Maxim has put together a list of the “The Worst Band Names Ever,” and we thought y’all might wanna take a peek. Although they’re not experts in music, they’re pretty good with the ridiculous, so here’s their list of ridiculous musical monikers. The article offered suggested names, which we included parenthetically so you don’t get confused (it’s been a long day back from break!). Here’s the list:
Hole (Put “ass” in front of it.)
Toad The Wet Sprocket (Now’s The Time On Sprockets When We Dance)
Crash Test Dummies (One Hit Blunder)
Limp Bizkit (Shit Said Fred)
Anal Cunt (Anal Cunt — they liked it after all)
Thrice (Obie Trice)
Jefferson Airplane/Starship (Unmazing Grace)
Korn (Krap)
Phish (Phucked)
Keith Urban (Keith Not Urban)
Archers Of Loaf (Pinching A Loaf)
A-ha (Voila!)
Men Without Hats (Living In Mom’s Attic Until You’re 40)
As always, let us know which band names you’d nominate for the list. Feel free to suggest improvement for the bands, feel free to just leave ‘em hanging with their name shame. (Like they’d listen, anyway.) Let’s hear ‘em!
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“From Autumn To Ashes”. The most stereotypically bad emo band name ever.
there is nothing funny about this list.
Without a doubt, almost every band that came out in the 90s had a horrible, one word name. Korn, Bush, Wax, Sponge, Lick, Hard, Cow, Tang, Wang…
Mix ‘em, match ‘em, none of ‘em really exist anymore anyway.
DwD
I nominate Goo Goo Dolls.
Toad The Wet Sprocket is a joke name anyway – the band lifted it from a Monty Python sketch.
I’m with them on Archers, as big of a fan as i was/am, i’ve never liked the name. HOWEVER, they’re waaaaay off the mark with Anal Cunt. AC’s A team cover is worth looking for.
anything with “wolf” in it.
I nominate “yellow brick road kill” for either the worst or the best band name ever.
That list (just like everything in Maxim) was idiotic — there are so many worse band names about which funnier (make that funny) jokes could be made.
Jennifer Lopez.
Lake Trout
Kasabian
Garbage
The Like
Psapp
as far as 80s one hit wonders go kajagoogoo are worse than a-ha and men without hats with regards to name and actual music. My nominee for not sure would be !!!. Also, goo goo dolls was the name of an actual toy.
spoon…though i love them
spoon…though i love them
As I Lay Dying really sucks and is embarassing to be in a band named that. The book kind of sucks too.
The Books – boring/stupid name.
The String Cheese Incident. I can’t stand this band and when I hear their name, I cringe.
Think About Life – Good band, but it sounds like a high school seminar about making good decisions.
Kind of Like Spitting. Yeah.
sufjan stevens. sufjan’s not even a real fucking word. and “stevens”? i mean what the hell?
echo & the bunnymen. good band. dumb name.
Archers of Loaf…quite possibly one of the greatest indie rock bands that ever existed. “Icky Mettle” is about as perfect of an indie album there is.
Just my two cents.
Archers of Loaf….R.I.P
Honestly, how could you make that list without putting “Audioslave” at the top…
What the hell, my two cents: Dr. Dog.
Anal Putrefaction… really…
keith not urban
thrice rules
Nashville Pussy, it fits but it is a punch in the teeth…Britney Spears…Englebert Humperdink
Nashville Pussy, it fits but it is a punch in the teeth…Britney Spears…Englebert Humperdink
Rymes With Orange
Deep Blue Something
Better Than Ezra
And wasn’t there a band called Sandy Duncan’s Eye?
No mention of the otherwise awesome Holy Fuck?
um.
devil wears prada
test icicles
arctic monkeys
assuck
death
80s bands had some of the more offensive names…Scraping Foetus and Butthole Surfers must take the prize. But Archers was named for a Dr. Suess book, fools. Show some respect.
Hoobastank never smelled too good to me!
Guided by Voices. It sounds downright evangelical.
