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Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: Metope on 27 Oct 2013, 07:26

Title: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Metope on 27 Oct 2013, 07:26
I have to confess I do this all the time, and I might have missed out on a lot of good music due to avoiding a band because I dislike their name. The thing is though, every single time I've gone 'What a stupid name' and then accidentally come across a song or two by said band later, I've found the music to be awful too. Recent examples: Imagine Dragons, Alt J, Tame Impala. As of now, I think this prejudice has worked as a pretty efficient filter for me, there's just too much music out there to listen to it all. Do other people do this too?

Of course I realise this is a very subjective thing, and maybe I'm just stuck up. I'd love to be proven wrong, so feel free to post music you like by bands you think have terrible names. Or you know, terrible music by bands with terrible names, whatever you feel like.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: mtmerrick on 27 Oct 2013, 22:00
Two best band names ever (not bands, names) are Bowling For Soup, and Care Bears On Fire.  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: BeoPuppy on 28 Oct 2013, 05:57
I have a tendency to do this whith logos of metal bands. If you don't care enough to design a logo that's legible then you obviously don't need another person listening to your music. Often the music these fellows provide is charmingly rustic and old-school. Or; crap, crappily recorded with crap tech in a crap location.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 28 Oct 2013, 13:39
I sometimes do this. Worst band name I've ever heard is Everything Everything because it is absolutely meaningless.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Metope on 28 Oct 2013, 14:16
Oh! Yeah I was actually going to write them down in the initial post as well, but I completely blanked on the name because it's so stupid. Thanks.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 28 Oct 2013, 14:19
You could call your band Stumpy and the Cuntfarts and it would be a better name simply by being distinctive.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: ankhtahr on 29 Oct 2013, 10:20
I don't think I judge many bands by their name. The only times I really didn't like a musicians name it were names like e.g. Ke$ha. But well.

Post Rock bands often have strange names, but make great music. Names like "God is an Astronaut", "Fire Spoken by the Buffalo" or "And So I Watch You From Afar" are unusual, but I wouldn't call them bad.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: A_S00 on 29 Oct 2013, 14:49
Not gonna lie, I've never been able to bring myself to check whether Butthole Surfers are actually any good.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Jimmy the Squid on 31 Oct 2013, 10:18
They're pretty underwhelming.

I do kind of feel like band names should be...good. I realise that's a nebulous concept but I really hate stupid band names. Like, my housemate loves bands like Deathbreath and Pigface and I fucking detest those bands without having heard much of either of them, because they were too lazy to come up with a good band name, or at least an OK one. Sometimes I can push past it. I loved Purity Ring when I first heard them and then had a long period of being really unsure about them because I didn't like the name (and the images it brought up). Eventually I managed to get around it but it still annoys me sometimes.

I don't mind logos being illegible. I'm into black metal so if I wasn't cool with it I'd never hear anything. I think instead of having logos being illegible or not, I think it's more important for it to be visually distinctive. So Darkthrone's logo is hard to read but is obviously Darkthrone's logo. But there are a bunch of logos that are so illegible as to be completely meaningless which is unhelpful.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 31 Oct 2013, 11:56
There is a band called Quasimoto whose album is called Yessir Whatever. Know nothing about them at all but considering buying the record for the name alone.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Metope on 31 Oct 2013, 12:57
Everyone at my school have gotten completely hung up on this guy called Connan Mockasin. First I thought it was an ironical thing because why is his name a shoe, but they legitimately love this guy. It. Is. So. Bad. Here's what he looks like:

(http://d2p5dvc3vrbyrj.cloudfront.net/news/20130926-014231-a041ed9cfe925bf90adda62e6b34abd7-680.jpeg)

(http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/130/944/130944653_640.jpg)

His music is really terrible and whiny psychedelic stuff with 'quirky' videos. I'm probably venturing way into judgemental territory here, but he totally seems like the kind of person who 'found himself' through some ancient asian philosophy and started fetishising it and now has an overwhelming urge to prove his deepness to the world. He probably cries after sex.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Aimless on 09 Nov 2013, 09:15
I def. judge bands by their names, in the sense that I tend to automatically reject many bands whose names make me think they only produce same-y unmelodic whiny hipster music. I realize this may be a stupid prejudice :o
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Patrick on 09 Nov 2013, 19:16
The thing is though, every single time I've gone 'What a stupid name' and then accidentally come across a song or two by said band later, I've found the music to be awful too. Recent examples: Imagine Dragons, Alt J, Tame Impala.

