ARIA album chart reveals a ‘bad’ name can’t hold a good band down

A band’s original name can’t stop them from succeeding in the music charts. See which bands have had some of the weirdest names.

The battle for the No. 1 spot on the ARIA album charts this week demonstrated a preposterous name can’t hold a good band down.

Medicine At Midnight, the 10th album from Foo Fighters, is likely to claim the title from Perth rockers Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and their latest record Shyga! The Sunlight Mound.

Fooeys frontman Dave Grohl has often sledged the band’s name, a term coined by World War II pilots to describe unidentified flying objects.

Dave Grohl may not be a fan of his band name but millions are. Picture: Supplied

“Had I imagined that it would last more than a month and a half, I might have named it something else,” Grohl said in a 2014 interview. “It’s the dumbest band name ever.”

The Crumpets, who could land you in the NSFW weeds with an internet search, are most often compared to two other revered Australian psychedelic rock acts with bizarre monikers Tame Impala and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

The band has been a fixture on the alternative airwaves for the past five years, and their unforgettable name was deliberately constructed to provoke the curiosity of music fans.

“We were jamming a few years ago and brainstorming a name and two suggestions were we should have a band with crumpets and we should have a band with porn. I guess psychedelic sums us up a bit so that was the final ingredient,” lead singer Jack McEwan told music blog Pilerats after their formation.

The Crumpets worked hard to come up with their preposterous name. Picture: Supplied

With a plethora of songs with psycho in the title released over the past couple of years, rising teen indie pop star Sasha McLeod employed creative spelling for her artist name Sycco.

But the singer and producer, whose single Dribble landed on this year’s Hottest 100, now reluctantly accepts some fans read it as Sicko.

“It does happen but I brought it on myself, so I don’t necessarily get annoyed,” McLeod told Triple J.

Rising pop artist Sycco, pronounced psycho not sicko. Picture: Supplied

A band name that is so bad it’s good can prove valuable in building the profile of an emerging artist on social media and also becomes a badge of honour for the diehard fans who valiantly defend their favourite artists against the haters.

Rolling Stone Australia managing editor Poppy Reid said a name is as much a part of a band’s brand as their hits.

“So many bands are looking for a point of difference but I think a lot of artist names come up organically,” Reid said.

“There’s a new all-girl band right now called Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers and their guitarist’s dad’s friend came up with the name. They were super hesitant about it but it just stuck.”

There’s an apostrophe. Is the s capped or not? And it’s just DMA’S without The? Picture: News Corp Australia

Success is the best revenge for artists who cop criticism for their name choice, starting with The Beatles.

But many Australian artists switched their titles before they hit the big time.

Midnight Oil were Farm, INXS were the Farriss Brothers, The Angels started out as the Moonshine Jug and String Band and at one stage, Something For Kate were called Fish Of The Day.

Reid credits the 2000s pop rock outfits Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy for inspiring a plethora of cartoonish music monikers and superfluously long song titles in the past 15 years – and the overuse of exclamation points in social media posts.

But what does PNAU mean? Picture: Supplied

She believes Australian musicians are particularly adept at coming up with subversive or comedic names but still winning plaudits from critics and fans for their creative endeavours.

“Australians are particularly good at coming up with a funny name and yet we still take their music seriously; look at Amyl and the Sniffers who are a crazy good band,” she said.

“You don’t think twice about saying ‘I’m so excited to see Amyl and the Sniffers this weekend.

“There are so many bands from the ’90s who were taken entirely seriously despite their names – I had no idea what Chocolate Starfish meant.”

In the digital era, bands also have to consider how their name is going to track online.

While Los Angeles music collective The Internet are a search engine nightmare for fans, surprisingly, emerging Victorian band Approachable Members Of Your Local Community top the results when you look for them.

What will we call The Kid Laroi when he is not a kid anymore? Picture: Supplied

“I don’t know if it’s strategy, if they are actually thinking about how their name is going to turn up on the internet in terms of search but I feel artists are getting a lot more imaginative,” she says.

“I know a lot of Gen Z music fans feel overwhelmed by how much music is out there and will actually type in weird words on Spotify, like pig Latin, just to see what comes up.”

The trend for fans choosing to identify themselves as a collective “army” on social media – the Swifties, Rihanna’s Navy, the Directioners – may also influence future band and artist names.

“I remember we tried to make The Rubinators happen for The Rubens but it didn’t stick,” Reid said, laughing.

Originally published as ARIA album chart reveals a ‘bad’ name can’t hold a good band down