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He's another one of those artists who did a bunch of weird stuff you've never heard of long before he had his big hits. As they are required to do, critics talk about the unknown stuff in reverent tones, while dismissing the stuff that actually sold some records. Robert did soulful R&B type stuff, and even a reggae album, which has to cost him a point. None of those sold a copy, so he kept experimenting and finally hit upon a soft rocking sound with catchy lyrics, and of course those immortal model-backed videos. As for the name, it sucks, like 95% of eponymous names do. He was born Alan Palmer, and changed it to Robert because... well since it sounds so very different than Alan, I guess. Now if he'd gone for "Richard Palmer" we could think of it as "Dick Palmer" and that would be sort of funny. As it is it's just some guy's name, and not a very interesting one.
The name is a mixed bag. They were initially an embarrassingly-mascara'ed glam metal band, back when that sort of thing was not merely acceptable, but actually encouraged. They lose a point for that. The 80's were a scary time, young Grasshopper. They eventually shed that image and sound, and got harder and heavier, and have kept going in that vein ever since. I wonder if they had been successful with the glam stuff, would they have still tried and/or succeeded with their sound change? Lots of the popular hair metal bands tried to reincarnate themselves with a heavier style glam died in the early 90's, but none were successful, as far as I know. Pantera made the shift earlier, and was successful. Anyway, Pantera chose their name for a glam metal band, and in that light it fits pretty well. Sort of a Def Leppard homage, and big cats are popular in that naming genre (White Lion). It's Spanish for "panther" if you couldn't have guessed that on your own. Since they don't look or sound like glam metal anymore, you might wonder why they even kept the name. It's not like they had a huge fan base they didn't want to lose. At any rate, it's merely an adequate name for a thrash metal band, not sounding particularly hard or heavy.
Papa
Roach
Putting that aside (if possible) to regard their name, you must admit it's
cool. It's got connotations and denotations galore. "Roach" is a filthy insect. It's also slang for marijuana, and the
whole name sounds like "pop a roach", which could be some sort
of "smoke pot" slang. It sounds dirty anyway. The whole name if
taken literally is also filthy and messy. They aren't just a roach, they
are a proud father roach. They knocked up some skanky roach bitch, after
all. The name doesn't really set a
firm image of their sound or image up front, but then neither does their
music.
Pearl
Jam
They get a bonus point for taking on those price-gouging Ticketmaster
bastards, though they were
ultimately unsuccessful in their efforts. The name is pretty cool, featuring naughty innuendo (semen reference) while sounding like a
synonym for "lustrous musical session". Doesn't really
give any indication of the band's overall sound, but that's damn hard to
do in two words for anything other than death metal or rap acts anyway. The name isn't bad,
but it's redundant. A circle by definition is
perfect. Otherwise it's an oval. But would a perfect oval be
a circle? I think not. Can an oval even be perfect? For this they
forfeit a point. The name sounds nothing like a semi-metal band anyway; it's
almost like a boy band name, if you think about it. The Pet
Shop Boys
Their most famous song is probably West End Girls, which
epitomizes their sound. Sort of vacant and hollow, yet depressing with
synthesizers galore and catchy guitars. As for their name, it's
silly and somewhat meaningless, but it's at least memorable. Did they meet
in a pet shop? Shouldn't it be "shoppe"? "Boys"
is one of the words you'd really like to avoid putting into your band's name,
given the boy band precedent, but they seem to get away with it here. Tom
Petty (and the Heartbreakers)
He should probably lose a bonus point for being around for so long
without ever generating any interesting scandal or marrying any
models. I can't even think of any heroin arrests or drunken car
wrecks. Is he a rock star or what? As for the name, much like Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the
"and the plural noun/verb" portion was more interesting than
the solo artist's name in front, and both suffered from "coolness
of name" factor once they went solo. Tom Petty doesn't sound like a
rock star; it sounds like a low-alcohol drink involving cranberries,
actually. But then I don't drink, so what do I know. She's not quite hot, sort of like Britney's ugly
older sister, dressed by circus clowns, but the name is naughty.
Probably the best vaginal-metaphor on this page, beating out
"Hole" in a close vote. "Pink" is a seductive version of
"word that means vagina", rather
than the dirty whore connotation of Courtney Love's band's name. I
almost expect "Pink" to be some sort of college girl band,
probably an angry at men one, but not in this case. It's catchy
but essentially meaningless, hence the mediocre score.
