Nobody brings anything new to the hate mail table anymore. It's always the same old "your an idiot," and "your a fucking idiot," and "an idiot belongs to you," with the occasional threat of harm, & the even rarer case in which someone will spend several paragraphs laced with middle school vocabulary words about how terrible you are by wasting their time, so they had to waste another half hour telling you about it.

That's part of the reason why I don't write too often about music-related trends, or even care enough about keeping up-to-date with them anymore. That, plus the fact that all someone really has to do is type back, "You listen to Rancid," & the argument's pretty much over. Listen: I understand. Music is not my life. Hi, I'm the only person on MySpace who can say that with a straight face.

Right after the list of like 30 of my favorite bands. Ok, so maybe an idiot does belong to me.

Another reason why I don't make fun of someone's favorite band as much as you'd expect from someone who writes online as much as I do is because there are only so many ways one can retype "This unfathomably popular band makes my ears detach from the side of my face, sprout little legs & kick me in the teeth," & safely maintain a sense of originality. Sure, maybe if I did start talking like the love child of Seanbaby & Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character in Almost Famous, maybe I'd get to be on "Attack of the Show," & not be funny on purpose because irony is the new fake artistic merit, too.

But that's not my goal as a writer. My goal as a writer is simple...

To get a job with Blender Magazine~! !!

So this is a special Progressive Boink update for an audience of one. If Mr. Frank Blender of Blender Magazine is tuning in & likes what he sees, please send any & all contract offers to the e-mail address at the bottom of this list of my choices for the 50 most inexcusable band names in pop music.

Tuesday mornings were interesting events when I worked in music retail. That's the day of the week when new music is usually released, so rummaging through the new stuff always brought about mixed feelings, from the general intrigue brought about by the requisite host of new names, faces & packaging art, to the mild surprise upon seeing who's still chugging along. Then, there was always the bemusement of seeing an array of the stupid names people continued to come up with for their bands. They ranged from the boringly uninventive to the intentionally nonsensical. It was like a game of What Name Can Make My Co-workers & I Shake Our Heads The Most.

Recently, between the popularity surge of MySpace & my increased posting in the forum of a colleague of mine that's largely centered around punk culture, I've discovered that the surge of terrible band names has not only not let up, but the suggestions in threads called "HELP NAME MY NEW BAND PLZ" that are getting the most consideration are equally groan-inducing. So I've felt compelled to throw this out there: Your band name sucks. You put too much thought into what name goes on the flier, when that amount to thought could be better expended in making your music not horrible. As a personal favor in helping you rock a little more, I've listed below 50 examples of what not to do. Of course, no list of this sort is perfect. Local bands all over the globe are giving themselves intentionally stupid names on a weekly, perhaps even daily basis. As it would be impossible to keep up with all of them, I've made it a prerequisite that the bands on this list have to have their music available on Amazon.com. Sorry, MC Vagina. I know you tried your best.

50. Anaal Nathrakh

Black metal—and all extreme metal, really—is a special case in that having a ridiculous name has become part of the culture, so filling up this list with a bunch of names pulled from fantasy lore would be unfair to the global pop music scene. So I've chosen Anaal Nathrakh as a representative for the wonderfully hilarious world of black metal. "Anaal Nathrakh" is a spell uttered by the wizard Merlin in the 1981 movie Excalibur that apparently means "serpent's breath." While the supposedly medieval root of the name fits the music genre's stereotype, Excalibur was kind of a stupid movie, & not geeky enough compared to the usual source of black metal inspiration: books & actual folklore. That's like naming your band Klaatu Barada Nikto after Army Of Darkness instead of after The Day The Earth Stood Still. Which I'm sure some loser in a trench coat is about five minutes away from doing right now. But mostly I gave Anaal Nathrakh this honor, because I think it's funny that the one guy looks like Chase from The Party.

49. Ride

This falls into the dreaded one-word name category, where it looks like they just flipped through the dictionary & found a cute, random word. Ride beats out other contenders, such as Train or Bread, by having both a boring back story (the band was named after a typographical picture the singer made one time in school) & having replaced an even worse one-word name: Donkey.

