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Elbow, and other band names that sound shitter the more you think about them

‘THE Beatles’ is a band name so embedded in popular culture no one ever mentions what a f**king awful pun it is. Here are some more terrible names we’ve all ignored.

Oasis

The name isn’t an allusion to finding an authentic band in a cultural desert, they’re named after Swindon leisure centre. Did the Gallaghers think a symbol of late-stage capitalist, leisure-obsessed society was clever and postmodern? No. Liam saw it on an Inspiral Carpets tour poster. 

Elbow

Why? Why did they choose this? Presumably it was a jokey placeholder name from when they first got together and it accidentally ended up on a poster. Because if they think it is a good name that people respect and enjoy, they are wrong. Plus it’s encouraging idiots to think Ankle, Kneecap and Toenail are good band names.

The Beatles

The Beatles didn’t invent shit band names, but they perpetuated them. John Lennon thought of ‘The Beetles’ in homage to Buddy Holly’s band The Crickets and then changed it to include a musical pun of the kind that only your dad, depressingly, thinks is funny.

Wet Wet Wet

What were they thinking? This crappy moniker – an incredibly obscure reference to a Scritti Politti song –  would probably have sunk the band if they hadn’t happened to have a mega-smash with an equally crappy cover of ‘Love Is All Around’, all thanks to a film that was almost as sickening as the band name.

Limp Bizkit

Is it the name of Fred Durst’s dog Bizkit who happened to have a limp? Or is it the name of a disturbing game beloved of young men that involves wanking onto a digestive? Either way it’s a shit name for a band, and the now 52-year old Fred should be mortally ashamed to still be performing under it.

Arctic Monkeys

Arctic Monkeys is a fun name for a local band in 2002, but terrible for a super-stylish bunch of almost 40-year olds in 2023. Alex Turner has since written film soundtracks and dated fashion icon Alexa Chung, so should be mortified to still have the kind of band name thought up by wasted teenagers after a couple of cans of Strongbow Dark Fruit and a spliff.

Olivia Colman, and other people who need less representation in the media

DIVERSITY and equality in the media are good things. However these people have too much representation and need to be marginalised immediately.

Olivia Colman

The first time you saw what’s-her-face who played Sophie from Peep Show star in something else you were happy for her. But over time that excitement has soured into weary regret because now she pops up in f**king everything and ruins your suspension of disbelief. Why? Because she’s a hilarious, talented performer everyone loves? Ridiculous.

The Go Compare guy

The deafening Welsh opera singer’s representation is just 30-second adverts, but that’s still far too much. In the spirit of fairness he should be confined to one performance a year on an obscure channel no one watches, like the fishing one. The same goes for those f**king meerkats, who stopped being entertaining ten minutes after their first appearance. 

Question Time audiences

The hollering gibbons who make up the Question Time audience have had their say for decades, and what have they achieved in that time? Nothing, except maybe Brexit. They should be sacked for incompetence and replaced by kittens, because they’re more fun to watch and better-informed about current affairs.

Oxbridge graduates

Clever clogs from these hallowed institutions of learning are f**king everywhere in the media, limiting the range of views represented and discriminating against thick people. The cleverdicks must have used their massive brains to deduce that the media is a cushy number with more free drinks than dusty old academia.

Piers Morgan

‘Phew,’ you thought, after Morgan stormed off the set of Good Morning Britain, ‘that’s the last I’ve seen of that ill-informed King of the Gammons dickhead who’s still got blue balls for Meghan.’ Sadly not. He’s got his own show now and his newspaper column, when what he should have is a restraining order from TV studios, publishing companies and the internet.

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