Barenaked Ladies
Bran Van 3000
Cheeky Girls
Cobra Starship
Th Corn Gangg (even though I love them long time)
Feathermerchants
N.E.R.D. (No-one Ever Really Dies.)
O.A.R. (Of A Revoloution)
Over It
The Cardinals (as in Ryan Adams and the…does that count?)
Something Corporate
…that’s all my iTunes has to offer, really.
what about…
stars
asobi seksu
bright eyes
the the
dogs die in hot cars
?
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
30 Seconds to Mars
the worst band names ever are ALL from the stupid new emo bands
From Autumn to Ashes, as mentionned, As I Lay Dying, Bullet for my Valentine, let’s no forget My Chemical Romance, Funeral for a Friend, Matchbook Romance (wtf), Everytime I Die, Between the Burried and Me, A Perfect Murder, Bury Your Dead, etc. etc.
I work in a clothing store where they sell T-shirts mostly and every day some little emo kid comes in and asks me if we have t-shirts from a band I’ve never heard of that have a stupid name like that and I always think that there is no way that SO many bands can have so little imagination or taste
Evanescence and Jamiroquai win because no one will ever know how to spell or say the name of your band. I’m fairly certain Toto sold more records than both these chumps combined.
hellogoodbye, the academy is…, street to nowhere, playradioplay!, gym class heroes…
Floater, especially when they then name an album “Sink.”
How about “30 seconds to mars” I dont get how that’s an emo band name.. Hey,, but they have nice hair!
How about “30 seconds to mars” I dont get how that’s an emo band name.. Hey,, but they have nice hair!
How about “30 seconds to mars” I dont get how that’s an emo band name.. Hey,, but they have nice hair!
animal collective could be the worst band name (or the best) i still haven’t decided.
Fall Out Boy
Panic! At the Disco
Spitalfield
The Cosmic Rough Riders
INXS (uuuugh)
38 Special
And I definitely second Hoobastank.
Oh, I know there are more.
!!!
yeah how is that a and name???
wait was that just a band name?
and to defend My Chemical Romance, the got their name from a Chuck Phaliniuk (the guy who wrote Fight Club!!!) book, so maybe look into something before you knock it
!!!
i mean how the fuck do you even pronounce or say that?
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
the ellipses means there was something BEFORE that long-ass title. lawd.
Hey. what’s with Travis Barker and starting bands with numbers.. +44?! yyyyyyeah. fantastic.
ok come on people
THE FOO FIGHTERS
the best band ever with the suckiest name
I mean you get the crap youd expect from a band called Panic! at the disco (do they really need a !) but the music from the foo fighters deserves more…
I second Foo Fighters.
Every Time I Die.
Good Charlotte (?)
Morningwood, oh god what a horrible name.
Of Montreal is a retarded name for a band, and I am a Montrealer.
Do you even know what a foo fighter is? It’s a pretty creative name dealing with UFO shit. Too bad you just thought it was a goofy name with the word “Foo” in it.
“!!!” is pronounced “chk chk chk”. Think of each “!” as a hit on the snare drum, you non-indie fucks.
srsly though, Cansei de Ser Sexy’s a horrible name, exacerbated by the abbreviation it got when it signed to Sub-Pop.
And as much as I love them, The Bondage Fairies has a really bad name, especially when you try to Google their music and you find links to hentai pages.
Oh, and Final Fantasy has to go down as the most misunderstood band name of all time. I’ve already been through the scenario, but yeah, I don’t even bother recommending them anymore because I don’t want to spend five minutes explaining that it’s not the videogame.
This reminded me of when I used to work in a music store a few years ago, and on one of the (many) slow nights we decided to amuse ourselves by looking at band names and substituting the word ‘shit’ randomly. Hilarious hijinx ensued and we came up with some real gems – Swollen Members became Swollen Shit, and Nine Inch Nails became Nine Inch Shit. I ended up the winner that night though when I came across My Bloody Valentine…
*shrugs* we didn’t get very many customers on weeknights.