As for their name, it's pretty boring. Sounds like a lounge act to
me. Supposedly the name came from combining the names of two unknown blues
artists, "Pink Anderson" and "Floyd Council". I don't
know if this is correct, and in fact I sort of hope not, since it's
boring. Couldn't someone's ex-girlfriend have had a pink poodle named
Floyd, or something? Jesus, throw me a bone here.
As for their name, it's weird
and somewhat appropriate. They do shift in pitch quite a bit, and have other,
murkier aspects that the name hints at. Whatever the hell that means. The Pixies
Their name is actively awful. Not that it's such a bad name,
but in the spirit of the Goo Goo Dolls, you assume they sound entirely
different than they actually do. At a guess I'd assume
"Pixies" was some sort of cute 'n cuddly girl band, like a
bunch of 14 y/o Mickey Mouse Club graduates. That's probably the
idea, and they are going for the clever contrast, but since that only
works once you know them and their music, it's lost on the
casual fan.
As for the name yes, I know he was in Led Zepplin. That was like 25
years ago though, and just because he's old doesn't mean his name has ever been
any good, for a rock star. "Robert Plant" sounds like a newscaster, a minor
politician, or even a skateboarding trick, but certainly not a rock
singer. It's no crime to have a boring name, but using it as your stage
name and even your band name is. Their name actually stands for "Payable on Death", which is
a line you most often see in life insurance policies say today.
Okay, that's not so cool, come to think of it. However the name at least
sounds cool, boasting an angry vibe. It even sounds like they're
saying, "PO'ed!"
which of course means "Pissed Off". What that has to do with
their music and image isn't clear, but it's memorable and has a "we're
tough" connotation, and that's clearly their goal. A band could do
worse. Poison
Poison had a lot of pretty good
rocking songs, catchy stuff, and then inevitably had their biggest hit with a
horribly-sappy power ballad. This is true of most metal bands, and says much
about the taste of your average rock fan, but we can't deduct a point for this,
or we'd have to for every band. Hmm, that's not a bad idea, actually.
The name is not especially clever, and it has nothing to do with the
sound or look or vibe of the band, though it does sound sort of
rock/metal, being as it's you know, bad to drink. It's hard to say if the word
itself is wimpy, or it's just that in memory of their hair spray sound it seems
that way. Compare to Venom, an older and much harder metal band.
Doesn't "venom" seem much cooler/harder than "poison"?
Maybe it's just me. At any rate, at least they resisted the common urge at
the time to spell it in some idiot Z-intensive way, like say Enuff 'z
Nuff,
which almost earns them a bonus point. Almost.
As for the band, they're from the UK. So do people there actually call
the police "The Police"? Or is that an American word? I'm
sure people in the UK know what "police" are, but did the name have
the same connotation to them as it does to Americans? Or did they wonder
why this band had the US word for "cops" for a name? If a US
band called themselves "The Bobbies", I doubt many US
fans would have any clue it meant "The Police". A UK source has assured me that they do indeed call their cops "Police", so
you can disregard the last few sentences. That
aside, it's an attention-getting name, but really gives no hint to the
style of music, nor that it is a musical band at all. Their name is brilliant.
One of the best rock band names ever, it doesn't really tell you what the music
will sound like, but it certainly gets your attention and slathers peanut butter
on your brain for the hungry golden retriever of your intrigue. The
Presidents of the United States
The Presidents did, and they defied the odds with a second novelty song, Peaches,
but after that their luck ran out. Predictably enough. As for the name, at first look it's crap, and remains so with a second
look. However if you know something about them you realize that's the
point and the goal. They did weird, quirky novelty songs, and had a name
to match. It's sort of a confusing name, making you wonder if they are
some sort of Dead Kennedys cover band at first, but it's memorable, at least. The
Pretenders
Similar to The Pixies, this is a soft rock band that is just slightly
more rocking than the really dreadfully slow stuff. This results
in a weird state of affairs, where hard rock fans loathe and dismiss
them *cough*, while fans of really wimpy mainstream stuff like Elvis
Costello and Elton John think they are rocking, and write committal-quality
reader
reviews on Amazon.com that rave about how, "Hard rock just
doesn't get any better than this." Just goes to show that
everything is relative. As for the name, it's not bad for a rock band. I have no idea
what they are pretending about, and I'm not even going to make a joke
about how they are pretending to be a decent rock band, since it's just
too easy. I do have some standards. They might be low, but they
are standards. The name isn't that good though. It's kind of tame for such a wacky bunch of
bass pirates. Knowing the band a bit, you'd expect them to have a
multi-word title that evoked confusion in the listener and frightened parents.
