The worst band names in the world . . . ever!
Elbow
What a few months it's been for the British rock group Elbow. In September they won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize for The Seldom Seen Kid, boosting album sales by a massive 500pc in the process. And the band recently announced that they'll be playing Wembley next year.
All well and good, you might say; deserved success for a well-regarded, talented, hardworking bunch of musicians. But what we want to know is this: how on earth did a band with such an uninspiring name become any way famous?
Elbow! It's a creased, knobbly bit of your arm; neither beautiful nor intriguing nor anything else, only of interest to rough footballers and limb fetishists. What genius within the ranks even considered picking one of the least attractive parts of the body as inspiration for the band's name -- and what were the rest of them drinking when they agreed to it?
It's not even awful, which at least can be some way interesting or funny. For instance, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong is an undeniably awful name for a band, but at least it's memorable. Just about.
As is Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Mister Mister and Enuff Z'nuff -- they're all terrible band names, but not wholly 100pc dull, limp and uninspiring. Whereas Elbow is just ... bleeurgh. That's about the best word for it, really: bleeurgh. The name makes you feel simultaneously bored, a bit perplexed and mildly nauseous. Really there's no excuse for this, because you can choose literally anything when setting up your group, so why not go nuts? And there are others whose handle would almost put you into a coma just by speaking it aloud:
Wilt
It's what a flower does when it's starting to die. It's what hair does in humid conditions. It's what your spirit does when you come across a group with a name this dreary. Little surprise that these Irish rockers didn't last too long.
Fred
Another Irish band on our roll of dishonour. The name probably sounded cool in an ironically uncool kind of way when they first thought of it. "Fred - ha ha! We'll have the same name as a London bin collector!" Presumably they have now realised that it's actually just plain old uncool, after all.
Ham Sandwich
Yet another local group with a lacklustre moniker, and another that smacks of a lame joke gone seriously awry. You can imagine them thinking to themselves, "How funny it'll be to call ourselves something banal like Ham Sandwich!" Yes, truly hilarious.
Cast
These Britpop also-rans looked like a bunch of plumbers, so a tepid, dull-as-dishwater name almost suited them. Actually, maybe they should have called themselves Dishwater, or Wrench, or Clotted Hair in the U-Bend. Anything would have been better than Cast.
The Shins
Hmm. A bit of the old Elbow syndrome here. Shins? Why name yourself after shins? They're not very attractive, are they? Why not The Eyes or The Hands or The Long Flowing Hair?
Keane
Are they named after foaming-at-the-mouth Irish soccer legend Roy, or Irish Independent sports columnist Billy, or who? Enquiring minds want to know.
Bush
These grunge rip-offs said they took their name from the Shepherd's Bush area of London. They may as well have been called after George Dubya for all the excitement this tedious name created.
Shed Seven
Not Shed Six? Or Shed Nine? Or even Empty Lot Fifteen? You probably don't remember these 1990s no-marks -- and with a moniker like that, it's not surprising.
Tool
Not quite going to get you in a rockin' mood, this name, is it? Makes you think of days in the garage, fixing this or hammering that or tightening the other. And speaking of which ...
Mike and the Mechanics
Admittedly their music was the aural equivalent of a monkey wrench being bashed off the engine of a clapped-out Ford Fiesta (this was the early 1990s), but really: Mike and the Mechanics? And they got to number one despite it all.
Tad
It's a tad dull, isn't it? A tad uninspiring. A tad forgettable. Maybe they should have introduced a pole to their act and become Tad-pole ...
Korn
They're named after one of the blandest of all foods, and they didn't even get the spelling right. What a krock of krap.
Denim
Well, they probably looked at the likes of Suede and Psychedelic Furs and thought, "They look and sound and seem pretty cool -- maybe the whole name-based-on-fabrics thing can work for us, too." Denim, sadly, isn't quite as arresting as suede or fur, be it psychedelic or not.
The Alan Parsons Project
He was called Alan Parsons. What he was doing in music could be described as a project. Bingo bango, this creative genius came up with the most literal name in the history of the world. Later parodied in an Austin Powers movie, and rightly so.
Puddle of Mudd
Another crowd of unimaginative illiterates. Calling yourself after a puddle of mud is unforgivable for any rock group, but then to try and jazz it up with that ridiculous second "d" is even worse.
Limp Bizkit
Fred Durst's posse of lumpen ignorami is probably the only band for whom a name as crappy as Limp Bizkit is actually too good. It is still crappy, though.
The Used
This is just woeful. It doesn't make grammatical sense, it's difficult to pronounce; and it brings to mind something tired, second-hand, worn-out, and all used up.
