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Coming soon: Barry Manilow, Charles Manson, Marcy Playground, Richard Marx, Master P, Paul McCartney, Bobby McFerrin, Sarah McLachlan, Meat Beat Manifesto, Meatloaf, John (Cougar) Mellencamp, Midnight Oil, Milli Vanilli, The Misfits. 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 ask why the monkeys in the zoo don't turn into people if evolution really works. |
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Madonna
In retrospect, her name was pretty good all along. It's a holy purity religion thing, and contrasts well with her slutty Catholic girl gone bad early persona, back when she could actually get a rise out of people with nothing more than heavy lipstick and visible bra straps. She also gets a bonus point for starting Western Civilization down the winding road to Gomorrah that eventually shat forth Britney Spears. Madonna also earns a bonus point for having no problems with full frontal nudity, even if it was just for some crappy fake erotic book. Whenever you see some of the sexy shots, and start to think that the book might be good, remember that Vanilla Ice was pictured, pompadour intact, and apparently moist-humping Madonna. Yes, I know, that's a regular severed horse's head in the bed of your libido. Sorry, but it had to be done. If that's not enough to completely cool your jets, think of her movie career.
The
Mamas and the Papas
As for the name, it's a quintessential hippy band name. Since they were a quintessential hippy band, thusly is synergy achieved. I don't know if any of them were actually parents, and strongly doubt that a plurality of each gender were, which renders their name technically incorrect. This should cost them a point, but really, who the hell cares at this point?
Despite his absurdly-obvious "Provoking Christians to get free publicity" technique, the Christians never seem to catch on, and have therefore spent much of the last 6 years helping MM stay famous. And a bonus point is awarded for the sideshow value. That being said, MM isn't all about shock and flash; some of the best hard metal tracks of the decade were on their first two albums, the ones since then haven't been all bad, and he gets a bonus point for actually giving a damn about his appearance, unlike 99% of the other rock/metal bands around today. The name is damn near brilliant. The concept is Sex Symbol/Serial Killer in the first name/last name, and it's not just Marilyn, everyone in the band has a stage name of the type. Ginger Fish, Madonna Wayne Gacy, etc. It doesn't give you any real indication of the type of music in advance, but once you know, you remember.
No one listens to Reggae on purpose anyway, it's just something that comes on at a party and isn't horrible as background music, providing you're working your mojo on someone whose pants you'd like to get into, and think that with two or three more beers you might even succeed. That aside, it's never more than background noise at best, and at worse is to be endured if you can't change the station or block your ears. Which costs it a few points. As a solo artist, "Bob Marley" tells you nothing about his music. It's not a particularly Jamaican-sounding name, just another lame eponymous title. The back up guys had a good name, though I wouldn't really describe Reggae as "wailing". Eventually Bob went solo, which in this case means he found new guys that he could pay less to roll his bongs and beat on metal garbage cans while he mumbled about "da white mon". He also had about 70 children with 50 women, and left no will, causing an unbelievable legal battle once he died, and inexplicably left something more valuable than dreadlocks and cracked water pipes. Bonus.
He came out of Menudo, the archetypal boy band, and if you want to plot the likely career trajectories of future boy band escapees such as Justin Timberlake, take a good hard look at Ricky here. His name is about as weak as they come. He was famous from Menudo and acting on a Mexican soap opera, so he had to stick with the same name to carry over some fans, but that's still no excuse for being a rock star with a name like a guy washing dishes in an El Torito in Valencia Hills.
Massive
Attack
Anyway, the name. It's not real good. As a name it's okay, but their sound doesn't conjure up "large", much less "massive", and I don't think "attack" was the first verb on anyone's lips. They probably have some clever story about the origin of their name, but as I've said before, that doesn't do the rest of us any good.
Matchbox
Twenty
Their name probably means something to them, but when you hear it mentioned it doesn't do much. It sounds like a quirky collector's magazine, or perhaps a little antique shoppe downtown. Certainly not a rock band.
As for the name, it's nearly perfect. The guy's name is bland, inoffensive, and packs zero excitement or thrill. "Dave Matthews" sounds like the guy you sort of remember from high school, who was probably in the chess club and clearly destined from age 15 for a job in accountancy or perhaps the medical assistant field. It's like his parents knew, all those years ago? Imagine if they'd entitled him something like "Zachary Alvaridia Matthews"? It would ruin their score on this page, for one thing, clashing utterly with the music. On the other hand, perhaps a name of that magnitude would have lead the young David down a different, hopefully-darker path.