48. New Found Glory

Relatively harmless as is, albeit a little too chipper for a band whose songs are mostly about breaking up with girls. Though it beats all those unsigned punk bands whose name is a variation of WE ACTUALLY ARE NOT VERY GOOD. Mostly, New Found Glory gets on here on a technicality. They were originally called "A New Found Glory," & officially dropped the "A," because their dumber fans were apparently having a hard time finding their CDs in stores. Or maybe it's the store clerks' fault. So the technicality that makes New Found Glory bad is that some fans & anti-fans still insist on throwing in that indefinite article in attempt to boost their punk rock credibility. I don't think you have to worry too much about having punk rock credibility if you're talking about New Found Glory.

47. The Juliana Theory

Like a lot of bands on this list, the Juliana Theory may not have invented the trend of which I find them guilty, but I'm holding them personally responsible for popularizing it. In this case: the formula of definite article + word + unrelated word that countless bands with similar indie/emo/whatever leanings have adopted. People give garage rock bands with names like The Vines & the Hives a hard time for their formula, but those are a lot more forgivable, if only because of their tried & true state in the 1960s, than this faux-artsy crap.

46. Les Savy Fav

Pronounced, "Lay Sah-vee Fahv," which I'm pretty sure doesn't mean anything, but that's besides the point. These former art school students deserve congratulations for creating a name that I can't say or even type without feeling like an asshole.

45. Arctic Monkeys

I regret to admit that the word "monkey," & the concept of monkeys in general, have been so milked of their fun & awesomeness, that by the time this band came around, it had already run dry. So how do they remedy the situation? By putting the monkeys in a hilariously different climate! Also, it's generally a good idea to not call your band something that sounds like it should be getting shot at by Mega Man X.

44. Green Day

Despite popular rumors, the name is not a Soylent Green reference, & it's not something the band overheard on "Sesame Street," but the real story, albeit less stupid, doesn't really make up for it, either. The idea behind the name of the band, which was originally the name of a song, is simple: a "green day" was how they described a day made up entirely of pot=lol. Which I guess is fine when you're 18 years old, & it's years before stoner humor got popular & annoying, largely thanks to Half Baked, but if you're going to make your band name something that you think is funny, step back for a minute & consider whether you'll still think so in ten or fifteen years, when you grow up a bit. Otherwise you'll end up like these guys, spending the first two minutes or so of your "Behind The Music" special talking about how you have one of the worst names in rock. Look: I love Green Day, but I can't omit a band who agrees with me.

43. Phish

There is no chin behind Trey Anastasio's beard. There is only another fist.

The Beatles often get an unnecessarily bad rap for their cute little play on words, to the point where they revolved an entire (awesome) movie around making fun of it (That Thing You Do!). At least both they & the movie's "One-ders" (pronounced, and later changed to, "Wonders") followed an acceptable & popular "plural noun" band name formula of the time. Phish isn't even a clever play on words; they just misspelled drummer Jon Fishman's last name & laughed about it for ten minutes, because they were probably having a green day.

42. Atreyu

You know what? I remember the 1980s, too. I like remembering the 1980s. Nintendo games & the Goonies were great. Now stop screwing up my memories by naming your subpar band after minor references that just enough people will see what you did there. Atreyu, a reference to one of the main characters in The Neverending Story, is the example I'm including as a representative for all other similar examples (e.g. Fall Out Boy, Mogwai, the Ataris), because I also happen to like their music the least out of that group. Well, I don't like Belle & Sebastian, either, but they don't really suck as much as they're just boring.

41. Mr. Mister

What at first looks very mildly clever in the same vain as The The is ruined by the fact that the band actually got its name from a Dairy Queen drink called Mr. Misty. Which, in turn, makes me think of Dustin Hoffman dressing up like the girl from Pokémon, & that's just wrong.

40. Def Leppard

Misspellings are as much a part of heavy metal as guys with perms are, but at least the mental images that names like Led Zeppelin & Mötley Crüe conjure up are rock 'n' roll enough to work. Thinking about how a leopard that can't hear (or, perhaps, is a fan of hip hop) can be considered "rockin'" distracts me from all the sugar being poured & the photographs being wanted.

39. Anal Cunt

Before you flood my inbox about how the whole point is to be as bad & contraversial as possible, I get it. I really do get it, but I'm keeping them on here out of principle, for two reasons. Firstly, the less wannabe followers who try to add the same inflection to their image, the better. Secondly, I think it'd have to be above a band who's all right with calling themselves Anal Cunt to wuss out for censors & go by "A.C." on their album covers for the sake of sales or air play. Sure, they draw the initials to look like their corresponding private parts, but I'm of the mindset that they should be okay with going the full mile with your intentionally crass name & image.

