Every music genre carries its own naming traditions. You’ve got the sacred/profane pairings of grunge (Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, Soundgarden); the Freudian death-and-sex drives of emo band names; the flippant "Z"s and "G"s of rap (Li’l Wayne’s "Weezy," Jay-Z’s "Jeezy," and Snoop Dogg); and let’s not forget the longwindedness of indie and post-rock (Explosions in the Sky; Godspeed You! Black Emperor, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead).
It’s a chore, then, to find a band name that fits your group—something that identifies your band’s image or sound and still fits comfortably within a genre that you can identify by name.
Or, it was a chore. Until now.
I give you…Paste Magazine’s "Top 20 New Band Names, Per the First 2008 Presidential Debate."
The Artist Formerly Known as "Maverick": John McCain unwittingly launches the careers of two dozen new bands with his speeches.
Paste does a great job of pairing band names with genres you might find them in. "Of course!" I found myself thinking as I read. "’Golden Parachutes’ has to be an indie band! As sure as ‘The Root Cause’ would be a GOP-backed hip-hop act!" Take a look.
The magazine also gives us 10 more from the Vice Presidential debate (including the undeniably awesome "White Flag of Surrender," which Paste sees as "dramatic, instrumental post-rock," and "Bosniacs," called an "insufferable Brooklyn art-rock collective."
By the way, if there is something to be blamed for my blog post, it is New Yorker’s Cartoon Lounge blog, since rechristened the Doritos Chips Cartoon Lounge and, most recently, The Blog Formerly Known as Cartoon Lounge (identified only by a picture of a snowboarder, giraffe and kitty cat).
If McCain or Palin fronted a music group, what would you call it? Could they take an Obama/Biden supergroup in a battle of the bands?