Yeah, it would be pretty hard to confuse Oingo Boingo with any band based on sound. Unless you think they kinda sound like that Jack Skellington guy or something.
If we’re letting the thread meaning drift, I think many, many people have been convinced that America’s “Horse With No Name” is Neil Young.
Then this may off-topic (if we really want to get all pendatic in a non-GD/Elections thread)-I thought the Who were the Guess Who after they simply dropped that first word in their name (since many bands before and since have done something similar, such as The Cult).
As far as mixups of bandnames go, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between Ween, Weezer, or Winger are or how they each sound like (or different). The Orb and Orbital likewise, esp. given the similar electronica sound they both explore.
For me, Wilco used to be on that list.
I can’t really tell the difference between Panic! At The Disco and Fallout Boy, and at one time asserted to my friend that they shared a singer. They do not. It makes me feel old.
I’ve known the difference between these two ever since Patti Smyth had that one popular (ish) video on MTV. What I was wrong about was which one was married to John McEnroe.
My wife told me about the late night talk show McEnroe briefly hosted, and mentioned that his wife Patti led the show’s band. I got really excited to see what that was going to be like. I was very disappointed.*
*it was Patty Smyth, the one hit wonder, not the amazing Patti Smith.
And Oingo Boingo. And Jefferson Airplane.
Ween - bizarro rock about clams and bongs and shit
Weezer - nerdy alternative
Winger - hair metal that Beavis and Butthead didn’t even think was cool
Wilco - country rock that country music fans don’t listen to
Panic at the Disco (sorry, Panic!) - theatrical singing, long ass song titles
Fallout Boy - dunno, but I mix them up more with all the early 2000s pop punk or emo bands, My Chemical Romance, All American Rejects, Good Charlotte, I know some of their songs through osmosis but could not say who did each one with more than 60% accuracy.
Well, Fall Out Boy did discover Panic!, and whenever I hear the part of this song starting at 1:45, I sometimes think I am listening to Fall Out Boy instead because of the lyrical and musical similarity.
I know who did each one, but I can’t remember which song has which title when it’s a song from From Under The Cork Tree since, like Panic!, they also have long ass-titles.
W/r/t All American Rejects, I sometimes confuse songs on their post-debut albums with songs by All Time Low since they both have a vaguely similar style of singing along with increasingly pop-rock production.
Yay Patti Smith, but Patty Smyth had a couple of hits and could really sing. She’s 17 tiers below Smith as a cultural icon, but a real talent.
(I know a guy who ran in the same circles as her band Scandal, so I am obviously biased.)
Too late to edit - okay, I have one: I started hearing their names as a music-obsessed suburban teenager, but if someone asked me the difference between John Cage (avant-garde composer), John Cale (violinist for the Velvet Underground) or J J Cale (country/blues/rock songwriter who wrote a lot with Clapton), I couldn’t’ve told them. And then if they asked me who JD Souther was (songwriter with The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt), I might have to smack them 
Until a few weeks ago, I thought that Life Is a Highway was by INXS, probably because of the guitar sound.
I experienced quite a bit of cognitive dissonance when I heard it on the radio and the DJ said it was by Rascal Flatts.
That’s a cover. The original is by Tom Cochrane.
I believed “Na Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye” was a Stevie Wonder song for a long time after thinking I had heard a dj say “Stevie.” Would have been a wild coincidence if it had been him on the verse’s vocals with the one off project known as Steam.
For over a decade I felt certain “Milkshake” by Kelis must have been a song from the 1980s. I had never actually heard it or heard of Kelis but in hearing others bring it up or sing part of it.
I didn’t know the exact timeline, but I did know his solo career overlapped with his Genesis career. I never gave much thought to his early career, so no misconception exists.
I can live with that. I’m only familiar with the one song that everyone knows, The Warrior. if I missed out on other good work of hers, that’ my own deficiency. That said, I like that I’ve got this one little corner of my brain concurrently occupied by two wildly different artists. It’s like one of those optical illusion paintings of cubes. One moment, they’re oriented one way, blink, and now they go the other direction.
And in an example of the universe fucking with me, I can hear *The Warrior *faintly playing downstairs. I am absolutely not making that up.
I can’t keep Patti Smyth and Patti Smith’s names straight. I know who is who, but who gets what vowel is something my brain just can’t settle on. I know it now, but 20 minutes from now I’m likely to get it backwards.
When “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” (by KT Tunstall) was released, I thought it was Joan Osborne with a new song.
Oh another one based on name. I kind of know the difference now, but there are still times when I have to pause to remember which song is INXS and which is XTC. I think I would recognize more songs by the former but not know the titles or hum without an auditory prompt, while I can only think of 2 XTC songs.
For a long time I thought Brian Setzer was British. He’s from NY.
The Warrior is now being used as the theme of the Netflix series GLOW.