Track 1: Glue Girls

Artist: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

Song: "Glue Girls"
Album: Pershing

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin ("SSLYBY") sets a new standard in the long and convoluted history of terrible band names. You know your band name is bad when even the acronym for it is unwieldy.

So, what are the worst band names in history? Here are ten awful band names (not necessarily in order) that I've come into contact with:

10. Death Cab for Cutie

More on these guys later.

9. Neutral Milk Hotel

For those who aren't familiar with these guys, they are legendary in Indie circles as sort of the founding fathers of Indie Rock, but that doesn't excuse this horrible name.

8. Joan As Police Woman

Though I very much enjoy her music, I don't very much enjoy her stage name.

7. Dexy's Midnight Runners

Pretty much anything I can envision that combines midnight and running is not good, and most things I can envision end up with someone entering a plea deal. When the most pleasant image your band name evokes is taking a leak, you're not doing to well.

6. Leftover Salmon

Name sounds even worse than the taste of day-old fish.

5. Yams from Outer Space

Jam-bands seem particularly prone to terrible names.

4. Stone Temple Pilots

It hurts me to say it, but, really, when the inspiration for your band name is a motor oil can, your band name pretty much stinks by definition.

3. Incubus

I kind of hope these people didn't realize that they were naming themselves after a male demon that has sex with sleeping women, but I'm more frightened that they did know what they were doing and thought it was cool.

2. Blink 182

They were just the most glaring example of a whole subset of bands who named themselves after choosing a random word and number to smash together.

1. Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So's

Umm. . . yeah.

As there are a nearly infinite number of bands out there, I'm sure most of these guys wouldn't even come close to a true top ten worst band names list. What's interesting about this list to me is that most of the names are just nonsensical. Most good band names are evocative; you can hear them and get a sense of what sort of music they make. If an alien lands on the earth tomorrow, having never rocked out (but of course, being able to speak English like all good movie aliens do), and you ask him what sort of music Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath or The Clash make, he'd get pretty darned close (and, dadgummit, the alien better NOT look like Keanu Reeves; really, how is that guy still making movies?). Bad band names evoke nothing but bewilderment. What sort of sound does a Death Cab for Cutie or Leftover Salmon make? Leaves you cold doesn't it?

Speaking of Death Cab, they raise a different question to me: is Death Cab for Cutie the worst ever band name for a Hall of Fame caliber band? Put a different way, if you assign each band in history a score for musical excellence and a second score for band name atrociousness, would any band in history score higher than Death Cab? My evaluation of this, subjective as it necessarily is, is based on the assumption that Death Cab for Cutie is a historically good band, one of the greatest of its generation, and will, if there is any justice, gain entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one day. Your mileage may vary.

So, what are the worst names of bands currently in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Here are some less than stellar ones I found:

The Ink Spots

The Soul Stirrers

The Impressions

Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers

The Orioles

Gladys Knight and the Pips (I always thought the "Pips" was a dumb name)

The Staple Singers

Lovin' Spoonful

The Moonglows

The Flamingos

Elvis Costello and the Attractions

The Dells

Lynrd Skynrd

Nothing on this list is even close to as terrible as Death Cab for Cutie. I guess The Moonglows would be the worst, but it's really not all that bad. In fact, most of the names from old bands were pretty great. They tend to be simple and straightforward, such as The Who, The Rolling Stones, Cream, or . . . The Band. More recent inductees tend to be a little more fanciful, such as AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac, or ZZ Top, but by and large Hall of Fame bands tend to have Hall of Fame-quality band names.



What about more recent bands that will or could get in the Hall of Fame? Though this requires rank speculation on our part, rank speculation is all kinds of fun, so let's take a crack at it. The Hall of Fame inducts five bands a year, and bands aren't eligible until 25 years after their first album, so we're looking at people who debuted in the mid-80's or later, and a total of about 100 bands or so. Bands debuting in the 2000's (the zeros? the naughts? what are we calling this decade anyway?) are a little too speculative, even for me, so we've probably got a pool of about 80 bands that debuted in the late '80s or '90s. I'm not going to try to identify all of them, but that at least gives us an idea of what size pool we have. Of course it may be less or more as any given year the Hall may induct some holdover candidates from previous years, but let's say about 80 bands from that era.


