There are plenty of bands who choose names that don't really tell you anything about what they might sound like (who would have guessed that Portishead was a dark trip-hop band?). These eight bands, however, chose names that describe what their music sounds like pretty well.
1. Minutemen
Though Minutemen bassist Mike Watt claims that his band's name was both a play on the word "minute" (meaning small and insignificant) and a reference to the minutemen militias of the American Revolution, it also applies perfectly to the extremely short lengths of most of their songs.
2. Codeine
Early '90s indie rock band Codeine was part of the "slowcore" movement, which as its name implies, is a style of music based around slow, dreary songs. Of course, slow and dreary is how you feel when you take codeine, so their choice of name is pretty spot-on.
3. Gravediggaz
New York hip-hop group Gravediggaz, featuring RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, helped pioneer the horrorcore subgenre, which emphasizes horror-inspired lyrics and production. If their name were simply "Gravediggers," it would still imply a horror bent, but the stylization of the name "Gravediggaz" is distinctly hip-hop.
4. The Beach Boys
Though the Beach Boys would move on to more mature and complex subject matter by the mid to late-'60s, their most iconic songs from their early-'60s period are almost entirely about beaches, surfing, and Southern California culture as a whole.
5. Samhain
Following the disintegration of the Misfits in the early '80s, lead singer and songwriter Glenn Danzig continued to write dark, horror-themed punk with his new band Samhain, which is the name of a Pagan Gaelic festival that inspired Halloween.
6. Metallica
Metallica is the most commercially successful heavy metal band of all time, a band that even non-metal fans often listen to, so it's only appropriate that they would name themselves after the genre that they've dominated so thoroughly.
7. Death
Though Florida metal band Death incorporated elements of thrash metal into their sound, the extreme brutality and darkness of their music kickstarted an entirely new metal subgenre known as death metal. If their name wasn't enough of an indication of their sound, however, their vivid album covers certainly did the job.
8. The Surfaris
The Surfaris were best known for their 1963 instrumental hit "Wipe Out," which is perhaps the most famous surf rock song of all time. However, if you had never heard the song before and didn't know what style it was, you could just look at the band name and figure it out pretty quickly.
What are some other band names that describe the music? Let us know down in the comments section!
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