With a degree in English Language, an interest in journalism, and a passion for music, Greg Cartwright spent two years as Pro Mobile’s Assistant Editor. In April 2016, he left behind his role to embark on a year-long trip through the Americas. Back in the UK, Greg is now a professional copywriter but also continues to contribute articles to Pro Mobile on a regular basis. It’s Just A Name, Right?
Wrong! Greg Cartwright picks 10 famous artists and explores the origins of their names, from the sentimental to the downright silly... As you’ll know from when you first chose a DJ/ trading name, the handle under which you perform and do business is an important thing to get right. It’s also an incredibly tricky thing to get right.
A band or DJ’s moniker can sometimes tell an audience what they will sound like (Electric Light Orchestra, for example), others are just random ideas that roll off the tongue (like the contradictory Fatboy Slim), and some are just, well, plain silliness (a certain high-profile band from Sheffield comes to mind). When I was scouring lists of artists, researching the most potentially interesting names, I also noticed a few trends that appear across the decades.
Early on, things were pretty simple: if your surname was Everly and you were brothers, you called yourselves The Everly Brothers. This honest approach to artist names continued into the ‘60s, but the decade also saw an influx of monikers inspired by nature, such as The Byrds, The Animals, The Monkees, and The Beatles, whose original name (The Beetles) was inspired by The Crickets. Where next? Well, with the arrival of glam rock and punk in the ‘70s, things started getting weirder and, in the case of the punks, more controversial or confrontive: Mott The Hoople, T.
Rex, The Clash, Roxy Music and The Sex Pistols (no explanation needed there). This creativity spilled over into the ‘80s and then the ‘90s, when suddenly, for some reason, everybody decided that vague one-word names ruled the roost: Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Beck, Garbage and Elastica, for example. At the start of the 2000s, we saw a resurgence in the popular ‘The’ names of the ‘60s. But towards the end of the decade, artists had begun using irregular spelling and punctuation to stand-out and make themselves easier to locate in the endless swamp of Google search results.
Examples include 30H!3, Chvrches, and the infinitely ridiculous !!! (pronounced chk, chk, chk, apparently). But no matter which of the above categories the following artist names fall into, many have interesting stories behind them. Some are used for sentimental reasons or as a homage to I'm - portant influences; others are witty quips or clever portmanteaus. Either way, the following 10 should supply you with plenty of ammo for your next pub quiz!
IT'S JUST A NAME, RIGHT?54 1. Duran Duran [1980s ] With their catchy synth-pop sound and taste for now-questionable eighties fashion, it’s no surprise that Birmingham’s Duran Duran lived and worked in the city’s clubs. One such club was Barbarella’s, where bands including The Clash and the Sex Pistols played early in their career, and it was this club that Duran Duran paid homage to when choosing their group name. If you’ve seen the eighties sci-fi film Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda, then you may be aware that Milo O’Shea’s contemptible villain is called Dr.
Durand-Durand. Drop a few letters and you’ve got a punchy, French-sounding name that was ideal for these sleek, stylish pop legends. 2. The Rolling Stones [1960s ] Before they unleashed self-penned hits like ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ , Jagger, Richards and co. satisfied their love of Chicago blues by playing covers.
When the time came to form a new group and start writing originals, they named themselves after a Muddy Waters song called ‘Rollin’ Stone’ , itself a reference to the phrase “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” In the rebellious world of the 1960s counterculture this idea of freedom was a popular notion, popping up again with Bob Dylan’s debut rock ‘n’ roll song, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ . It was this trifecta of influences that is said to have given birth to the world’s most famous music magazine, Rolling Stone.
3. The Weeknd [2010s ] I know what you’re thinking, why do all millennial artists have to misspell their names on purpose? The usual answer is to make themselves easier to find on Google (‘the weekend’ isn’t exactly a unique concept!) but in the case of this Canadian R&B star, it was to avoid any legal action from a band of the same name. As for the idea itself, well, it’s a tribute to ‘the weekend’ when the singer – real name Abel Tesfaye – left his family home to pursue his musical career.
