Pop Culture Interlude: A Good Name for a Band

A little while ago, I was pointed to Jim Munger’s blog, which is full of ranting about various topics. Not quite to the standards of alt.peeves, back in the day, but some of it is entertaining.

It also includes several mentions of his band, Better Than Abstinence. There seemed to be something wrong with the audio on the inevitable MySpace page, so I can’t say whether they’re any good, but if nothing else, it’s a good name for a band.

Which, of course, is a nice, low-impact follow-up to yesterday’s post about naming in science and art. Coming up with names for nonexistent bands is a common pastime among fans of pop music, and there’s at least one blog devoted to the topic.

So, what makes a good band name?

Ideally, it should be fairly short, and memorable. Unlikely-sounding combinations of words are usually good. Kate and I once saw a carving at the Met that was labelled “antithetical squid,” and I’ve always thought that Antithetical Squid would be a great name for a prog-rock band. I’m not alone in this reaction.

Good physics-based band names might be things like The Ultraviolet Catastrophe, or Luminiferous Aether (those would work for album titles, too, possibly for records by Antithetical Squid). Looking at my office bookshelf, “The Quantum Challenge” could almost work, too.

As a general rule, phrases of the form “The {Adjective} {Plural Noun}” tend to sound like band names. Actually, you could do worse than “The Adjective Nouns” (a smartass alternative band, along the lines of Ben Folds Five).

Of course, you can get too clever for your own good. As a general rule, punctuation is bad, particularly when it makes no sense. It’s hard to find a review of Panic! at the Disco’s first album that doesn’t contain a snarky comment about the exclamation mark. And I refuse to have anything to do with the band !!! (pronounced “chick chick chick,” apparently), because giving your band a name that can’t be pronounced easily is too clever by half.

The quality of the band name has little to do with the ultimate success of a band, though. The Rolling Stones and U2 are both great bands with really good band names, but “The Hold Steady” and “The Beatles” are both really weak names for terrific bands. “The Beatles” in particular, is walking a dangerous line by using a cute misspelling of an ordinary word. Fortunately for them, they were unbelievably brilliant as a band, which makes up for a lot.

So, what’s your favorite name for a band that doesn’t exist?