Friday, November 02, 2007

Weekend Listomania (Special Quel Est Le Nom Le Plus Mauvais? Video Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental manservant Hop-Sing and I are off to our nation's capital, where I've been asked to brief Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey on water sports. Why he doesn't know about pool polo (and why that's controversial) is beyond me, but apparently it's a gap in his education that may sink his nomination and we can't have that. So posting by moi will be necessarily sporadic for a while.

But in my absence, here's a fun project for you all to contemplate:

Worst Rock n Roll Band Name Ever!!!!


You know -- the gauchest, most idiotic, least original, most pretentious, or just plain uncoolest. However you define it.
[Totally arbitrary rule: It has to be a band that actually made records. So friends or acquaintances, like the guys from Paramus I knew who had a band called Rubella and the Dead Little Girl, are ineligible.]

Okay -- my totally Top of My Head Top Five:

5. Asia. Or any other band named after a city, region, state, country, or continent. Fuck you, Chicago. Eat it, Boston. Take a hike, New England. Cram it, Europe.



4. Whitesnake. Wow -- manages to be racist AND sexist at the same time. Brilliant!!!!



3. Pablo Cruise. The level of imagination that went into that moniker was easily as great as that which went into their music.



2. The Electric Prunes. I'm sorry, I know it was the 60s, but still. A psychedelic laxative? Just awful.



1. Anthrax. Why smart guys wanted to name themselves after a loathsome disease is beyond me. Although it's pretty hilarious that after the post 9/11 anthrax scare they were going to change it to A Basket of Puppies.



Okay -- and your choice would be??????

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

This has to be the worst name and worst album cover I've ever come across.

Anonymous said...

To that I'll also add:

Ultimate Spinach

Krokus

Accept

OXO

Tool

Mr. Mister

Goo Goo Dolls

dave said...

OT, but I always wanted my "DJ" name to be Robert W. Anthrax...

Cleveland Bob said...

Steve you nailed it right out of the blocks with Asia and toucari's citation of Hootie is a righteous selection as well.

For me:

Foghat

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Styx

Blue Cheer

Pure Prairie League

and sorry, I always thought that The Jimi Hendrix Experience was not only ripe for parody, but awfully ego inflated as well.

Dozens of other no doubt, but that's it for now...

refinnej said...

Toto.
It's just annoying.

Anonymous said...

I always thought the band name "Toad the Wet Sprocket" was really dumb.

And how 'bout all those bands with numbers in their names like Blink 182 that seemed to be named solely for the fact that the web address was unused.

Anonymous said...

steve's gonna hate me for it, but I always thought one of the reasons Moby Grape tanked commercially was the incredibly stupid name.

Naming your band after the punchline to a joke beloved by 8-year-olds? Um, yeah, whatever, dudes.

Doobie Brothers was pretty stupid, too. "Out of all the slang terms for a joint, we picked the dorkiest and named our band after it!"

Anonymous said...

Well, I'll say again: I don't like my band name, Whiskey Ina. It's a two year old video, but it's all I got... and there's some year old live recordings with a different pedal steel player here)

Anyone who wants to help me think of a better one, I'd be eternally grateful.

As for the matter at hand, I guess I think Led Zeppelin is kinda dumb. And I'm sure there are tons of metal bands with goofy names...

Anonymous said...

I am not too fond of:

REO Speedwagon
Blue Oyster Cult
10cc
Oasis - couldn't do better than Oasis?

Thievery Corporation -trying too hard

Xspandex-WTF?

NYMary said...

Agreeing with racymind, I have a *thing*, shall we say, about the semen bands. 10cc, The Lovin' Spoonful, and Pearl Jam.

TMink said...

Do the Village People count as a semen, or rather a seaman band with the sailor?

Trey

Anonymous said...

I always thought the band name "Toad the Wet Sprocket" was really dumb.

They got that name from a Monty Python skit.

Anonymous said...

There are so many it makes the mind reel.

Let's start with one more vote for Toto (I mean, what kind of self-respecting band takes its name from a fictional yappy dog?)

Chicago & Boston (how original...)

Mr. Big (obviously guys with phallic issues)

Peter Paul & Mary (especially since one of them had to change their name to maintain the Biblical allusion)

Focus (sounds like something their music teacher yelled at them)

The Doors (not to be confused with the Windows or the Ceilings)

W.A.S.P. (please...)

The Backstreet Boys (did Lance Bass come up with this, I wonder?)

Gotta run. Maybe finish this later.

Anonymous said...

I've always thought Badfinger was a terrible name. To make things worse, that band sounds absolutely nothing like what you would expect a bad named Badfinger to sound like.

Also not a fan of Def Leppard. But at least the crappy name suits the crappy band there.

The Kenosha Kid said...

Joey Miserable & The Worms

1910 Fruitgum Company

Eater

Christopher Cross

The Oneders

Anonymous said...

Cleveland - The worst thing about the Jimi Hendrix Experience was that the name was also for shameless co-opting. After Poison broke up, C.C. DeVille formed...the C.C. DeVille Experience. Ugh.

Kenosha - The Oneders! Who were, of course, almost called The Heardsmen.

Slig said...

Mott the Hoople is kind of in the same vein as Toad the Wet Sprocket, although it is a literary reference (Willard Manus book).

The Hooters was a pretty dumb name. (the band named itself after the nickname for the Hohner melodica keyboard harmonica; but of course this reference is lost on just about everyone)

TJWood said...

Many of my candidates have been used (Toto, the Hooters, and--sorry again, Steve--Moby Grape would be on the list to follow if they hadn't been nominated already), but since bad rock band names are a dime a dozen, it's fairly easy to come up with five, all of recent (or fairly) vintage:

Hoobastank

The Red Jump Suit Apparatus

Nerf Herder

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah,


and who could forget...

Right Said Fred

Anonymous said...

Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

'nuff said!

MBowen said...

Bad because it's bland: Little Village

Anonymous said...

Bread
Korn
Limp Bizkit
And their music is bad too.

steve simels said...

NYMary said...

Agreeing with racymind, I have a *thing*, shall we say, about the semen bands. 10cc, The Lovin' Spoonful, and Pearl Jam.


In defense of the Lovin Spoonful, they got the name from an old blues by Mississipppi John Hurt....

Anonymous said...

If I recall my Casey Casum trivia correctly, Pablo Cruise named themselves after their manager (or someone involved with the band).

Let's see, though...

Stryper - actually has kind of a nice ring to it, but c'mon... it's a bit of a stretch from bible verse to band name.

Pink Floyd - talk about your non sequiturs...

The Captain and Tennille - yeah, because you just know that everybody always called him 'the Captain'...

Paperlace - what??

Billy and the Beaters - ummm...

I need more coffee for this one.

David Rasmussen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
steve simels said...

Upon reflection, I should have listed Limp Bizkit.

Anonymous said...

Many very deserving selections already mentioned but the one that I've always found positively revolting is "The The"
As far as I'm concerned the very definition of the phrase "Too Clever By Half"

Anonymous said...

In high school, (when dinosaurs still roamed the earth)I played in a heaveee metal parody band called Chromium Megadeath. How very pleased I was when a real(?) Megadeath arrived some years later...In the list of bad names, this must rank (!) high.

David Rasmussen said...

The Cherry Poppin' Daddys really should have called themselves the Zoot Suit Riots, instead.

Anonymous said...

Greetings from Atlanta!

Dead Kennedys always struck me as a wee bit gauche ...

steve simels said...

Brooklyn Girl is in the house!!!

Well, not exactly, but close enough....
:-)