A Good Name for a Rock Band: Difference between revisions

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== "The" Bands ==

The most timeless of band names, this style of band naming transcends genre and is enduringly popular. Probably because of The Beatles. You can't usually tell a lot about how a band will sound if its called The Whatever. Sometimes a joke will be made about someone being out of touch with modern music by having them add a "The" to a band name that does not usually take a "The," such as "The Led Zeppelins" or "The Alkaline Trio." (In a case of [[Truth in Television]], Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys, Scorpions, Ben Folds Five and others often suffer this. Inverted by [[The Prodigy]], as many people think the band name is Prodigy.<ref> The front cover of their most popular album, ''Fat of the Land'', and the subsequent ''[[Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned]]'' showed only the word "Prodigy." However, Liam Howlett stated that the band's name has always included the article.</ref>) Band names that follow the "The Plural Nouns" style are something of a [[Dead Horse Trope]] and more modern "The" band names tend to be more of a "The Abstract Noun" or "The Adjective" style. Talking Heads were aware of this, and went to great lengths not to be called 'the' Talking Heads, including naming an album, "The Name of This Band is Talking Heads".

The most timeless of band names, this style of band naming transcends genre and is enduringly popular. Probably because of The Beatles. You can't usually tell a lot about how a band will sound if its called The Whatever. Sometimes a joke will be made about someone being out of touch with modern music by having them add a "The" to a band name that does not usually take a "The," such as "The Led Zeppelins" or "The Alkaline Trio." (In a case of [[Truth in Television]], Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys, Scorpions, Ben Folds Five and others often suffer this. Inverted by [[The Prodigy]], as many people think the band name is Prodigy.<ref>The front cover of their most popular album, ''Fat of the Land'', and the subsequent ''[[Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned]]'' showed only the word "Prodigy." However, Liam Howlett stated that the band's name has always included the article.</ref>) Band names that follow the "The Plural Nouns" style are something of a [[Dead Horse Trope]] and more modern "The" band names tend to be more of a "The Abstract Noun" or "The Adjective" style. Talking Heads were aware of this, and went to great lengths not to be called 'the' Talking Heads, including naming an album, "The Name of This Band is Talking Heads".

It should be pointed out, however, that "The Plural Nouns" would be a really great name for a band. Some guys on ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' forum have decided to name their imaginary band that, for the record.

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*** There's also a similar case in the form of a band called :(.

*** For related reasons, the band name "Brazilian Girls" is pretty awesome whether you find a webpage devoted to the band or not.

*** ~~Can--because~~ it's a common word (with two completely different meanings)--so any match is unlikely to be related to the obscure German prog/art rockers.

*** Can—because it's a common word (with two completely different meanings)--so any match is unlikely to be related to the obscure German prog/art rockers.

*** The rapper A+ was widely reported to have named himself thus ''precisely'' to make it a hard search term (specifically on [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|Napster]]).

*** And then there's [http://bash.org/?514353 this], of course...

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* Clark Kent and his Supermen (from ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy'')

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]],'' the main character Harry jokingly regards the local werewolf gang's name (Billy and the Alphas/Werewolves) as a bad 70's band name.

** He later gives Nicodemus and the Denarians a similar name in ''[[Turncoat]]'' ~~-- Nicky~~ and the Nickelheads.

** He later gives Nicodemus and the Denarians a similar name in ''[[Turncoat]]''—Nicky and the Nickelheads.

* Little Tommy and the Underhill Gang from [[Esther Friesner]]'s suburban fantasy novel ''[[Elf Defense]]''.

* Bennie and the Jets from the Elton John song of the same name.

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* ? and the Mysterians. Yes, you read that right.

* There's actually a ''country'' named like this: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

** Now ''that'' is [[A Good Name for a Rock Band]].

** Now ''that'' is A Good Name for a Rock Band.

* [[Huey Lewis and the News]]

* Paul Revere & The Raiders

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* Buddy Wasisname and The Other Fellers

* Diana Ross and The Supremes started off as a The Band until one of them took center stage.

* Johnny and the Self Abusers, a somewhat obscure Scottish punk band from the late '70s. They split up and some of them became The Cuban Heels. The others? Well, they went on to form a much less obscure ~~band -- Simple~~ Minds.

* Johnny and the Self Abusers, a somewhat obscure Scottish punk band from the late '70s. They split up and some of them became The Cuban Heels. The others? Well, they went on to form a much less obscure band—Simple Minds.

* Gerry and the Pacemakers

* Alison Krauss & The Union Station

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** There's also the much more likely story of them wanting a cool name, but, not thinking that "Wasp" was cool enough, punctuating the shit out of it.