He never returned, going on to become one of today’s most successful R&B artists, topping album charts across the world and reaching #2 in the UK chart with his Daft Punk collaboration ‘Starboy’ . 4. UB40 [1980s ] Growing up in a working-class, inner-city area of Birmingham, the members of UB40 were influenced by the music and culture of the local, largely immigrant, community. Children of the Windrush generation would play reggae, while the area’s Bangladeshi community exposed singer Ali Campbell to Indian artists such as Asha Bhosle, and it was this mish-mash of influences that gave the group their unique reggae-pop sound.
Choosing a name, on the other hand, was purely incidental; all members of the band were unemployed when they formed, so the code from their unemployment benefit forms (UB40) made for the ideal handle. 5. Arctic Monkeys [2000s ] Calling yourself the Arctic Monkeys probably seems like a good idea when you’re 17-years-old playing in a band with your mates. It’s a throwaway name, the sort that no doubt raised a few sceptical eyebrows in the band’s early days playing sweaty venues in their native Sheffield.
Main man Alex Turner wanted to ditch the name, but apparently one of Turner's heroes, the legendary poet John Cooper Clarke, thought it was great, so the quartet kept it. Now that the Arctic Monkeys are arguably the UK’s biggest band, you’ll find them performing as The Monkeys in concert, while their chart-topping fifth album was simply titled ‘AM’ . Regretting something, lads? IT'S JUST A NAME, RIGHT?
6. Prince [1980s ] Now, those of you with a keen eye will be looking at this and thinking “but Prince actually is his name!” You’re not wrong. The Purple One was born Prince Nelson Rogers, but did in fact inherit his first name from the stage name of his father, a jazz performer. As it turned out, ‘Prince’ was an apt brand for a stylish and eccentric performer whose off-kilter music soon made him pop royalty.
When the musical legend came to blows with his record label in the mid-nineties, he responded by officially changing his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol (The Love Symbol) that combined the signs for male and female. Nice move... 7. The Ramones [1970s ] Inspired by Paul McCartney’s occasional pseudonym (Paul Ramon) during his pre-Beatles days with the Silver Beetles, New York punk rockers The Ramones took the band name thing one step further by adopting it for their stage names, too – lead singer Jeffrey Hyman became Joey Ramone, and so on.
While the group’s love for The Beatles was clear, they soon earned a reputation for fastpaced rock and roll that acted as a blueprint for punk music and new wave, inspiring a generation of bands across the US and the UK. Now can we get a “1-2-3-4!”? 8. The Killers [2000s ] Las Vegas indie rockers The Killers don’t just owe a debt of gratitude to New Order for their dark, synth-heavy sound, but for their band name too.
If you look closely, you’ll notice that the drummer of a fictional band in New Order’s ‘Crystal’ video has the name The Killers scrawled across his bass drum. Three years later, in 2004, the real Killers burst onto the scene with their explosive debut single, ‘Somebody Told Me’ , the video for which looks suspiciously similar to ‘Crystal’ ... 9. Bananarama [1980s ] Holding the record for the most chart entries for an all-female group, this unstoppable trio – Keren Woodward, Sarah Dallin and Siobhan Fahey – was a permanent fixture on the UK chart throughout the 1980s.
Despite this, their musical career was somewhat conflicted, especially in the beginning, when the three school friends released a handful of political and protest songs. Their name was a mix of the silly and serious, drawing on the TV series The Banana Splits and the Roxy Music song ‘Pyjamarama’ to create this catchy portmanteau. It’s either ridiculous or genius – perhaps a bit of both. 10.
The Beautiful South [1990s ] When jangle-pop group The Housemartins disbanded in 1988, bassist Norman Cook became Fatboy Slim and lead singer Paul Heaton founded a new band that combined laid-back lounge music with social commentary and wry humour for a bittersweet effect. An ironic reversal of the phrase ‘the grim north’ , The Beautiful South name was northerner Heaton’s poke at the London-centric music industry, who nevertheless lapped up his irresistible pop hooks and cutting satire on singles like ‘Song for Whoever’ , ‘Perfect 10’ , ‘Rotterdam’ , and the UK chart-topping ‘A Little Time’ .