38. Keane

I just think it's funny that a band whose singer sounds like Retarded Freddy Mercury calls itself something that corresponds to how Retarded Freddy Mercury would pronounce the name of his band.

37. MxPx

The now official name of the band is an abbreviation of "Magnified Plaid," which at least had some thought behind it. Plaid through a magnifying glass looks like a series of cross shapes, alluding to the band's Christian outspokenness. Or at least they started out with Christian outspokenness. Whether the name shortening served the same purpose as their decision to stop name dropping Jesus so much to sell records is unknown, but this, for me at least, is a classic example of an abbreviation gone wrong.

36. WHAM!

Sounds like it was made up by some kid with a degree in marketing. Or women's jaws everywhere hitting the floor when they found out the truth about George.

35. Los Lonely Boys

"English or Spanish."

You know what? That was the worst reference ever. I apologize.

34. I'm From Barcelona

This is becoming the new "name your album a predicate," which reminds me: Cut that crap out, too. They Might Be Giants get an exception to the full sentence rule, because I'm a son of a bitch who plays favorites. And also because that was the name of a movie first, anyway, so I guess I'm just prejudiced against bands from Sweden with like thirty members who lie about their number & origins.

33. Of Montreal

What's worse than naming your band a full sentence? Naming your band a prepositional phrase.

32. Mest

Short for "Milwaukee's Best," a brand of awful beer that the band actually seemed to enjoy. However, I'll continue to refer to them as NOT GOLDFINGER PART FIVE.

31. HIM
HIM is another band name that gets on here on an observational technicality. It's the shortened abbreviation of the band's formerly full name, "His Infernal Majesty." Which, for the record, is one of Satan's many names. The band dropped the full name, because they didn't want people to think they were actually satanists. But, you know, having their logo be a half-heart/half-pentagram wouldn't make parents think that at all. Nevermind the unintentional connection with a certain devilish Powerpuff Girls villain.

30. Seven Mary Three

Bands with numbers in their names are usually frowned upon. Not only does Seven Mary Three have two in a name that seemingly doesn't make sense, but when I did bother to look it up, it turned out to be the little-used CB radio handle of the blond guy from CHiPs. This is worse than the aforementioned well-known pop culture reference, especially if you don't want to have to field the question, "Where did the name come from?" in every interview you ever get. NOFX are still kicking themselves after getting asked that by everyone ever.

29. Live

It's not "evil" backwards, & it has nothing to do with playing shows in front of an audience. The story behind Live is that it was a literally last-minute replacement for the name "Public Affection," which they decided they didn't like. So Live is the term paper that you awkwardly staple & hand in at Whatever:59. So now searching for their songs on Limewire I MEAN BUYING THEIR ALBUMS LEGALLY is a real pain.

28. matchbox twenty

Like Green Day, "Matchbox 20," was originally the title of a song from the band's infancy, when they were known by another name. What makes "matchbox twenty" bad is not only their decision to start spelling out the word "twenty," something even the Associated Press doesn't bother to do, but their insistence that their name and the title of every album they've put out thus far be officially spelled in all lowercase letters. Hey, Rob Thomas. Just because it's easier for you to type like that in your blog doesn't give it artistic merit.

27. blink-182

blink (who also annoyingly maintains a lowercase initial) added the supposedly meaningless number on the end of their name to avoid confusion with some Irish pop group called Blink, with whom they later ended up sharing a bill. But the name reached the peak of annoyance when the band decided to create several rumors concerning the number, including but not limited to the amount of times Al Pacino says "fuck" in Scarface, to a loan from the movie Turk 182 that nobody saw. But blink's highest offense is for involuntarily taking the surge of pop-punk bands brought on by Green Day to a new(merical!) level, causing an ironically countless amount of bands that followed to tack on random numbers to the end of their names as well.

26. Fenix*TX

The end result isn't entirely their fault, but Fenix*TX wins the award for most bad naming stereotypes. Their original name was Riverfenix, which was an '80s reference, misspelling, & makeshift compound word all in one terrible package. Then the estate of late actor River Phoenix actually sent the band a cease & desist order, which many were hoping was for the music moreso than the name. So they dropped River's first name, & added the postal code of their home state, creating a name that followed two whole new band stereotype: rhyming, & unnecessary punctuation.

