groups like Cream and Led Zeppelin. Rock was evolving at a frenzied pace in those days, and I suppose “The ___s” type names were seen as somewhat hokey. Maybe they didn’t want to be just “another group, the ___'s out of wherever, who want a demo listened to”. Remember, also, that was the time when even the term rock and roll began to be denigrated and ghettoized to refer only to 1950’s veteran and revival acts like Sha-Na-Na. Rock was hip, but rock and roll was greasy teenager music from the 50’s. (Fortunately, rock and roll has just about completely recouped its rightful role in denoting the entire genre.)
Actually I usually didn’t mind odd group names, but I did hate the ones from the 70’s that sounded more like space programs or law firms, like The Alan Parsons Project or Emerson Lake and Palmer (though here again I always liked ELP’s work).
[Brief aside]Just to show how clueless I am these days, I thought the name Mudhoney was supposed to be a clever spin on the name Mahoney, and hence was pronounced “mud-HOE-ney”, and not “mud-honey”. God, I’m getting just like my dad, who once picked up one of my Genesis records and looked at it, and thought the name was “Se-NEE-sis”!!
[/brief aside]
Like The Band
I always thought that was a pompus name. (love the music though!)
Personally, I don’t like band names with “the” in them. It makes it harder to calogue my cds…I know there are others here that anal, so don’t laugh at me. 
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I was watching an old clip from British TV in the 60’s, and the announcer introduced the featured band as The Cream. Seemed a bit odd to me. Sort of like, “Now ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Beatles!” Not right. Some bands need the “The” (Beatles, Cars, Rolling Stones) some don’t (The U2, The Led Zeppelin, The Fuel, The Boston) some can go either way (Electric Light Orchestra, Damn Yankees, Velvet Underground, Blue Oyster Cult).