Courtesy of Oddblog.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers already have a pretty quirky name, but rumor has it that this level of quirky was a band meeting away from absurdity. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had two alternative names in the works, the alliterative Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem and the absolutely nonsensical Spigot Blister and the Chest Pimps. Would the band have been the same by any other name?

Presumably, the band shapes the name not the other way around. However a name does serve as the first advertisement for a band. Nowadays home studios, the rise of self-producing, small labels and the internet make music essentially endless. Listening to hundreds of artists and thousand albums only scratches the surface of the great sea of music coming out of the English speaking world. Sometimes the only signifier a small band has is an interesting name.

A dear friend of mine plays in a band called The Spectrum. He told me how much he loves the name, but bemoans the google results that come with it. The Spectrum is too general to get a music-specific result on the first click. On second search you may still miss the Spectrum band, since there‰’s another, just called Spectrum, to take that slot. Other times I have read reviews that felt betrayed by names of floaty indie pop bands whose monikers implied something a bit heavier. So would RHCP be the same without the name and the acronym? They might have never made it under Spigot Blister, or maybe they would have attracted a crowd that brought their punk rock leanings out a little bit more.

Regardless of the result RHCP settled on one of the best band names around. RHCP catches the eye by hinting at a hot, flavorful sensation and makes for a fluid abbreviation. What‰’s better, RHCP mostly delivers on the name. As a band they have taken more than a few styles, but tend to stay pretty spicy. It does not take digging through their discography to find songs that revel in strange and spicy sexual escapades, songs like “Sir Psycho Sexy” above.

But RHCP had it easy compared with the strenuous trial of a modern band trying to find the words to match its sound. Nowadays near every name‰’s been taken to the point where the absurd has become the norm. Plenty of people had a laugh when Jimmy Kimmel asked Coachella concertgoers about fake bands whose names he had made up. How could anyone think “Shorty Jizzle and the Plumber Crux‰” was a real band? In a world where bands are constantly jockeying for attention, however, those names are not far from fantasy. The Butthole Surfers, the Star Fucking Hipsters, Neutral Milk Hotel, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, and Portugal. The Man are not just real bands, but real bands that have serious followings and careers.

Portugal. The Man is a great example. They recently made it into a car commercial. They have over five studio records, have been on Atlantic Records since 2010 and they sell out medium sized venues. It is easy to assume that the people Jimmy Kimmel caught red handed were idiots. In reality they were just dishonest. So many normal bands debut each year that plenty of acts take on nonsensical and strange titles to stay apart from the crowd. Besides, plenty of the strong and simple type of names got swallowed up long ago.

No matter how insane a band‰’s name may seem, there is almost always a method to the madness. Portugal. The Man found their name by looking backward. They emulated how the Beatles made Sgt. Pepper an alter ego and a character to fit the band‰’s sound and decided to do the same. Portugal is the name of the band, and everything else is commentary. The period separates Portugal as the name of their alter ego and “The Man‰” is a way of saying Portugal‰’s a rad dude, as well as pointing him out as an alter ego. It is strange sure, but so is Portugal. Listen to the band and you‰’ll find they skillfully reinvent themselves around their core sound for each and every album.

For a more modern example look no further than Until the Ribbon Breaks. This recently formed band modeled their name after a nostalgic sensation from back in the day when cassettes were king. When the band members were kids if they really loved an album they would listen to the cassette until the ribbon broke. The name tightly packs nostalgia, obsession for sound and the meaning behind the whole project into one powerful package.

Much akin to RHCP, UTRB has the name to match their catchy, soundtrack-style songs, the name that turns effortlessly into shorthand, and it pulls them apart from the crowd. In this media gold rush gone global, how many bands can be so lucky? Does a Rolling Stone sound the same by any other name?  Probably, but does it sell out the same stages? Does it get signed by the same label?