25. The For Carnation

Technically, I already selected The Juliana Theory to represent all band names of this type, but I had to make an exception for the For Carnation & bump it up 22 places, because come on look at that shit.

24. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Everybody's been talking about these guys & how awesome they are. I don't even know what they sound like, because their name lies on the other end of the Les Savy Fav asshole spectrum, & is tricking me into not listening to their music.

23. 24-7 Spyz

Speaking of being tricked into not listening to a band's music, these guys apparently sound like Living Colour & Fishbone, but I wouldn't know it, because they sound more like either the name of a cartoon on the Fox Box, or those streetwise Barbie dolls with the giant heads & lips if they came with a bunch of play James Bond gear.

22. From Autumn To Ashes

If your band's name sounds like you had a band-naming contest, & Emily Dickinson won, you might be post-hardcore.

21. !!!

Gotta admire a band who hates its fans enough to force them to refer to the band by making the African Bushmen "click" sound three times. That isn't even a joke. That's how you pronounce the name, although lots of folks cheat by substituting "chk" sound, or even just saying "bang." I don't want relationship; I just want CHANGE YOUR NAME.

20. Kajagoogoo

With '80s pop & new wave came a surge of stupid names, including Wang Chung, a Flock of Seagulls, & the aforementioned WHAM, but nothing's quite as mind-numbing as taking the sound a baby makes & changing up some consonants. Which either Wikipedia swears is a true story, or that wacky Stephen Colbert is at it again.

19. Chumbawamba

As a joke to throw off everyone who asked them, which is funny because the band is anarchist, Chumbawamba offered several different false explanations of the in-reality meaningless name. These included typical, boring stuff like naming themselves after a soccer mascot, or overhearing the chanting of African street musicians. But the most ridiculous rumor of all was one where, in one of the band members' dreams, he encountered public restrooms labeled "Chumba" & "Wamba" instead of "Men" & "Women." Which makes me feel a lot better about that one time I dreamt that a friend of mine took me off her Top 8. The band I started when I woke up, The I Can't Believe You Took Me Off Your Top 8s, is way better than stupid Chumbawamba.

18. Enuff Z'nuff

It sure is!

17. Staind

Staind probably isn't quite as bad as Enuff Z'nuff, or even 24-7 Spyz, but I put it down here to group it with the man responsible for discovering them in the first place, Fred Durst of...

16. Limp Bizkit

Nothing invokes a hard-edge, nu-metal image like misspelling the word "biscuit" & describing it as limp. Popular rumors include Biscuit being the name of Durst's dog who once had a bad leg, & "limp biscuit" being the description of a friend's brain while he was high. The band, themselves, insist that they just chose something that sounded as stupid as possible at the time. I guess some things really are timeless. Still, while Limp Bizkit may be responsible for many nu-metal bands out there with badly spelled names, even that's not as bad as the band who pretty much started nu-metal to begin with...

15. Korn
Completing the nu-metal trifecta of bands who discovered each other, Korn was a name chosen under the impression that it would be hard to forget. After the band's manager said they'd never get a record deal with a name like that, frontman Jonathan offered to name the band after the manager, himself. He then got the band signed as Korn in a matter of months. Yeah, it is hard to forget, & that's part of the problem.

14. Sunn 0)))
As of naming a band after the brand of amps they use wasn't lame enough, they had to go & write out the visual representation of sound waves included in the brand's logo:

The band's name is still simply pronounced "Sunn." Sun with a silent zero. At this rate, we're only a few years away from a band calling themselves the characters used to make up an ASCII gif of a stick figure kicking another stick figure in the stick nuts.

13. *NSYNC

*NSYNC passes the similarly multiple-offense perpetrator Fenix*TX by making Lance Bass conform. The name was originally a play on the last letters of the boy band's members: Justin, Chris, Joey, Jason, & J.C. When Jason was replaced with Lance, they DECIDED TO KEEP THE NAME SCHEME anyway by giving Lance the fake full name of "Lanston." Then they made him pretend to like girls. Man, this guy's going to need a lot of therapy once he hits 40.

12. This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb

That's it. I'm going to start a band called Mike Fireball & The Hey Let's Go Bomb An Abortion Clinic In The Name Of Jesus Christs.

I'm not sure if the band's fans think it's funny or annoying when they put the band's sticker on their actual bikes & then get asked about it by every authority figure ever, but if it's the latter, you should know better, you poseur.

