Ever heard of the band Los Del Rio?
You have — you just don't know it. Maybe you'll remember their one big hit: the "Macarena." That should ring a few bells.
But while everyone would recognize the "Macarena," Jeopardy contestants and music geeks comprise the elite group of people who can actually name the band.
Sure, you might not have bothered to learn the name of this revolutionary group simply because the dance was even worse than the "Chicken Dance." Or you may have repressed all memories related to your fourth-grade gym class and its dreaded dance unit.
A far more likely explanation, however, is that you don't remember Los Del Rio because they had a horrible band name. The name isn't particularly catchy in Spanish and certainly not in English — it translates loosely as "Those of the river." Would you wear a band T-shirt with "Those of the River" across the front?
As anyone who's ever been in a band will tell you, the hardest part of starting out is thinking up a good name. A good band name can give you an edge when competing for fans, while a bad name can pose a nearly insurmountable obstacle to success.
A notable exception to this rule is the phenomenon of the one-hit wonder. Sometimes a band's single is just so catchy, it overcomes an appalling name to give the band success, at least in the short term. In fact, the annals of one-hit wonders are full of bands with cringe-inducing or just plain stupid names.
I doubt many college students remember the band Blue Swede, but most would know the group's big hit, "Hooked on a Feeling." I can't imagine how you can consider yourself a legitimate band with a name like that, and the fact that the band is actually from Sweden doesn't help.
In general, it's a good idea to stay away from national identifications in band names; I've only once seen it done successfully. This was in the case of Madison pop-rockers the German Art Students, who are neither German nor art students, but are nonetheless clever songwriters, with local classics like "Shitty Directions" to their credit.
Other badly named one-hit wonders include Right Said Fred ("I'm Too Sexy"), Europe ("The Final Countdown"), the Buggles ("Video Killed the Radio Star"), whose name sounds like a cheap rip-off of the Beatles, and 4 Non Blondes, who did that nauseatingly catchy song that goes "And I said/ h-ey-yey-yey-eyy-ey, hey-eyy-ey …/ what's goin' on?" ("What's Up").
Truly great bands would never deign to name themselves after a continent or define themselves by the color of their hair. To leave a lasting impression, a band needs to have a halfway-decent moniker.
That's not to say that there aren't success stories that buck this natural law of music. But overall, powerhouse bands have much better names than one-hit wonders and groups that never took off in the first place.
It's no coincidence that Led Zeppelin, one of the most popular bands ever (despite having been defunct for a quarter-century, the band has sold 20.2 million records since 1990), also has one of the best names. Their music was obviously revolutionary, but it wouldn't have captured the hearts and minds of consecutive generations of teen males with a tame name like Strawberry Alarm Clock or the Guess Who.
A more modern example is Nirvana, the Seattle grunge-rockers who redefined popular music in the early '90s. The name had a fresh, edgy aspect to it back then, combining a cool-sounding word with a hint of the Eastern mysticism that has always gone well with rock music. The word set up an inherent contradiction between Buddhist enlightenment and the primal urges of grunge rock, not to mention that it looked good up on a marquee.
Many of the best band names have a story behind them, such as with Nirvana's fellow Seattleites, Pearl Jam. At first, the name sounds like an ill-conceived mash-up of words, but once you learn the story (or in this case, stories) behind it, you realize how perfect it is.
In an early interview, frontman Eddie Vedder claimed the name was a reference to his grandmother Pearl, who on occasion used peyote to make a hallucinogenic jam. It is possible that Vedder was being facetious, however, since in a later interview with Rolling Stone, band members said that the name had been inspired by a Neil Young concert they attended where Young jammed extensively on every song. Another unfounded theory claims the name refers to male ejaculate.
Whatever the actual source of the name is, these three theories cover the tenets of rock — sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll — and give the name an element of grandeur.
Band names these days don't compare. This week, Billboard's top 10 rock albums include the bands Hinder, Nickelback, The Fray, New Found Glory and Audioslave. In the name game, none of these groups can match the dark contrast of Led Zeppelin, the iconicity of Nirvana or the multiple meanings of Pearl Jam.
Of all these, Audioslave is the most repulsive, since Tom Morello and company weren't even the first ones to come up with the name. Instead, they used the millions they made touring with the perfectly named Rage Against the Machine to buy the rights to "Audioslave" from a group in the United Kingdom.
The band tried to replicate the descriptive and lyrical power of Rage Against the Machine with this new bombastic moniker, but the fact that they had to settle for it in court doomed this attempt from the start.
Another annoying aspect of today's music scene involves the periodic trends in band naming. Lately, many bands have been trying to evoke retro kitsch with names beginning with "The": The Strokes, The Hives, The Vines, The Killers. Many of these bands are aiming for the same kind of image as well, leading to a generic-sounding group of acts.
I'm not giving up hope on these bands yet, however. There's always the chance that with time, a name can go through a process of self-improvement by taking on new connotations and meaning. When I first heard the Red Hot Chili Peppers, their name always made me think of food or the Chili's casual dining chain. Since the band truly entered the mainstream with Californication, though, I've gotten so used to the name that hearing "chili" now reminds me of the band, rather than the other way around.
It's also possible, in rare instances, to have a name that's so bad it's good. A perfect example is the German goth-metal band Helloween, whose absurd moniker fits their ham-handed musical stylings and campy subject material perfectly. Any band that would feature a fat pumpkin-monster in a music video has truly earned the right to such a ridiculously bad/good name.
To all you aspiring rock stars out there, I would say only this: don't give birth to yet another shittily titled group. Your tracks can be written by Swedish songwriters, your albums can be doctored by savvy producers and your image can be fixed by record-label designers. But once you start building a fan base, you're stuck with the name you've chosen.

Alec Luhn is the Associate ArtsEtc. Editor and a sophomore intending to major in journalism. Send your music questions or comments to [email protected]