Back when radio airplay was basically how everyone found out about new music, it was
hard to mispronounce a band's name.
DJs introduced the songs and who performed them, so unless your local radio station was
run by total dopes, you knew what was up.
But in today's streaming free-for-all, plenty of music fans read a ton of band names without
ever hearing them spoken out loud.
It's not like Spotify has a "pronounce this band" feature… but they totally should.
Not every band is as easy to say as, say, Smash Mouth or Oingo Boingo.
So, unless you're one of the musically-informed elite, here are a few band names you've probably
been saying wrong this whole time.
Get lost, Corey
Responsible for 2013's soft-rock-meets-'90s R&B hit "The Wire", this band doesn't pronounce
their name like late-'80s teen idol Corey Haim…
"I'll slap the headphones on once in a while and dibble dabble on the keyboard."
...or even "hime," as in the life-saving Heimlich maneuver.
"Hey.
How you pronounce our last name is Haim.
Two syllables.
There you go."
"Haim."
It also happens to be the last name of the three sisters in the band, so we're going
to consider them experts.
Either way, we can all agree that Haim is a whole lot better than Haim.
"Yeah!
That's it."
A Walter by any other name
This Belgian-Australian performer's real name is Wouter Andre De Backer, which isn't quite
as cool as the name he's given himself.
"Wouter" is the Belgian counterpart of "Walter," and "Gaultier" is the French counterpart of
Walter.
Basically, this guy chose his stage name by running his real name through Google translate
a bunch of times — and then spelling it wrong for good measure.
But if spelling stuff wrong worked for the Beatles, it's probably good enough for this
guy.
So, how do you actually pronounce it?
"Well, I have just started to say, 'Well, however you pronounce Jean Paul Gaultier's
surname, that's it."
So, referencing a French designer's oft-mispronounced last name is the best we can really do, but
if you're still having trouble, just remember this pictograph.
Goat.
Tee.
Yay.
Got it?
Good.
Now stop saying "got-yee" like some kind of uncultured swine.
Sleepy Justin and his good liver
Musician Justin Vernon also riffed on French when coming up with his band name, but for
some pretty weird reasons.
If the sleepy singer sounds, well, sleepy, he's got a good excuse: he fought through
a pretty rough bout of mononucleosis.
"Ooh, the kissing disease!"
Vernon borrowed his name from the French phrase, "bon hiver," which means "good winter"...
and because the word "hiver" reminded him of "liver."
Vernon was having liver pain due to his mononucleosis, and the rest is history.
Very...weird history.
"Do I call you Justin or do I call you… are you Bon Iver?"
"No, Justin."
"Justin?"
"Yeah."
"Alright.
Now, Bon Iver is the group?"
"Yeah."
We're just glad his suffering was directed toward the upper half of his body, and that
we don't have to call him Bon Esticle.
"Oh, nooo!
No!"
Punktuation
The California dance-punk band, which calls itself, uh, this, took their name not from
an expression of extreme surprise, or a malfunctioning computer keyboard, but from the subtitles
in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, which represented the native "clicking" language
with exclamation points.
The band says that saying their name with simple clicking sounds is acceptable, but
they're open to interpretation as well.
"Everyone pronounces it differently.
How do you pronounce it?"
"My favorite is probably just *clicking noises*"
"The original."
Of course, their name also makes them impossible to search for online, so good luck finding
out when they'll be coming to your town next… unless you use their more sensible phonetic
spelling, which only kind of makes you sound like a hungry locust.
The answer to a question nobody wanted to ask
As strange as they are, there's nothing too unusual about the name of these South African
rap-rave weirdos: it's just Afrikaans for "the answer".
And if sleepy old fogey David Letterman can get it right, so can you.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Die Antwoord."
The members of Die Antwoord, by the way, describe themselves as — ahem, here we go — "fre$,
futuristik, flame-throw-flow-freeking zef rap-rave krew" — which has to be the micro-est
of micro-genres.
Please buy a vowel
This Canadian electronic duo spells its name like this, which looks more like a doomed
startup than a band.
But, just like Tumblr, Flickr, and the rest of the vowel-challenged bunch, their name
is pronounced like a normal word.
It's just "master craft".