** In 1970s/early 80s heavy metal, punctuation was second only to the [[Heavy Metal Umlaut]] for badass typography.

* [[REM]] (Rapid Ear ~~Movement -- a~~ play on "Rapid Eye Movement", but may be a backronym as they apparently picked it randomly from a dictionary)

* [[REM]] (Rapid Ear Movement—a play on "Rapid Eye Movement", but may be a backronym as they apparently picked it randomly from a dictionary)

* [[Slayer]]'s 1994 album ''[[Divine Intervention]]'' gives them a backronym: Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot.

* [[KISS]]' name has been most famously backronymized as "Knights In Satan's Service", though Gene Simmons of KISS usually points out that he's Jewish and that it stands for "that thing you do with your mouth").

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* MxPx started out as Magnified Plaid, which was abbreviated to M.P. for the band's posters. However, drummer Yuri Ruley's handwriting rendered the periods as x's, so MxPx stuck.

* S-K-O, a short-lived country band. It was first Schuyler, Knobloch and Overstreet, but that proved unwieldy so they became S-K-O. After Overstreet left, it became S-K-B when Craig Bickhardt took over.

* [[MGMT]] ~~-- They~~ were originally "The Management," but changed it. Perhaps they realized that their neo-psychedelic rock was more than trippy enough without having to handle the contradiction of visualizing the band in suits.

* [[MGMT]]—They were originally "The Management," but changed it. Perhaps they realized that their neo-psychedelic rock was more than trippy enough without having to handle the contradiction of visualizing the band in suits.

* VNV ~~Nation -- Victory~~ Not Vengeance

* VNV Nation—Victory Not Vengeance

* 'NSYNC, whose meaning is identical to the ENOZ example above.

* XTC, a 70's and 80's new wave band from England. It doesn't actually stand for anything and is not a reference to ecstasy (well, not the drug anyway, which wasn't even known as that when they formed).

* PIL -- [[Public Image Ltd]].

* ~~CSS -- Cansei~~ de Ser Sexy, Portuguese for "tired of being [[Gratuitous English|sexy]]"

* CSS—Cansei de Ser Sexy, Portuguese for "tired of being [[Gratuitous English|sexy]]"

* U.D.O. -- Udo Dirkschneider's solo band after he left [[Accept]]. The acronym has no real meaning.

* ~~DAF -- Deutsche~~ Amerikanische Freundschaft, which is German for "German American Friendship".

* DAF—Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft, which is German for "German American Friendship".

* ~~APB -- All~~ Points Bulletin. (They were a Scottish post-punk band.)

* APB—All Points Bulletin. (They were a Scottish post-punk band.)

* OD TAPO ~~IMI -- Oil~~ Drums That Are Pounded Out Into Musical Instruments. (A Chicago-based steel drum band)

* OD TAPO IMI—Oil Drums That Are Pounded Out Into Musical Instruments. (A Chicago-based steel drum band)

* S.O.D. -- Stormtroopers Of Death

** M.O.D. -- Method Of Destruction (Billy Milano fronts both, and clearly picked similar initials to his earlier band on purpose)

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* REO Speedwagon, named for [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/ReoSpeedWagon1917-cropped-thumb.jpg an early pickup truck-type vehicle], made by the REO Motor Car Company.

** REO Speedealer, whose name parodied the above band... until REO Speedwagon themselves forced them to drop the "REO" part.

* ~~SDFDM -- Shoveling~~ Driveways For Drug Money

* SDFDM—Shoveling Driveways For Drug Money

* M.D.C. - standing variously for Millions Of Dead Cops, Millions of Damn Christians, Multi-Death Corporations, etc

* D.A.F. - Deutsch Amerikansiche Freundschaft (which is German for "German American Friendship").

* ~~LOFT -- Live~~ Our Fathers' Teaching, allegedly

* LOFT—Live Our Fathers' Teaching, allegedly

* WULYF - It's pronounced "woo life", but also stands for "World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation".

* Run DMC - Darryl [[Mc Daniels]], or if you go by their lyrics, Devastating Mike Control.

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* Therapy? - The question mark initially got into their band name when member Andy Cairns misaligned their name while designing cover art, then used the punctuation to try and cover this up.