Imagine Dragons are garbage and I am so very miffed that somebody managed to talk the bartenders into putting their drivel onto a CD in the jukebox at the bar I work at. But I enjoyed Alt J and Tame Impala both when I saw them at Coachella.

I judge bands by their name all the time, that's why people go out of their way to come up with a band name that represents who they are. As a musician who has helped name bands, songs, and albums, almost every time, the above are chosen intentionally.

Bands I hate with bad band names: Smith Westerns, Vampire Weekend, every bad metal band ever (some good ones have awful names too)
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 09 Nov 2013, 23:49
I don't see why people hate the name "Imagine Dragons" because imagining dragons is always a good idea.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Metope on 11 Nov 2013, 11:18
Watch out for A Great Big Pile of Leaves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lgzu6IYLaM#t=183)! Blander than mashed potatoes, here's yet another indie band with no substance and lots of cliched repetitive 'chill' feels, they're guaranteed to set the mood for the year's most annoying borefest. In their own words: ““That sounds cool!” is our guiding phrase when composing. If it sounds intense or heady or combative, we usually drop the part,” , they actively avoid doing anything that seems hard or challenging, because who needs to engage their poor little airheads anyway?

Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Edguy on 11 Nov 2013, 16:03
I tend to avoid bands that start with "The" followed by a random plural. If you best idea for a name was "The Subways", "The Vines" or, god forbid, "The Yeah Yeah Yeahs", then you're probably not that creative :psyduck:. This obviously don't apply to older bands, from the '60s or '70s. :laugh:
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Jimmy the Squid on 11 Nov 2013, 20:27
Watch out for A Great Big Pile of Leaves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lgzu6IYLaM#t=183)! Blander than mashed potatoes, here's yet another indie band with no substance and lots of cliched repetitive 'chill' feels, they're guaranteed to set the mood for the year's most annoying borefest. In their own words: ““That sounds cool!” is our guiding phrase when composing. If it sounds intense or heady or combative, we usually drop the part,” , they actively avoid doing anything that seems hard or challenging, because who needs to engage their poor little airheads anyway?

I seem to be hearing this approach whenever I turn on the radio lately. Seems like a lot of bands are making the safest, most inoffensive music possible. I don't want to do a whole bullshit "rock is dead" kind of thing but my god if you're making music that my mum thinks is cool you're doing it wrong.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Metope on 12 Nov 2013, 02:48
Yeah I mean, I like a lot of different types of music, some of it is pretty generic indie stuff too, but it has to be interesting. This band, and the others I've posted about in this thread, just sounds boring, safe, lazy and all the same to me, and it's supposed to be my kind of genre. No thank you.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Patrick on 17 Nov 2013, 11:34
In their own words: “If it sounds intense or heady or combative, we usually drop the part”, they actively avoid doing anything that seems hard or challenging, because who needs to engage their poor little airheads anyway?

Jesus Christ, people like this shouldn't make music for public consumption. That is exactly the reason I release hardly anything I've written by myself. This is also exactly the reason why I love being in the band I'm in, where there's a songwriter at the helm who knows what he's doing. Our first album doesn't reflect our risk-takership nearly as well as the next one will, but we do a lot of crafty shit in the songs on this next record, and it pisses me off endlessly that we work so hard, and yet the only way to make any kind of money in music is to do exactly the same lazy, cowardly thing that A Great Big Pile Of Shit admits to doing.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: BeoPuppy on 17 Nov 2013, 12:04
It's like actively making rice crackers in the finest distillery in all of Scotland. Because rice crackers are BETTER!
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: ankhtahr on 17 Nov 2013, 16:01
There's this one bandname which is just so incredibly ridiculuos, me and a friend laughed our asses off, when we saw the CD in the store.

"100000 Tonnen Kruppstahl"

The middle word means "tons". The last word refers to "Krupp-made steel". Krupp was a German company, which was active during the second world war, famous for its strong steel. It still exists in a company called "ThyssenKrupp".