Coldplay – Crappest band name ever in the history of crap band names.
I always thought that “meat puppets” was a pretty stupid name, even if it does sound pretty alternative.
What are the best band names?
An fyi: just cause a band got their name from something (a la my chemical romance) doesn’t mean the name is good
Here’s my list :
…And You Will Know My Name By The Trail Of Dead (…And You Will Know My Name By The Amount Of Time Spent Saying It, Remembering It And Writing It)
Do Make Say Think (Do Pick An Easy Name Please !)
Roxette
Canibus (especially with his album Can-I-Bus)
The The (The The The The Speech Disorder)
The Pop Group (I wouldn’t call their music pop…)
Built To Spill
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine (later they turned it into Carter USM, which made things only worse…)
Prince when he renamed himself into a symbol that no one really know how to say and that no one can actually type
I’m sure the worst has yet to come though…
List of best band names :
- Godspeed! You Black Emperor
- Architecture In Helsinki
- Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (no, they’re not German…)
- Radiohead
- A Minor Forest
- The Folk Implosion ( I discovered them AFTER I had heard about The Blues Explosion and my first thought was they probably were a parody of the latter)
- Fifty Foot Combo (their music is just what you’d expect from their name… or at least, what I’d expect from it)
- Sparklehorse
- Origin Unknown
and here’s still another worst band name : Various (or Various Productions)… : are they really a group or a compilation ?
THE BEATLES
a shitty, shitty bad awful joke/pun name, worse than anything prior on this list.
Beirut is pretty bad too.
Best new band name:
DANANANANAYKROYD.
Best:
The Long Winters
The Rolling Stones
The Magnetic Fields
The Go-Go’s
The Temptations
Worst:
Harvey Danger
Journey
Elvis Hitler
these band/artist names suck:
The Hold Steady
G-Unit
Depeche Mode
Papa Roach
U2
Senses Fail
Heavy Heavy Low Low
Ludacris
The Almost
10 Years
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
Darkness
OK Go!
I’m sure Plus 44, Panic! At The Disco, Dr. Dog, and Cobra Starshit were already mentioned.
Dr Dog
Easily the worst band I’ve seen this year. They supported Tapes N’ Tapes and Shit Disco in Dublin the other week.
On reflection, all of those names are terrible.
The best part of the evening was the way my friend said that Dr Dog ruined his year.
Dr Dog is the worst band name ever.
!!! spelled “chik chik chik”
spelled colonopenbracket
(hed) p.e.
alexisonfire
Cansei de Ser Sexy
bullet for my valentine
simple plan
crazy town
the the
the music (wtf!?)
ok go
fear before the march of flames
!!! spelled “chik chik chik”
spelled colonopenbracket
(hed) p.e.
alexisonfire
Cansei de Ser Sexy
bullet for my valentine
simple plan
crazy town
the the
the music (wtf!?)
ok go
fear before the march of flames
!!! spelled “chik chik chik”
spelled colonopenbracket
(hed) p.e.
alexisonfire
Cansei de Ser Sexy
bullet for my valentine
simple plan
crazy town
the the
the music (wtf!?)
ok go
fear before the march of flames
I hate the band name NoFX, although I have gotten used to it.