* !.T.O.O.H.!. (yep them again)

* !!!, pronounced chk-chk-chk) <ref> "!" is also a symbol for [[wikipedia:Alveolar clicks|a click consonant, employed by the International Phonetic Alphabet]], that a non-native speaker could reasonably approximate as 'chk'.</ref>

* !!!, pronounced chk-chk-chk) <ref>"!" is also a symbol for [[wikipedia:Alveolar clicks|a click consonant, employed by the International Phonetic Alphabet]], that a non-native speaker could reasonably approximate as 'chk'.</ref>

* ¡Forward, Russia! -- Confusing Spain with Russia since 2004.

* Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Originally named "Godspeed You Black Emperor!", they changed the location of the exclamation point to reflect the original placement in the title of the Japanese biker gang movie from which they took their name.

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== Grossout/Blasphemy Names ==

What's the most offensive or controversial word you can think of? Well, it would make a great name for a metal band. It's usually quite extreme (often Scandanavian) metal bands that adopt [[Intentionally Awkward Title~~|Intentionally Awkward Titles~~]] like Corpse Raper or something that involves violence, death or sexual taboos. However, whether or not these names are selected for shock value or convention is up in the air. It's very common for death metal, black metal and grindcore bands to have "offensive" titles, but fans of those genres are used to or even expect those sorts of names, and so if there is any intended shock value, it's usually lost anyways. Bands from fiction often have names like this, especially if they are formed by teenagers, and the ridiculous name is an indication of the poor quality of their music.

What's the most offensive or controversial word you can think of? Well, it would make a great name for a metal band. It's usually quite extreme (often Scandanavian) metal bands that adopt [[Intentionally Awkward Title]]s like Corpse Raper or something that involves violence, death or sexual taboos. However, whether or not these names are selected for shock value or convention is up in the air. It's very common for death metal, black metal and grindcore bands to have "offensive" titles, but fans of those genres are used to or even expect those sorts of names, and so if there is any intended shock value, it's usually lost anyways. Bands from fiction often have names like this, especially if they are formed by teenagers, and the ridiculous name is an indication of the poor quality of their music.

=== Grossout/Blasphemy Names ===

* Parodied in the White Wolf Game Studio supplements ''ReignofEvil.com'' and ''Revelations of the Dark Mother''. The former (a satire of the Scandinavian [[Black Metal]] scene - with [[Darker and Edgier|Satanic supervillians]]!) featured mock album reviews of bands called Painsqualler, Buttcannon, Flesh Blanket (a German band) and Shaken Baby Syndrome. The SBS reference ties back to the earlier ''Revelations''; in that book, the Lilith-cultist poet Patricia de la Forge had gained fame as the founder of Shaken Baby Syndrome. ("Patricia de la Forge," incidentally, sounds and reads like a satiric reference to Punk poet Patti Smith.)

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=== Band Names With Numbers Examples ===

* Fictional example: The One-ders from ''That Thing You Do!''. The fact that spelling out the number caused confusion as to the pronunciation of the name was a [[Running Gag]]. "It's the O-NEEDERS!"

* ~~Onerepublic -- yeah~~, it's spelled out, and mashed into one word, but it's there.

* Onerepublic—yeah, it's spelled out, and mashed into one word, but it's there.

* The Matt Kurz One (instead of just "Matt Kurz")

* Plus One might be an interesting side note, at ~~least -- at~~ one point, two of them left, so Plus One was minus two.

* Plus One might be an interesting side note, at least—at one point, two of them left, so Plus One was minus two.

* [[U2]] (named after a plane)

* 3 (Keith Emerson, Robert Berry and Carl Palmer)

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** Their [[Spin-Off]] successors, the even younger S Club Juniors, went the opposite route and renamed themselves S Club 8 when they'd grown up a bit and the original act split. Two members are now in "The-band" girl group The Saturdays.

* [[Nine Inch Nails]], though the nine is always spelled out.

* ~~10cc -- the~~ name is thought to refer to the amount of sperm in a human ejaculate, but it actually came to one of the members in a dream.

* 10cc—the name is thought to refer to the amount of sperm in a human ejaculate, but it actually came to one of the members in a dream.

* 10 Masked Men

* 10 Years

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* [[Music/Thirty Eight Special|.38 Special]]

* [[Crush 40]] (The makers of many of the Rock Songs in the 3D Sonic games including [[Sonic Adventure|Open Your Heart]] and [[Sonic Adventure 2|E.G.G.M.A.N]])

* ~~UB40 -- named~~ after a unemployment benefit form.

* UB40—named after a unemployment benefit form.

* Sum 41 lampshaded this in one of their videos, in they pretended that [[Executive Meddling]] led to their band changing their name because "numbers are out, and "The" bands are in".

* Level ~~42 -- a~~ reference to ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''.

* Level 42—a reference to ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''.

