The Name Game

Here are this week's thoughts on the monikers of bands, albums and song titles, independent of the quality of their music.

*****

Fort Minor, The Rising Tied - This album name's a pun, for sure, but one that isn't easily interpreted. I'm still trying to figure out if the idea of "Rising Tied" is either ingeniously complicated or merely selected out of a continued desire to misspell. After all, Mike Shinoda is in a group called Linkin Park. But I'll give Shinoda the benefit of the doubt because he rules.

The Rising Tied's name grade: B+

*****

Butch Walker, Bethamphetamine (Pretty Pretty) - This song title would be an A+, except for the fact that someone dumbed it down with the parentheses. We smart folk appreciate the first word of the title, but I wasn't exactly shocked when I heard Jessica Simpson butcher it during a Top 40 countdown on Sirius. Just stick with the "Pretty Pretty" part, Jessica. That's what you do best.

Bethamphetamine (Pretty Pretty)'s name grade: A
Jessica Simpson's name grade: D

*****

A Plus D, Decepta-Freak-On - At first, I thought, "Wow, they're trying way too hard to come up with a clever song title, albeit one that borrows a theme from my favorite childhood cartoon." Then I realized that the song was a mash-up of Le Tigre's Decepticon and Missy Elliott's Get UR Freak On. Add the task of grading an artist whose name is A Plus D on an A to F scale, and we've got a complicated scenario.

Decepticon's name grade: A
Get UR Freak On's name grade: A-
Decepta-Freak-On's name grade: B-
A Plus D's name grade: B- (the middle grade between A+ and D)

*****

FlamBey, The Flamerous Life - Hooray for FlamBey/For making my day/With the best and worst name/In hip-hop histor-ay/Hip-hop FlamBey!

FlamBey's name grade: A+ and F
The Flamerous Life's name grade: A+ and F