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Quick Navigation: Click here to see the full alphabetical listing. Click any of the letters to jump to that page.
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Coming soon: Huey Lewis and the News, Jerry Lee Lewis, LL Cool J, Cyndi Lauper, Lil Kim, Little Feat, Kenny Loggins, Lords of Acid, Lynyrd Skynrd, Los Lobos. Send feedback here. Use this address to submit new bands for ranking; include any information you feel is relevant to their scoring and bonus points. You may also bitch/cheer about current rankings, this page in general, or just inquire as to where you to may obtain such impeccable taste in music. |
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LA Guns
The name is eponymous,
sort of. Tracii Guns, (yes "Tracii") the guy who started LA Guns, was
briefly in Guns and Roses as a guitarist. That's where GnR got
their name; Tracii Guns was the "Guns", and a guitarist (Slash
replaced him), Axl Rose was vocals, and Duff "Rose" McKagen
was the bassist. Hence they had a "Guns" and two guys
named "Rose". Tracii, in a career move substantially below Dave
Mustaine being kicked out of Metallica, left and formed his own band. Yes, that
costs him a point. GnR kept their
full name, despite having no "Guns", and with a more rocking
and bluesy sound they were the biggest band in the world for several years
(until Axl's egomania drove everyone else away.) Tracii had every right to put his name into his new band's
name, and he was in LA, but entitled or not, it just gave LA Guns a rip
off vibe. The bands were about equal for a while, until
GnR's explosive success left LA Guns in the dust, forever remembered as
merely the other Los Angeles "Guns" band. As for the name, putting your
name, or your location, into your band name is never a good idea. Here we
have both at once! This may be the only band on the page to manage such a
feat, and perhaps double negatives really do cancel out, since despite that
inauspicious distinction, they don't get such a bad score. Led
Zepplin
The name is clever, though I never thought of the meaning when they first
entered my consciousness. I was in high school at the time, and didn't so
much want to hear them as I found them impossible to avoid no matter how I
clicked back and forth between the two rock stations in San Diego at the time. It wasn't until years
later that I connected the old saying, "That went over like a lead
balloon." with their title. So they get a bonus point for
having a semi-self-deprecating pun in their name. They should lose
one for that Stairway to Heaven song that so many aging hippies can't seem to
get over, but it's not entirely their fault, and it's certainly better than
other songs that radios stations are known to play for 24 hours straight (The
Macarena). Lifehouse
As for their name, it's sort of jarring. You think the DJ is
saying, "Lighthouse" with poor enunciation the first time, but
eventually you hear it clearly. At which time you mutter to
yourself, "Life-house? What the hell does that mean?"
I'm still in this phase, personally. The name is more
or less appropriate for their blandly-appealing light rock, I
suppose. They lose a point for the initial name confusion. Life of
Agony
They get a bonus point for the very weird singing style of their front man;
he does every lyric about two octaves lower than his natural voice, giving it a
strained, gasping quality. Either that or he had laryngitis the week they
recorded the album. It's somewhat reminiscent of the cat in a
mangle/Frankenstein's
monster sound of the Type O Negative guy,
come to think of it. They lose a point for the red
hat, and another for working their band name into the lyrics of every single
song, in blatant emulation of every insecure rap act. That and using the
F-word as a lyrical crutch. As for the band name, you must
admit it's excellent. It's memorably-stupid and makes no sense. Yet
at the same time it's meaningless, youthful-sounding, and obnoxious, yet somehow energetic,
evocative, and appropriate. There's no official origin that I've
found. Fansite rumors are that they saw a picture of a floppy brain, or
that Fred Durst was tired and said that his brain felt like a limp
biscuit. Aside from the fact that makes no sense whatsoever, it's a
reasonable hypothesis. Interestingly, "limp biscuit" or
"soggy biscuit" is a term in Oz/NZ for a biscuit (cracker) that
everyone ejaculates on during a circle jerk, and then whoever comes last has to
eat it. Yes, it's pretty gross, and who knows if it ever actually happens,
but that's the slang. Limp Bizkit said they'd never heard that and that's
not what their name means, but given the stupid butt-sex synonym name they gave
their third album (Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water),
you have to wonder about the fellas.
You'll
note that it's not "Linkin' Park"; there's no
apostrophe. I held out hope that there might be an actual
"Linkin Park" somewhere, but from info I looked up on an
pathetically slobbering fansite,
the name is an intentional modification:
"They spelled in Linkin Park instead of Lincoln Park so they could
purchase the domain name." The grammar of that sentence pretty well
sums up the site's writing, by the way, and costs them a point. I had been thinking it was
"Linking Park", like a verb noun, with some meaning, but I guess it's
just Lincoln Park, with their k3wl spelling. The fan site info quoted
above appears to be confirmed by the official site being found at linkinpark.com.
When the most notable thing about a band is that Christians like them
since they don't say "shit"
or "fuck", it's never a good sign, and costs them another
point. At any rate, their
instantly-familiar rap/rock sound is the rapidly-melting flavor of the
month, so get in while you can. Their name is essentially meaningless, and somewhat misleading,
making you think every album is a concert recording. True, it does
sound like the name of a rock band, but it doesn't exactly shed light on
their sound, or give you any real plus/minus hard/soft vibe going in. Therein lies the essential problem with the band. Their lead
singer had too good a voice. Some of their songs, Open Letter
to a Landlord, for instance, have truly beautiful vocals. But
no one who wants beautiful vocals is going to buy a metal album (with
good reason). Snarling and growing half off key is actually a
better accompaniment for hard rocking music. They didn't have a bad
name, and as the first look most people had of them was that Cult of
Personality video, where they were all wearing colorful clothing,
and the lead singer had those cool rainbow braids, it all seemed very
appropriate. Plus as an all black and somewhat activist band, the
reference to "color" had somewhat of a double-meaning.
They lose a point for the Fox TV urban SNL rip off show, though the band
had nothing to do with it and even sued over the name.
She loses a point for
having that annoying "J-Lo" nickname, and such poor taste in
men
Speaking of which, it's a pretty good rock band name. It
doesn't mean anything, has no connotation and not really any denotation
either, not that literal meanings are a high priority in these
parts. I don't know if anyone in the band was especially into love
or rockets, nor do I care, at this point. There is a famous underground
comic book of the same name (well, as famous as an underground comic
book can be) which was apparently the source of the band name, but since
confirming that would require research, I'm leaving this as a
"maybe". As for the name, you have to strongly doubt that his fans, or him, for that
matter, actually know what it means. ludicrous \"lό-d-krs\ adjective This is also another case of a band (usually rap or R&B) with a
multi-syllabic name that's spelled incorrectly. As usual this sets off an
internal "Is it a pun or can they just not spell?" debate, where our
crack name-evaluating department is divided as to whether the appropriate
reaction is a bonus point for the clever play on words, or penalty due to our despair for the future
generations. He gets both, for now.
L7
As for the name, it's a GNDN (goes nowhere does nothing)
one. While being short and somewhat-memorable, it sounds like they got
the idea from the stenciled name on the fire door in a hotel basement. If
there is some private meaning to them that makes it work better, I've
not heard of it. Even if there is, that's of no help to the 99.9%
of people who hear the name and don't know their secret meaning, which
is the sort of thing that makes this page's ratings tick. |
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All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007. |