Ahh, missed opportunities. The only connotation I get is
"primal" which isn't a synonym I'd think of for the band or
their sound. Michael Jackson named both of his "sons" after Prince. Prince
and Prince II. Really The issue of how (in the hell) Michael Jackson
obtained offspring is far too sordid to go into in this space. Though it's
hardly his fault, this simply has to cost Prince a point. Yes, guilt by
association. He gets a bonus point for discovering/creating so many semi hot ethnic
chicks, and making a bunch of sexy videos. The fact that he's like
5'4" and wears platform boots should probably cost him a point, but we'll
be understanding just this once. As for the name, it's a pretty good one. I tend to think of this
when I hear the name, but then I've definitely read Apocamon
too many times. They've also got that Creed
stealth-Jesus thing going,
where they are Christian, their name is Christian, and lots of their songs are
about Jesus stuff, but not so obviously that you notice it at first glance. They've done a bunch of other albums, none of which have a single catchy
tune, and they tend to sound like Skinny Puppy minus the heavy drugs and horror
movie samples (which are the best parts), so I can't really recommend them. As for the name, it's a decent name, but doesn't really fit. It sounds
like a solo artist for one thing, probably some sort of super DJ in the Fat Boy
Slim/Moby mold. That's actually not too far off, but for four weird guys
with so much energy and such a cool look, you'd like them to have chosen more
wisely. I remember when their big albums came out in the early '90s. Rock
critics were lined up to opinion on them, analyze the lyrics, discuss what they
meant to society and the black community, etc. Sort of hard to imagine
that today, with the 50 mindless "wear gold/beat women/smoke crack"
rap albums released every month. Especially when you consider that
virtually all of them 50 debut at #1, mostly due to white teenagers in the
suburbs and their desperate wannabe nature. They lose a point for doing the collaboration thing with Anthrax
on I'm the
Man. While this was a really cool song, with the rap/metal mixing well, it
spawned the whole rap/metal thing, which was interesting for about 2 years, then
overdone, and now pretty much the scourge of rock, with every white kid with an
electric guitar thinking they have 1) something to say, and 2) the ability to
rap. They are sadly mistaken in both cases, 99% of the time. As for the name, it's damn clever. Outlaw image, enemy to the
authorities attitude, famous and infamous. Not really a "rap"
name, but that's probably a good thing, given how stupid most rap names are
these days. If they were forming in 2002 they'd probably call themselves
Publik N'me, or something, which I'm sure we can all agree would be an abomination.
The name is sort of nonsense; I can't
imagine it really has any meaning to anyone, including them, but it's
sort of memorable, which is a good thing to aim for. Why they had
to add an extra letter to "Mud" isn't clear. But as you know,
"Mudd" spelled backwards is "Dumm". Or something like
that. Puff
Daddy
He loses two for his stupidly pretentious "white parties" and
enormously-swollen head (figuratively-speaking), as well as the
"designer" clothing that no one anywhere would ever wear if they
weren't as desperately grasping for celebrity as the Daddy is himself. As for the name... wait, does he even do music? I mean he does remixes at
times, but has anyone actually heard any? Or is it just some sort of "The Emperor's
New Clothes" thing, designed to give him more credibility? Anyway,
assuming he does do music, which I think I read an article about once, he takes
old songs and throws in gospel choir samples and stuff. Which is
music. I guess. In any event, the name is crap. We're rating "Puff Daddy"
here, if he has indeed invented a new nickname and can stick to it for more than
a year, this entry may be revised. It's not really a rapper type name; you
need something relating to temperature like Ice or Cold or Cool or Simmering,
and a noun. True, "daddy" is a noun, but only just.
"Puff Daddy" sounds like an old blues performer, if anything, so I'd
expect some guy in a linen suit and a rocking chair, his neck as wrinkled with
age and rough handling as a
blood-stained treasure map. *1 and 2 were Pet
Shop Boys songs. 3 and 4 were Depeche
Mode. |
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All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007. |
As for the name, you gotta give him credit for balls. If you're going
to pick a stage name, you might as well throw modesty right out the window. And
he did. I don't even want to address that weird symbol he turned into for
a while, since it's just confusing and unsettling. The sheer hubris of it
is worth some credit though, and it was fun to call in TAFKAP (The Artist
Formerly Known As Prince) also.