"Why is it that so many like, electronic acts change letters and like, take out letters
and add numbers and make words."
"Drugs."
"There's another company in Canada called Mastercraft.
And they make power tools."
While going vowel-less is a band name trend with remarkable staying power, MSTRKRFT says
search engine optimization was also a good reason to ditch the extra letters.
Ah yes, the Holy Trinity of professional musicianship: sex, drugs, and SEO.
Holy spell check
Another band hoping for search engine prominence, these Scottish synthpop musicians went oldschool
and decided to use a Roman "V" instead of a 'U' so, quote, "Google wouldn't confuse
the group with actual churches."
Search results for "churches" anywhere on the planet buries the band's page, but adding
that little V gets you nothing but band-related results.
The band says it backfired a little bit, however, because people frequently ask how their name
is pronounced.
"Hey, I'm Martin.
I'm Lauren.
I'm Iain.
And we are a band called Chvrches."
It's "churches."
Just "churches."
Double-V equals W
Want even more confusing "V"s?
The Canadian fuzz-pop band responsible for 2014's infectious "Marry Me Archie" had to
switch up their name when there was already a band on Sony Records called Always.
So, they made a quick switch, following a long tradition of mixing up Vs and Ws…
"We're looking for the naval base in Alameda.
Can you tell me where the nuclear 'wessels' are?"
Their name isn't quite as Transylvanian or complicated as it looks.
It's simply "Always."
Ohhhhhh-no
This Jedi-robed Seattle drone metal band took their name — which looks like this — from
the now-defunct Sunn brand of amps, which featured a logo that, if you squint, kinda
looks like their name.
But the band is simply called "Sun," not "Sun Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"... even if they kinda
make that sound a lot.
"Ohhhhhh."
"Uhhhhh.."
The band says fondness for the amplifiers is "mainly" why they chose the name, but there
are a few other reasons for those menacing parentheses that they won't disclose.
Drone metal Jedis gotta have their secrets.
A Swedish tongue twister
While we'd love to hear professional hosting gnome Ryan Seacrest mangle this Swedish indie-pop
singer's real name… which is Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson… she decided to keep it simple.
Just not simple enough.
Lick Lih?
Likka Lie? Licky Licky Who?
"Hi, I am Likke Li."
Unfortunately for her, "Licky Lee" only ends up sounding like what the kids call the creepy
guy who lives down the block and won't stop wetting his lips.
Maybe she should take some more time to think this one over.
Should've just called himself DJ Benjy
The origin of this guy's name is even dorkier than you can imagine: Benjamin Hammond Haggarty
came up with it for his high school class project.
"I was in high school.
I was in graphic arts class.
We were assigned a superhero and we had to give him a name.
And I named that superhero 'Prof. Macklemore.'"
Because, you know, high school, he soon started calling himself that as well.
He says he later dropped the "Professor" part because he realized it was, quote, "wack."
Whatever you do, don't call him "Mackelmore."
It's Mack LUH More.
Not to be confused with 2004 Breakbeat DJ Milk collaborator Mac L'Amour, of course.
Or, you know, any talented musicians.
Placing the name
Like dozens of bands before them, these indie rock icons took their name from geography.
Portishead, Cypress Hill, Boston, Chicago, Diarrhea Planet.
All great places, and we assume that this road in Washington state is no different.
Contrary to everything you've learned about English, it's pronounced SLAYter Kinney.
Get it wrong and there's a slight chance they'll beat you up, because they totally could.
So get it right.
It's Slayter… like professional surf monster Kelly Slater, or professional squinter Christian
Slater, or even just Slater.
Probably not going to forget THIS anytime soon.
Flower power
We've come to expect some pretty unusual names out of Iceland — thanks, Bjork
"Bjork.
It rhymes with jerk."
— and this Icelandic post-rock band is no different.
They took their name from the lead singer's sister, Sigurrós, which is a fairly common
Icelandic name, and which means "victory rose"... which, when translated, sounds like the world's
least effective superhero.
And if you're trying to translate their lyrics, there's a god chance they're not even singing
in real Icelandic.
They have an entire album, simply titled with a pair of parentheses, which is literally
sung in gibberish.
It's like every band pronunciation nightmare wrapped into one.
So… good luck with that.
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