11. Bullet For My Valentine

This should win an award. They should call it the Why Don't You Cry About It, Crybaby? award & have it shaped like a girl laughing at you.

10. Oh No! Oh My!

Oh please. Is that going to mess up my vocal inflection sentence structure when I ask if someone listens to them? Is saying it aloud like "Do you listen to Oh No Oh My?" going to be incorrect? Because I really don't want a whole bunch of hipsters shouting for no reason.

9. Hootie & The Blowfish

Didn't Darius Rucker start getting frustrated when people started calling him "Hootie"? It's your own fault, friend. The name was apparently a tribute of sorts to two friends of the band's, one with large, owl-like glasses, & the with Dizzy Gillespie-like cheeks. The name went on to be parodied in every oral sex joke made by every high school student in the '90s ever.

8. Linkin Park

This otherwise non-severe misspelling reached new levels of pathetic when I discovered that the spelling change was made because, I swear to Jesus, the domain name lincolnpark.com was taken.

7. Archers Of Loaf

And now, a lesson on how not to use reverse psychology: The band didn't want to have a name they'd have to discuss in every interview they gave, so they came up with the most nonsensical name that came to them. I'm sure that worked out just fine for them.

6. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead

Listening to radio jocks announce this band is funny, because it sounds like they start to lose interest halfway through. Then I try to say it, myself, & understand why most folks just cheat & shorten it to "Trail Of The Dead." It isn't so much because their name is long. For example, I think the name "The Presidents Of The United States Of America" is fine, but this one is long AND boring. It sounds like the title of a poem written by the smart girl at the back of your high school English class. You know the one. Slowly but surely, they're starting a trend, & to you fledgeling bands I say save it for your album title, where it belongs.

5. Wow, Owls!

4. Hoobastank

Leave it to a band as generic sounding as this one to come up with a name that sounds like a dirty word, & not in the haha he cursed sort of way. In the way that can only be said with either an inflection of excitement from a bouncy ditz, or with several shades of disgust by anyone with taste.

3. (hed) pe

The "e" in "hed" is actually upside down, resembling (but not sounding like) a schwa, but that character apparently doesn't in exist in Verdana anyway, & damned if I'm going to change my font to make him feel better. The "pe" was added later to save confusion from another band, called Head, & stood for PLANETARY EVOLUTION. Which I guess made sense, because they spelled like monkeys. Then, just to mess with people, they changed the abbreviation to stand for PLANET EARTH for two albums. Then they capitalized "HED," took it out of the parentheses, & added periods to "p.e." Then they changed it back. The running theory right now is that when the lead singer was very young, a typographer killed his parents in front of his own eyes, & he's still not fully recovered from the incident.

2. :wumpscut:

This is the name of German DJ Rudy Ratzinger, & it's still a made-up nonsense word in his language. Then again, actually checking out this guy's catalog makes me think that he's not the type of guy who'd want it to get out that he might be related to the pope. So he invented a word that he thought sounded industrial, & I think sounds like the name of a My Little Pony villain.

1. Test Icicles

MySpace really wanted me to listen to these guys, because they kept showing up when I'd go to log in. Too bad I never read the description of the band, because whatever was written after the band's name read to me like, "Please do not listen to our music; we named ourselves after your balls."

What's even better, besides the fact that dear God look at these guys, is the story they had to feed to their label, telling them that they derived the name from "an alleged practice of early man of 'testing' icicles for strength and fitness for use as weapons." That's going to be my new "The dog ate my homework," or "My computer is down." Too bad their story doesn't explain that band members used to have a side project called "Balls."

I've just ended the last two paragraphs with the word "balls," & now I was about to write how I've grown past potty humor equalling lol, but it's true. Luckily, the band have recently managed to break up, because they "were never, ever that keen on the music." They were never keen on the music THEY WERE CREATING. I've heard of friends of mine not like the things they write, but they're at least passionate about it, & they don't regret anything they put out there. But the band formerly known as Test Icicles apparently couldn't get into anything beyond naming themselves after your balls, & that's why it's a worse name than all the nonsense words, pop culture references, misspellings & prepositional phrases you can throw at the world. When people are only paying attention to a band's stupid moniker as opposed to caring about their music, including the BAND ITSELF, that's a guaranteed recipe for worst name of all time.