I'm not going to list all 80 bands I think might get in. . . . Okay, look here if you want to see a list of about 70 or so possibilities. While the names get a little crazier, we're still talking about solid-to-great band names for the most part. Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Oasis, etc. are all pretty good. There are a few bad ones we should take a look at, and some may look familiar. Like J. Evans Pritchett, PhD, we'll give each band a score for both historical significance and name goofiness, each from 1 (not goofy or significant) to 50 (goofiest or most significant imaginable). Then, we'll add for a final historical goofiness score out of 100.

Matchbox 20

Pretty marginal hall of fame candidacy; I hesitated to even include them. Conceivably they've had enough big songs to get a look, but I think they're closer to Journey than Fleetwood Mac. Also, while the name is goofy, it's not historically awful. Name goofiness: 28; Historical significance: 18; Historical goofiness: 46.

Stone Temple Pilots

Very strong hall of fame candidates; one of the iconic figures of the grunge era. Their historical significance takes a slight hit for their early reputation as a Pearl Jam knock-off. So, I had always heard they got their name from looking at an STP oil can, but apparently that's not right. However, as this is a family blog, I'll let you do your own wikipedia research if you want to know the true origins. The name is pretty goofy and arbitrary; I mean what is a stone temple pilot anyway? Name goofiness: 38; Historical significance: 40; Historical goofiness: 78.

Neutral Milk Hotel

It's hard to explain Neutral Milk Hotel to someone who hasn't heard of them. How exactly is an unknown band with a whiny-voiced lead singer and prominent use of the hurdy-gurdy one of the most important bands of the 90's? Well, do a brief search of people talking about them or their album "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea," and you'll get an idea of the reverence they are held in and their influence over contemporary indie rock bands. And the name. My word, the name! Apparently, no explanation has been given for the name, but it's truly awful. What, are there good and evil milk hotels as well? Are their neutral milk motels and rv parks? Neutral cheese motels? Chaotic evil sour cream bed and breakfasts? Name goofiness: 48; Historical significance: 45; Historical goofiness: 93.

Death Cab for Cutie

Death Cab for Cutie gets its name from a song by the legendary Bonzo Dog Dooda Band which appeared in the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour movie. Apparently Ben Gibbard chose it because no other band was likely to name themselves that. Well, he was right on that account. I'd say Death Cab is a marginally better name than Neutral Milk Hotel based on the alliteration and the added weight from the connotations of a "death cab." Historical significance is a push. Neutral Milk was more powerfully original band and more influential, while Death Cab is more prolific and popular. Name goofiness: 46; Historical significance: 45; Historical goofiness: 91.

So, what has this long and meaningless exercise taught us? Death Cab for Cutie is indeed as bad a name for a great band as you can find, surpassed only perhaps by Neutral Milk Hotel. Well . . . I'm glad that's settled. Thank you for humoring me, but these are the kinds of things that I think about.

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Of course, it's not only band names that have become increasingly bizarre in recent years. A google search of celebrity baby names will show you that. Is there something behind this phenomenon of strange christenings? Maybe it has something to do with the need to stand out or feel unique, which has become increasingly harder in a world with a population that is both inconceivably huge and amazingly interconnected. When you can instantly connect to anyone around the globe or go to any band's myspace page and check out their catalog; when everyone and their dog has a blog or a website, how do you make your mark or get attention or get enough fans to sign a record deal? Well, one easy way is to give yourself (or your baby) a name that sticks in the memory.

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Oh yeah, the song. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is an exciting young band that sounds the way Ben Kweller should. They have a very fresh and upbeat sound; the kind of music a fabric softener sheet would listen to. They have a great sense of melody and the harmonies on the chorus can't be beat. I'm a total sucker for good harmonies. This song is about a boy who can't win the girl of his fancy because she's too close to her sister. He describes the girl as the kind who can "make your tongue stick to the sun." I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. Maybe you should try that with your next date, tell her she makes your tongue stick to the sun. Sounds painful. Still, great tune.

By the way, apparently SSLYBY's terrible name apparently was made up on the spot by their singer trying to make someone laugh.