Naming your band

We had a discussion about band names the other day. This obviously got me thinking.

First of all, I would like to establish that this entry will be biased based on personal musical preferences, but I wanted to do a little research on some band names and see if I could find any patterns or ways to categorise them. I’m sure you may have given thought as to where certain band names originate from and how they correlate with the musicians’ success.

For instance, you may think Garbage is a "rubbish" name, yet it works for them. We need to take into consideration that they are a band who have been around for a while and had the opportunity to build up their brand image that is now associated with the name as well as their logo.

Onto the decoding method. My theory is that every band name can fall under a certain category. I will be excluding artists who use their real name in this mini research, as I am not in the position to criticize people for the names they were given by their parents (not yet anyway). The goal here is to pick a certain number of band names from my repertoire (obviously a limited sample compared to the number of bands out there) and see if I can categorise them. I also want to find out where the ones that can’t be categorised belong and where they are most likely to end up.

Let us start with one of the common trends of “The”.”The Somethings” may have certain sub-categories yet most of them fall under the same category as they are following the trend that The Strokes rekindled with their debut back in 1999. Yes, we had The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Clash, The Who... yet the trend skyrocketed from 2000.

"The" bands: The Kooks, The White Stripes, The Carbonfools, The Rapture, The Cribs, The Killers, The Young Knives, The Fray, The Phoenix Foundation, The Rakes,The Yeah Yeah Yeahs... need more?

And the other groups that arose:

Pharmaceutical bands with an addictive nature: The Cure, Placebo, Drugstore, Jane's Addiction.

X: IAMX, Pure X, The XX, T Rex.

Locations: Texas, Lasgo, Calexico, Bay City Rollers, Portishead, Tokio Hotel, The Beautiful South, Brainerd, E Street Band.

Novels: As I Lay Dying, The Velvet Underground, Art of Noise, Belle and Sebastian, Heaven 17, Marillion, Modest Mouse, Opeth.

Evil: The Horrors, The Enemy, The Killers, Liars, Vandals.

Movies: Aiden, Bad Company, Billy Talent, Bring Me the Horizon, Iron Maiden, Xiu Xiu, Atreyu.

Fur: Grumbling Fur, Handsome Furs, Psychedelic Furs, Loose Fur, The Yummy Fur, Hot Fur.

Sexual: Scissor Sisters, Orgy, Climax, Steely Dan, Slut, Sex Pistols, Alien Sex Fiend, The Vibrators, Porno For Pyros, Peaches.

F-bomb: Fuck Buttons, Fucking Wrath, Fucked Up, Fuck the Facts, Holy Fuck, Fuckhead.

Annoying: Blitzen Trapper, Bombay Bicycle Club, Crystal Stilts, Cymbals Eat Guitars (Jimmy Eat World gone wrong?), Fruit Bats, The Last Shadow Puppets, Neutral Milk Hotel, Azari III.

The latter just don’t make sense. I noticed the trend of how these youthful bands try to be too cool (oh yes, this refers to the idea of trying to be cool yet again) and trying too hard to be unique, hence the simple title for the category being “annoying”. Even if they held a gun to my head I wouldn’t be able to remember these. They are way too long and the fact that they don’t fall under any category makes it difficult to compare them to something else therefore people are less likely to remember them. I wish I could give them the benefit of the doubt that they will be successful, but I would be lying.

So, some of my personal favourites? Cocteau Twins, Calexico, Cube Juice, Phoenix, Delphic, Guniw Tools, Male Bonding and Primal Scream. Some of these can be classified in the categories that I have created, yet there is still something about them that differentiates them from the “annoying” bands. Their effectiveness can be explained by the golden rule of good naming: a short name.

A way to simply test your band name is to put you in a position where you are talking to a friend. Pretend you are telling them what you have been listening to lately. Say the name out loud. If their reaction would be “SAY WHAT?” that probably means that the name is not sustainable:

Person X: “Ahhh, do you know any good bands?”

Person Y: “Yeah man, I’ve been listening to Cymbals Eat Guitars lately. Now try saying that three times.”

The fact that a name should be short and memorable can be applied in selecting a band name.

To conclude, some bands could really use some naming experts. Perhaps for their album and song naming as well.

My reasoning for the classified bands may be very simple and we will have to wait a couple of years to see whether my hypothesis about the “annoying” band names failing will be proven. Just ask me in 2015 what Cymbals Eat Guitars are up to.