Evolution of Band Names?

Nowadays its usually long pieces of lyrics or statements or poetic lines etc..

Panic at the disco

My chemical romance

bullet for my valentine

funeral for a friennd

Job for a cowboy

as i lay dying

three doors down

I quite like these names(thats one thing i like about those bands :P)

I think earlier bands had it easier because they took all the original names.. and trust me - choosing a band name meaningful is oine of the hardest things of being in a band..

Band names depends a lot on the scene they come from.. nowadays american punk bands use a lot of ANTI or AGAINST in their names:

Anti Flag

NoFX

RiSE Against etc

You mentioned names like the leaders name and then the bands name (iggy pop and the stooges)

In the first punk invasions.. most bands tried to break of the barrier between lead man and rest of band and the audience. It was about unity. Names like

Sex Pistols

Ramones

FAns would be called (for eg - Sheena Ramone,Sheena Pistol) and band members the same (they were all pistols,ramones)

Then there british INDIE bands who use a lot of people's names in their names and THE is still popular

THe Klaxons

THe Hoosiers

Who's Adam

Neil's children

Then there are cheesy acts :

!!!

Yeah yeah yeahs

?

We offend you yeah ?

Yeah those are band names : / ...

OMG, for the 80's you totally forgot The Human League. I'm starting a one-man campaign to get them into the RARHOF.

My take on it is a rather simple one. All the good or most of the cool names are either taken or sound too similar to something that has already been used prior. Therefore, these bands are forced to come up with complete madness like Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. But you brought up an excellent point. We were much classier back in the 50's albeit a tad on the boring side.

My favorite names are the ones that happen almost accidentally and are therefore very unique.

For instance, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant discussing their band's future and somebody says something similar to: "If we don't do this right it'll go over like a lead zeppelin." All they did was change the spelling and voila! a cool band name.

Also, Lynyrd Skynyrd. Named for a coach, Leonard Skinner, who hassled Gary Rossington about his long hair. It was so bad that the whole school joked that the coach was out for Gary.

One night the young band joked with the audience that they should change their name to Leonard Skinner. The crowd went wild, another change of spelling to protect the innocent, and another great name.

The names after the mid to late 60s are the best.

I really dislike the bands that have the three-words for their name with the exception of my fav band Less Than Jake. The difference between them and bands like Escape the Fate, is that LTJ are fun and have been around forever spreading punk and ska music. The majority of the bands with the long-sentence for their name usually represent awful scream-o/emo/godawful metal music. Some of the bands are indie though like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I don't think we'll be seeing a change in the evolution of band names for quite some time.

Bands now use words from other bands like:

Protest the Hero

Almost Heros

and then there's:

My Chemical Romance

Matchbook Romance

But then again, I guess its hard to be original these days because every other teenager in the US thinks its cool to be in a band.

Maybe she isn't right for the band then. Also, many singers suck anyway. Look at live clips. To find a real good singer in current days is really hard to do. WHOEVER THE HELL SAID TO ASK AN EMO PERSON IS INSULTING TO ALL PEOPLE WHO LIKE ROCK! WE AREN'T EMO!

Fonzie, That's a pretty astute observation that I never noticed before!

Cheers to you for pointing that out.

These longer band and song names just makes it harder for me to remember them and another thing I've noticed is that when you push the radio INFO button, while a song is playing (to see the band and songs name), the band with a long name or long song title gets truncated which isn't a good thing if you want to know who it is so you can buy their music.

back then, rock bands weren't the big thing. So they could pick names that used common words, and still stick out.

But now, there are sooooooooo many bands, so bands are trying to pick names that are original, and stick out, so that people remember. Or they have significance to the band, for example Greeley Estates.

I'm blown away, Fonzie! I love history and you've done a great job of analyzing band names within their eras.

What's my take on it? You're absolutely right, esp. as pertains to the band names of today... Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and The Devil Wears Prada ~ perfect examples.

it was about the music, not the band in my opinion in tn the past...nowadays it seems like its not about talent anymore its about the look. so the more weird sounding or obscure the name the more attention it brings to the band. and we all know thats what little kids like these days. who cares if they cant play, they have a cool sounding name and look good....man i miss the older days..the 50/60's were some good ol' rock and roll..and it was about talent...

good post.