The history of Megadeth, and their rating on this page, are both a tale of two eras. They would have earned a 10 until about 1992, since they lived up to their very well until that point. Hard, fast, angry, though never to the extremes of death metal, so perhaps a 9 would have been more in order. Unfortunately (for them, for metal in general, and for their score) they didn't break up/die in a bus crash in 1993, thus forever soiling their legacy, and ruining their score. As an alternative to a fiery death, they could have perhaps changed their name to something more appropriate. Say... "Multiwound"? The very fact I can think of this costs them a point. Ironically, after the years of high-stress super fast playing, front man Mustaine was recently struck down by a nerve condition in one hand, rendering him unable to play guitar, and ending the band. It's ironic since their last few albums were so much slower and wimpier that the wear and tear on his hand had to be much less than in the glory days. Given the downward spiral their last few albums were in, it was pretty much a mercy killing.
Menudo
As for their name, it means "small" or "slight" in Spanish, which I guess is appropriate enough for a band of pre-pubescent boys. They're almost a children's band, sort of too young and innocent to be worthy of true loathing, unfortunately.
I was never into Napster, and never have bought into the mass delusion that it's legally permissible to download five hundred albums a night on broadband, so I'm not deducting any points for their anti-Napster escapades. Like it or not. They earn a bonus point for enduring for so long without turning into a "perpetually re-releasing greatest hits/live albums" parody of themselves, like so many long-time hard rock bands do. They lose that point right back again for churning out nothing but mediocre music for the last decade, but gain another point for losing a bass player in a bus crash, and another for nearly incinerating their guitarist through confusion over exactly where the flashpots would be going off in a song one night in concert. The name is very serviceable; supposedly a combination of their two favorite things; metal and vodka, though that's probably an eponymous tale. Other versions of it have a friend suggesting it for a potential metal magazine before giving it up to them for a band, but the origin is largely shrouded in mystery. Even if it were the metal + vodka, shouldn't it have been "Metalika" or "Metodka"? Perhaps, but look at them; they're awkward and fugly. "Metallica" beats them both to a bloody pulp. And thus is the course of history determined by a mere alcohol preference. Let us be forever grateful Lars didn't have a hankering for Bacardi or Lagermeister.
Him being gay is somewhat puzzling, since he had a long record of featuring very hot female models in his videos, often in very little clothing, and often making out with him. There were certainly clues to his persuasion; the long slow view of his dancing ass in Faith, and his perpetually perfect grooming. Heterosexual men just don't spend that much time on their hair and goatee. The tricky part is that some entertainers and rock stars do; every boy band out there looks just like George did, with perfect little hair styles and strangely-sculpted goatees, if they have any facial hair at all. While it's a common reaction (at least by men) to call all the boy bands "fags" that's probably not literally true. They just look like they are gay, which, ironically, is what women want men to look like. Imagine you're a girl (this probably isn't very difficult for about half of you); would you rather have some fat, sloppy, wallet chain wearing, boxer short sagging, three-day stubbled, failed frat boy? Or a neat, clean, nicely-dressed guy who isn't afraid to show off his ass in a pair of tight pants? I mean "Duh." it's not like the choice is hard to make. Like most objective men, I often wonder what any woman sees in our gender. George has also gained recent fame for becoming political, with his instantly-infamous Shoot the Dog video. All politics aside, the video features him in this outfit. That just has to cost a bonus point. His name creates a quandary as well. Ordinarily, eponymous artists get low scores, since their names are boring. That's certainly true in this case, but you have to consider the extenuating circumstances. The man was born "Yor gos Kyriatou Panayioutou." Really. Given that he started off with one of the worst names in the history of bad names, virtually anything would have been a great improvement. Obviously the poor man wanted something simple and plain, as a reaction to what was no doubt a childhood full of, "Your name is what?"Unfortunately, while we can feel sympathy for his ungainly birth name, that doesn't make his stage name any better. "George Michael" is just not a rock star name. It doesn't sound rock and roll, it's not exciting, and it's not distinctive. So while he doesn't get a very high score, he does get a couple of bonus points out of sympathy.
The name is cool once you know what the band is, but on first impression you'd think it was some sort of religious band, or perhaps even a gospel choir. This, of course, doesn't help their score.
Plus she's hot, frequently topless, and doesn't play some endless charade with her alleged virginity, like certain other pop tarts. She gets bonus points: one and two, for what should be obvious reasons to any heterosexual male. If she can go another year without marrying one of her back up dancers, she might gain another point.
Joni
Mitchell
She is still creating music
today, the same guitar over spoken word style as always, but hasn't achieved any
cultural significance in decades, other than as an influence on the numerous
pop/folk singers such as Alanis and Jewel.
Lest you assume she's some proto-Indigo Girl, she was born Roberta Joan Anderson,
and only started performing as Joni Mitchell after marring folksinger Chuck
Mitchell in 1965. Their marriage lasted an entire year. She's been in the news recently
for pointing
out the semi-obvious: The music business: "I
just think it's a cesspool. I hope it all goes down the crapper. I would never
take another deal in the record business, which means I may not record again,
or I have to figure out a way to sell over the Net or do something else. But
I'll be damned if I'll line their pockets."
