Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock

[via MBV] Are all the good band names taken? The Wall Street Journal, cornerstone to any good music journalism investigation, is on the scene. Their claim? That punchy, one- or two-word names are dwindling and that bands are now resorting to the “unwieldy or nonsensical.” Because band names like the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Chocolate Watchband, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Stone Temple Pilots, Three Dog Night, Pearls Before Swine, Hootie and the Goddamn Blowfish! The point is, people have been picking weird band names since the whole rock ‘n’ roll thing got started. Obviously, it’s probably harder today to think up a band name these days, but some of this comes down to taste and creativity. Example…

Between takes in a recording studio, Mr. Jones [John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin] brainstormed about names with his new band mates, including former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, then checked them online. Their first choice, Caligula, turned up at least seven acts named after the decadent Roman emperor, including a defunct techno outfit from Australia. Eventually the rockers decided on Them Crooked Vultures. The words held no special meaning.

Caligula? Oof. I’m not exactly sure that’s making any cold, hard, irrefutable argument. But seriously, why do they act like it is so impossible? However, this certainly does bring the situation into focus:

There are about 1.4 million artist names, including 29 individual musicians name John Williams in the database of Rovi Corp., which owns website including allmusic.com and licenses editorial content to Apple’s iTunes and other music services. Last year, Rovi added an average of 6,521 new names a month to its database.

Okay, that’s obviously something to contend with, but the idea that people are only now coming up with nonsensical names is crap. After the jump, I shall name bands that surfaced within the last five years or so that have an original name that’s not nonsensical and that’s at most two words (not counting the word “the”), and then I’ll also see if I can come up with a few originals myself. read more