M.C. 900ft Jesus is another one that rides the line between best and worst
best-widespread panic
worst-!!! chk chk chk…. how about suck suck goose
Reverse idea: In “The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006″ there’s a list of the 2005 best band names, here’s a selection (I uploaded all of them to my blog):
A million billion, The age of rockets, The alarms, Ambulette, American minor, Arctic monkeys, Assbaboons of venus, The asshole two, The audition, The automatic, Babyshambles, Band of horses, Beaten awake, Birdmonster, Birthday suits, Black mountain, Bloc party, The blue van, The botticellis, The boy least likely to, The bravery, Brazilian girls, Bullet for my valentine, Calling all monsters, Caribou, Cherry Monroe, Chooglin’, Clap your hands say yeah, The classic crime, The click 5, Clor, Cunnilynguists, Dead 60s, The deaf, Death from above 1979, Departure, Discover America, Early man, Edan, Editors, Engineers, Envy and other sins, Ergoism, Final fantasy, The fold, Forward,Russia!,
Reverse idea: In “The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006″ there’s a list of the 2005 best band names, here’s a selection (I uploaded all of them to my blog):
A million billion, The age of rockets, The alarms, Ambulette, American minor, Arctic monkeys, Assbaboons of venus, The asshole two, The audition, The automatic, Babyshambles, Band of horses, Beaten awake, Birdmonster, Birthday suits, Black mountain, Bloc party, The blue van, The botticellis, The boy least likely to, The bravery, Brazilian girls, Bullet for my valentine, Calling all monsters, Caribou, Cherry Monroe, Chooglin’, Clap your hands say yeah, The classic crime, The click 5, Clor, Cunnilynguists, Dead 60s, The deaf, Death from above 1979, Departure, Discover America, Early man, Edan, Editors, Engineers, Envy and other sins, Ergoism, Final fantasy, The fold, Forward,Russia!,
much as I like these bands i have to say their names are bad:
Broken Social Scene
New Pornographers-everyone i know thinks they are weird/dirty because of their name
Ass Ponies.
Since I always expect bad bands to have bad names, I’m narrowing my list to good/decent bands with bad names.
Arctic Monkeys is #1 by the badness-of-name-minus-goodness-of-band equation.
The Pixies was a name unsuited for that particular band (the Corrs should’ve been called The Pixies).
Hoodoo Gurus was just an awful idea from the start.
The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy was a great band and I’m sure they were just trying to be funny, but they weren’t.
Never been a fan of Modest Mouse.
And sigur ros? What the hell is that, and how do you say it? It’s like it’s a foreign language or something! And lose all those funny-looking letters, too.
Best names: Puffy Amiyumi (that’s fun to say!), The Long Winters, The New Pornographers, Voxtrot.
Ass Ponies.
“the worst band names ever are ALL from the stupid new emo bands
From Autumn to Ashes, as mentionned, As I Lay Dying, Bullet for my Valentine, let’s no forget My Chemical Romance, Funeral for a Friend, Matchbook Romance (wtf), Everytime I Die, Between the Burried and Me, A Perfect Murder, Bury Your Dead, etc. etc.”
As I Lay Dying, ETID, & Between The Buried and Me are fucking metal bands asshole. AILD & BTBAM are fucking brutal so how can you call them emo? Maybe I could see your confusion with ETID because they’re a bit glammy but still far from emo.
Whether the names are good or not I don’t care but calling metal bands emo is offensive and shows a lack of general music knowledge. I know what you’re going to say “I don’t like metal or emo so fuck it” well I don’t like alot of the shit you listen to but at least I don’t call CYHSY an emo band.
By the way Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is the worst band name ever.
WORST:
The Who
The Fixx
Interpol
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Snow Patrol
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
Wham! Snap! Frente! (and anything with a ‘!’ in it)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (UGH!!!)
Barenaked Ladies (BLECH!!!)
Soundtrack Of Our Lives (huh?)
VHS Or Beta (DVD-HD or BluRay?)
TV On The Radio
+/-, OO|OO, Sunn 0))), and the vast majority of bands that Pitchfork fellates daily.
BEST:
The Clash
The Cure
The Killers (maybe I’m just surprised no one took it yet)
Tenacious D (even though I’m tired of them)
Pavement
Guns N’ Roses
Death Cab For Cutie
Dirty On Purpose
I agree with a previous poster: what the hell is a “sufjan”? If I only knew how to pronounce it, I could better express my dislike for him.
WORST:
The Who
The Fixx
Interpol
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Snow Patrol
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
Wham! Snap! Frente! (and anything with a ‘!’ in it)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (UGH!!!)
Barenaked Ladies (BLECH!!!)
Soundtrack Of Our Lives (huh?)