Mitchell also lambasted MTV,
complaining that her three-year-old granddaughter is already grabbing her
crotch and dancing, imitating the video clips played on the music cable
network. "It's tragic what MTV has done to the world,"
For that a bonus point is
awarded. Her name is unremarkable.
It's sort of ironic that she took and kept her husband's name, after they were
married for all of a year, especially since it's really no different than Joni
Anderson, her maiden name. As for the name, it's pretty weak. White whale? I had heard of Moby for a long time
before I'd really heard the music, and sort of assumed it would be some
pretentious arthouse goth type stuff, when it's not that at all.
Name that turns off potential fans sound unheard = minus points. The
Monkees
Despite being a manufactured entity, they were largely
tolerated and even appreciated in their time, and have aged very well,
mostly since they stayed the same. There's no later years to try
and forget, with images of them all dirty and hippy, releasing
unlistenable sitar-choked dreck. They obviously knew when to stop
imitating the Beatles, and as a consequence The Monkees are today
remembered only as a happy and pointless pop band, with none of that
hairy, stoned, Yoko-smelling crap that taints the Beatles' legacy. As for their name, it's damn near perfect, perhaps unintentionally.
They were monkeys of the Beatles. Monkey see, Monkees do. Look
like them, sound like them, but be cute and furry and behaved.
Even their name, with the cutesy spelling, tips you off to the non-threatening nature
of their ditties right from the start. Monster
Magnet
Their name is
sort of appropriate when you know the band, with their big (monstrous?)
sound, but the "magnet" part means nothing to anyone, which
costs them a point. Do they attract (magnetically) monsters?
The name is quite accurate, as far as I can tell. They are very
moody, downright suicidal, and there are definite blues influences,
though it's far from being the low-down blues style of depressing music
that you might expect from the name, which costs them a point. Alanis has a weirdly sexy but sort of too old to be naked in her videos vibe going, which men
find simultaneously appealing and frightening. As for the name, it
sounds like a sort of folk rock chick, and so does she. Thus is
synergy achieved.
It's hard to view bands that had a very specific fan base without
thinking of that. If you can't stand dirty hippies, then you'll never
like The Grateful Dead. If those old Ed Sullivan screaming
children annoy you, then screw The Beatles. With Morrisey I see
ripped black fishnet stockings, chalk artwork on scuffed black leather
jackets, excessive black eye-liner, and clove cigarettes, all sported by
the pouting, bruised-looking misfits sitting in corner tables at the
mall in about 1987. If you can't envision this, think Winona Ryder
in Beetlejuice w/o the wry humor and flying dance ending. At the time
the whole goth look/lifestyle was very outlaw, but looking back now it's
merely pathetic and tawdry. As for the name, it's pretty much pointless. It's a guy's
name. Not an interesting name, or one with any loaded
meaning. Just a name. Bleh. Since that's the general
impression the music makes on most listeners, this actually helps the
score. A semi-friend of mine in high school used to call them "Mostly
Crud", but as he was a tall racist gork who had horrible taste in
music and a complete psycho for a mother, his comments will be stricken
from the record. They should get a bonus point for their total rock
star life style which includes fatal car crashes, repeated drug
problems, snogging models, prison time, and numerous near break ups.
They also hold the title for "on the record" hot chicks.
Various band members have been married to Heather Locklear (back in the
80's when that was a good thing), Pamela Anderson, and Donna D'Errico of
Baywatch. The only one
who hasn't married a supermodel is Vince Neil, and he starred in a homemade
porno with Janine. This paragraph is excluded from bonus point
consideration due to it being unrankably high. As for the name, it went through several transformations including
Mottley Krue, and even Mφtley Krφφ, before they finally settled on
Mφtley Crόe. In that light, it's hard to criticize it, and the
umlauts are sort of cool, if utterly meaningless. Bonus point. Motorhead
Oh yeah, the name. Well, it's sort of cool, I guess. "Motorhead"
sounds aggressive and rocking, even if all their music sounds like old AC/DC
with worse vocals. Mr.
Bungle
The name is actually quite appropriate; it has a sort of evil killer clown
vibe to my ear, which was definitely what they projected. However I'm not
sure if that's from the name, or since I know something about them and their
album art. In general the name is worthless for a rock band, telling you
nothing about them if you didn't already know. Mudhoney
The name is somewhat
unpleasant, combining viscous substances that you'd rather were
kept separate. The connotation is of a very heavy, sludgy, but
somewhat sweet sound, which isn't entirely off the mark, but doesn't
really make you eager for more either. The name for this guy is a bit
off, since it sounds more like a reggae artist, or maybe some sort of hippy
rocker, flying through his mystical, magical, brightly-colored kingdom. Whatever, the guy was like soooo stoned, man, when he filed the copyright
forms. |
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