The first association you have when you read this title is that it's a Neonazi group. Apparently it isn't, but the name is just fucking ridiculous. No, not one ton, not ten or one hundred tons of tank-steel, no 100000 tons. The fuck were they thinking?
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 17 Nov 2013, 16:28
They use it to build a boat. A bigger boat.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: doombilly on 11 Mar 2014, 17:18
The The is one of my favorite band names. Clearly from a pre-internet Google search era.
But then I really regret naming ILLICITIZEN bc it is never spelled or pronounced right.
What do you guys think of the name: The Olivia deHavilland Mosquitoes?
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 11 Mar 2014, 17:27
The deli near me has a sandwich that's called "The" Sandwich. People order it by asking for "a the".
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: celticgeek on 11 Mar 2014, 17:38
I like ILLICITIZEN for a band name, but then I think that "doombilly" would be a good name, too. 

However, "The Olivia deHavilland Mosquitoes" is also pretty cool for a band name. 

And I like their facebook page.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 11 Mar 2014, 17:52
http://therocksoleintheberingsea.tumblr.com/post/18990422415/the-xkcd-that-caused-me-to-get-a-tumblr-when-i
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: doombilly on 12 Mar 2014, 13:23
Thanks Fletcher. Not everyone can be "Anal Cunt."  :lol:
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 12 Mar 2014, 13:39
Fletcher?
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: celticgeek on 12 Mar 2014, 14:25
You called?
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Alex C on 12 Mar 2014, 14:30
I hate the name imagine dragons so much.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 12 Mar 2014, 19:07
You called?
Yep, because I had no idea who Fletcher was.

Alex, I'll never understand how anyone could dislike that name. The band itself is ok, whatever, but WHO DOESN'T LIKE IMAGINING DRAGONS?
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 13 Mar 2014, 01:50
Because what the fuck does it even mean?

'Imagine Dragons'
'No, fuck you, I'll imagine whatever I like.'
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Patrick on 13 Mar 2014, 03:53
god, that band's perfect for this thread. I have never listened to them because of how bad that name is, because I imagine dragons aren't very badass after all since the species is apparently extinct.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Taekwondoin on 13 Mar 2014, 14:46
Has anyone ever had the same thing but as a positive? For instance I heard of 'Drenge' and instantly knew I wanted to listen to them, and now I really like their album.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: BeoPuppy on 14 Mar 2014, 04:10
Certain bandnames are just incredibly bad-ass and compell you to shell out for their work.

Iskalt. Kampfar. Behemoth. Thranenkind. Eiluveitie. Xasthur. Bon Jovi.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 14 Mar 2014, 05:05
I can't think of a single time when I band's name has meant my immediate reaction was 'AW SHIT I GOTTA LISTEN TO THAT SHIT'.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Detachable Felix on 14 Mar 2014, 06:08
Fear of judgement made Mt band change its name from Snazzy and the Screaming Baby Brigade to its current (and kinda disappointing) name 'The Best Worst Idea'. I still prefer the former. If I saw that name come up on iTunes/YouTube/etc, I would listen the shit out of that.
My vote for worst band name goes to Fountains of Wayne
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: GarandMarine on 14 Mar 2014, 07:41
Because what the fuck does it even mean?

'Imagine Dragons'
'No, fuck you, I'll imagine whatever I like.'

It means the same thing as Def Leppard or Led Zepplin. Nothing.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 14 Mar 2014, 08:16
Because what the fuck does it even mean?

'Imagine Dragons'
'No, fuck you, I'll imagine whatever I like.'

It means the same thing as Def Leppard or Led Zepplin. Nothing.

Led Zeppelin at least DOES mean something, it means the music is heavy as fuck. Def Leppard means absolutely nothing, but last time I Googled Dean Learner's Def Leppard rant I couldn't find it.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Kwaping on 14 Mar 2014, 08:34
I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like Yuck, but I did. Also, Red Sparrowes is a pretty bad name for a fairly good band. There's another one, but I'm forgetting it, will have to get back to you.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 14 Mar 2014, 09:12
Crucially I heard Yuck's music before I found out their name. I never bothered with their second record after their singer quit but that first album is wonderful.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Taekwondoin on 14 Mar 2014, 11:43
Crucially I heard Yuck's music before I found out their name. I never bothered with their second record after their singer quit but that first album is wonderful.