VHS Or Beta (DVD-HD or BluRay?)
TV On The Radio
+/-, OO|OO, Sunn 0))), and the vast majority of bands that Pitchfork fellates daily.
BEST:
The Clash
The Cure
The Killers (maybe I’m just surprised no one took it yet)
Tenacious D (even though I’m tired of them)
Pavement
Guns N’ Roses
Death Cab For Cutie
Dirty On Purpose
I agree with a previous poster: what the hell is a “sufjan”? If I only knew how to pronounce it, I could better express my dislike for him.
WORST:
The Who
The Fixx
Interpol
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Snow Patrol
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
Wham! Snap! Frente! (and anything with a ‘!’ in it)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (UGH!!!)
Barenaked Ladies (BLECH!!!)
Soundtrack Of Our Lives (huh?)
VHS Or Beta (DVD-HD or BluRay?)
TV On The Radio
+/-, OO|OO, Sunn 0))), and the vast majority of bands that Pitchfork fellates daily.
BEST:
The Clash
The Cure
The Killers (maybe I’m just surprised no one took it yet)
Tenacious D (even though I’m tired of them)
Pavement
Guns N’ Roses
Death Cab For Cutie
Dirty On Purpose
I agree with a previous poster: what the hell is a “sufjan”? If I only knew how to pronounce it, I could better express my dislike for him.
best band names:
Social Distortion
Killing Joke
Basemennt Jaxx
oedipus and the motherfuckers
By the way I know most people pernounce !!! as chk chk chk, but the band has said you can use any three words as long as you are yelling them (i think that is how the described it), so thats like saying hey we are too lazy to come up with a real name so just yell any word three times in a row and we will be happy.
so basically every band name ever used is one of the worst band names ever used?
mother love bone.
Test Icicles – thank goodness that one didn’t last long
Band names I can’t really stand for:
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
Die! Die! Die!
Silversun Pickups
Sun Kil Moon
Twisted Sister
Crazy Town
10,000 Maniacs
Matt Pond PA
Ratatat
Names that really aren’t so bad:
Blondie
The Fruit Bats
Massive Attack
Moldy Peaches
Hot Chip
Death From Above
Linda Ronstadt
I love how people are taking a hate for Soof’s name. He can’t help that he was named that…
The worst would be Arctic Monkeys and Green Day. Green Day.
… heh, more like pigeons of shit metal!
ha
… heh…
guys?
Angels and Airwaves
Malajube
Final Fantasy
Best:
John Cougar Concentration Camp
The Bears Can Smell The Menstruation
i thought my chemical romance was lifted from an irvine welsh novel, not a chuck pahlanik novel. eh.
hoobastank is the all time worst. followed closely by:
cinderella
t.a.t.u.
the music
kula shakur
the fray
hinder
nickelback
hot tuna
just…gross.
I second Sunn 0))) as being one of the worst.
And Adema, too. Anyone remember them?
I second Sunn 0))) as being one of the worst.
And Adema, too. Anyone remember them?
In answer to some questions raised here :
Yes, Sigur Ros is foreign : it’s Icelandic !
No, Sufjan is not a word meaning anything, it’s someone’s first name (Stevens’ for example)
for best i’m going to go with babyshambles.
i just like it. okay.
A bad band name doesn’t not a bad band make. I have to say that I love when bands use their names to name their albums like The Who (Who’s Next, etc.), Cream (Fresh Cream) and Deep Purple (Shades of Deep Purple, etc.). I also love it when bands attempt to shock and awe people with their names, resulting in being put on lists such as this (Dying Fetus, Slipknot, Decrepit Birth, etc.).
A bad band name does not a bad band make. I have to say that I love when bands use their names to name their albums like The Who (Who’s Next, etc.), Cream (Fresh Cream) and Deep Purple (Shades of Deep Purple, etc.). I also love it when bands attempt to shock and awe people with their names, resulting in being put on lists such as this (Dying Fetus, Slipknot, Decrepit Birth, etc.).