Fortunately, the Average White Band came along to fill that gap.
In the 70’s Peg Bundy was in a band (she can acutally sing) called The Group With No Name, who had at least one major label album- I think they did it to add an air of mystery that might’ve garnered interest in an otherwise run of the mill band.
Also:
Aum
Bubble Puppy
Jefferson Airplane
Frumious Bandersnatch
Mystery Trend (cool name, but dumb because they took it from a Dylan song where he actually says “mystery tramp”)
Pearls Before Swine
Uncut Balloon
Ultimate Spinach.
Many more from the psychedelic era here.
A flock of Seagulls
Haircut 100
Men without Hats
M
Living in a Box
Tears for Fears
Talk Talk
Bow Wow Wow
The 80’s was a terrible decade for band names.
Nickelback Not only is their music proof that Rock does incite violence (because verey time I hear them I want to do some serious violence to Nickelback), they named themselves after a position in football. What did they discard before they settled on Nickelback?
“I know! We’ll call ourselves Defensive End”
“I still like Right Tackle”
“How about Power Forward”
“That’s basketball!”
Many worthy nominees here, although I’ve never heard of a lot of them.
My nominations:
Queensrÿche
Pet Shop Boys
Volcano, I’m Still Excited!! (The exclamation points are part of the name, no less)
What makes you think that the GBOA were Canadian? The band were from Leicester in England. Mind, they were shit, as were most of the bands under the short-lived “grebo” label. However that movement also produced one of the great band names - Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction.
Oh, sorry about misidentifying them. Their albums came out on a Toronto-based label when I was working at a record store there. I don’t recall that the package said anything about them being British. We didn’t sell many of them, anyway.
Hey, Waymon Tisdale named his jazz bass album “Power Forward!”
What about Fearless Iranians From Hell? I remember seeing some of their albums back when I was in high school, and man, it seemed weird. Never listened to their music, though.
Ass Ponys.
A ton of emo bands:
Sunny Day Real Estate
Christie Front Drive
Rites of Spring
Mohinder
pg. 99
A Universal Order of Armageddon
City of Catepillar
etc etc etc
Not to mention modern “emo”, all the bands you see on Myspace profiles. Coheed and Cambria, Further Seems Forever, Saves the Day, ad infinitum.
Mister Mister
According to the cite on Wikipedia, the name comes from the bass player’s job as a cashier at Starbucks. Five cents was apparently a common amount of change for him to make.
Or, at the very least, this is the lie that the band has decided to go with whenever journalists ask about why they picked the name.
[hijack]
On a 180-degree tangent, a great band name: “Sorry About Dresden”
[/hijack]
I’ve always thought the name Stereolab was quite evocative of the type of music they made.
Well, Hoobastank was going to be my nomination, but I see it’s been mentioned numerous times already.
This is an awful band name, but I love it anyway:
The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza.
Hey, got one: Fuschnickens
Must disagree. The layers of legend are inseparable from the name, but Beatles is an inspired creation on its own and by itself – the greatest band name ever, by far. “Beetles” would be anachronistic (like Crickets) but John Lennon made an ‘e’ an ‘a,’ thereby mysteriously endowing it with timelessness. None of its roots – beetles the insect, Beat Generation, beatific, Merseybeat – sully it with their stuck-in-timeness.
‘The Beatles’ was prototypical, as you say:
I also agree that:
But Beatles is more. I think of the name as a one-word John Lennon artistic creation, in the sense of ‘an object able to be contemplated.’ Is any other band name like that? Is any other band name not one of the following: old, tired, goofy, ostentatious, pretentious, preening, affected, or a dozen other pitfalls of poetasters? Led Zeppelin is one of the better ones but boring as an old joke after 40 years. Beatles still shines and shimmers like new after 45 years even though we’ve all encountered it, spoken and written, orders of magnitude more often than any other.
Make a band name forever new and vibrant – only one person has ever done that. It’s brilliance elevated and even immortalized what it touched, like that most inept of emcees, Ed Sullivan, who nonetheless is remembered for the most famous introduction of all: “Right here on our stage tonight: THE BEATLES!” Would any other name but Beatles have done that for him, all else being equal?
Bad names (some on very good bands):
the Band (worst name ever)
X
the Police
the Church
Bush (who I assume withered & died due to GWB)
“Asia” was a little odd.
“KISS” sort of works, but a strange choice for a really messed-up band.
“Yes”, oddly, actually works well–because of being a different part of speech, not a noun.
I really have no objection to “Nickelback” or “Hoobastank” as a name.
I will concede that “the Goo Goo Dolls” is an ugly name, but at least it’s not a single letter or boring noun.
Bangles. I like some of their music but am ashamed to admit it because of the name Bangles.