A good decision, that second album reeks of lost talent.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 14 Mar 2014, 15:14
Namely lost vocal and songwriting talent.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Lummer on 15 Mar 2014, 01:39
Any band that structures their name along the old "Verb The Noun" template will draw instant skepticism from me.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: A_S00 on 15 Mar 2014, 02:06
Any band that structures their name along the old "Verb The Noun" template will draw instant skepticism from me.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that "Cage the Elephant" was a sentence, not a pachyderm with an odd name.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Detachable Felix on 15 Mar 2014, 03:40
Any band that structures their name along the old "Verb The Noun" template will draw instant skepticism from me.
Butter the Children though.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Taekwondoin on 15 Mar 2014, 05:40
Namely lost vocal and songwriting talent.
Pretty much.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 15 Mar 2014, 08:11
Any band that structures their name along the old "Verb The Noun" template will draw instant skepticism from me.
I was going to ask about Toad the Wet Sprocket, and then looked them up and was disappointed to find out that Toad was not being verbed in that name. Although it is from a Monty Python sketch so I guess that makes up for it. (I know pretty much nothing about the band besides the name)
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Patrick on 15 Mar 2014, 11:40
Def Leppard

what has 7 arms and sucks

Any band that structures their name along the old "Verb The Noun" template will draw instant skepticism from me.
Butter the Children though.

fuckin' a right. that singer is incredible and I will always, always have a soft spot in my heart for the guitarist Ray Weiss. he was a dick to me over Facebook once and it made me so happy.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Method of Madness on 15 Mar 2014, 13:51
Happy?
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Patrick on 16 Mar 2014, 18:45
bro, he did this when he was 16 years old:

Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: 94ssd on 17 Mar 2014, 06:17
I dislike when a band can't actually give a reason for their name (thinking specifically of Alkaline Trio, here) and they say it doesn't mean anything.

And there's been several local bands with this problem - incorporating the name of the town you're from in your name is either really pretentious or severely limiting your audience. Probably both at the same time.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 17 Mar 2014, 06:27
I always found it hilarious that Tokyo Dragons called themselves that because they thought it might make them popular in Japan. That's such idiot-genius.

I just remembered I wrote a blog post about band names, can't remember if I posted it in here already: http://madcap156.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/band-names-are-rubbish-nowadays/
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Taekwondoin on 17 Mar 2014, 11:19
I was talking about this with my brother the other day. I think a lot of bands just settle on a 'temporary' name that ends up becoming permanent. Like, they're all sitting around jamming/rehearsing whatever and they say "Let's just call ourselves... *spots a beer bottle* Meantime? We can think of something else later" however, later never happens, and they end up with it for the rest of their career. That's what happened to Foo Fighters at least,
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Patrick on 27 Mar 2014, 14:30
I am very thankful I could talk Kabir into changing the name of Sun Kin from what it used to be. At first we were called Injun Magic, because he's Indian (as in, India) and I'm Magic. After a while we realized how racist it appeared for my white ass to be in a band called that. So Sun Kin it is.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: doombilly on 28 Mar 2014, 15:47
also sounds like "Sunken"
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Patrick on 31 Mar 2014, 21:31
well, for the time being, I'm out of the band due to financial constraints prohibiting frequent (or, honestly, even occasional) travel to Kabir's house. so that's not terribly far off.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: J on 31 Mar 2014, 22:18
i am reminded of this classic bit from Jello (http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Names+For+Bands+New+Improved+Version/3yvhKc?src=5)
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Lummer on 01 Apr 2014, 02:08
I am kind of ambivalent about the name of my Grind band Gestapolis. I can live with it, since the whole nazi-accusation thing that might come up is easily and quickly dispelled anyway, but were I to go back I would probably have voted more strongly against. However, I don't have a better idea. Also, it continues the tradition of naming your band from another, older band's song nicely.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Stryc9Fuego on 16 Apr 2014, 06:30
You could call your band Stumpy and the Cuntfarts and it would be a better name simply by being distinctive.
I'd just like to make a note that I'd listen to Stumpy and the Cuntfarts religiously.

Worst band name (and worst band) I've ever heard of is God Lives Underwater. They opened for KMFDM and Genitorturers in Tampa back in the '90s and played like they were on valium. I cannot put into words precisely how SHIT they actually were.
Title: Re: Do you ever judge bands on their name?
Post by: Thrillho on 16 Apr 2014, 07:03
You could call your band Stumpy and the Cuntfarts and it would be a better name simply by being distinctive.
I'd just like to make a note that I'd listen to Stumpy and the Cuntfarts religiously.

I can't believe I came up with this, six months on and I'm laughing myself to death at my own joke.