* (+44)--which makes them a "Punctuation Band Name" as well.

* The B-52's - named after a hairdo that resembles the nose of an airplane. Renamed The B-52s for proper grammar.

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* [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/09192001/ Fermented Banana] from the [[Web Comic]] ''[[Wapsi Square]]'', named after [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/09172001/ an unfortunate mishap] by one of the characters.

** NOTE: These early strips look a bit rough. [[Art Evolution|The art gets a lot better.]]

* Oblivion Folder, from ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' ~~-- the~~ band put together by musical legend Donovan Deegan, which consisted of his son, the equally talented Greg, an Orc shaman, and a necromantic golem with a penchant for bad humor. Played a very successful benefit concert, but was never heard from again after that. Some assumed the band name to be a reference to a weird planar anomaly or something, but it was actually a bookkeeper friend's term for a perpetually misplaced file (a ''folder'' that keeps vanishing into ''oblivion'').

* Oblivion Folder, from ''[[Dominic Deegan]]''—the band put together by musical legend Donovan Deegan, which consisted of his son, the equally talented Greg, an Orc shaman, and a necromantic golem with a penchant for bad humor. Played a very successful benefit concert, but was never heard from again after that. Some assumed the band name to be a reference to a weird planar anomaly or something, but it was actually a bookkeeper friend's term for a perpetually misplaced file (a ''folder'' that keeps vanishing into ''oblivion'').

* Mocked in the [[Reduced Shakespeare Company]]'s "The Bible: The Complete Word of God. Abridged." Where, while talking about the Exodus, this line was quoted. "And the Lord God cursed the wicked serpent to henceforth crawl about on its belly. Presumable, the wicked serpent had legs prior to that; indicating that it was more of a wicked lizard. And the Lord God thought to himself that Wicked Lizard would be a good name for a Heavy Metal Band."

** Possible reference to [[Noise Rock]] band The Jesus Lizard, which is actually named after a type of lizard.

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* The World/Inferno Friendship Society (again)

* Blind Melon (though this is also a play on the name of blues musician Blind Lemon). They could also be named after the Cheech and Chong sketch, "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAw-3ERSIIY Blind Melon Chitlin]".

* Wacky word titles are very common in alt/indie rock; of the top of my head, there's The Architecture in Helsinki, British Sea Power, We Are Scientists, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Jimmy Eat World, Manic Street Preachers, Cats and Cats and Cats, Enter Shikari (bordering on made-up ~~words -- Shikari~~ is "Hunter" in Sanskrit), Snow Patrol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lightspeed Champion, System of a Down, Coldplay and Radiohead. An extreme example: there's a polish indie-rock band Kombajn Do Zbierania Kur Po Wioskach, which translates as Village Hen Harvester. There is also Poland's Might Cavalry, which is a local band to Greeley, Colorado.

* Wacky word titles are very common in alt/indie rock; of the top of my head, there's The Architecture in Helsinki, British Sea Power, We Are Scientists, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Jimmy Eat World, Manic Street Preachers, Cats and Cats and Cats, Enter Shikari (bordering on made-up words—Shikari is "Hunter" in Sanskrit), Snow Patrol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lightspeed Champion, System of a Down, Coldplay and Radiohead. An extreme example: there's a polish indie-rock band Kombajn Do Zbierania Kur Po Wioskach, which translates as Village Hen Harvester. There is also Poland's Might Cavalry, which is a local band to Greeley, Colorado.

** One better: There was a Norwegian punk band called "Morten Jørgensen og Spekkhoggerne som fulgte etter danskebåten uten å røre spyet som rant fra ripa", which translates to "Morten Jørgensen [the lead singer] and the killer whales who followed the Denmark ferry without touching the vomit running from the railing".

** System of a Down's name comes from a poem that one of them wrote called "Victims of the Down" (which makes about as much sense).

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=== [[Real Life]] ===

* Fugazi named themselves after a word that guitarist Ian MacKaye found in a book about the Vietnam War. This also counts as an acronym name, as "Fugazi" stands for ''Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In''. Fugazi also happens to be Italian for "fake"<ref>Which might qualify them as a real [[Fake Band]].</ref>.

* Fugazi named themselves after a word that guitarist Ian MacKaye found in a book about the Vietnam War. This also counts as an acronym name, as "Fugazi" stands for ''Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In''. Fugazi also happens to be Italian for "fake".<ref>Which might qualify them as a real [[Fake Band]].</ref>

* Sixpence None The Richer: According to Leigh Nash, the main singer, "[i]ts name comes from a book by C. S. Lewis called Mere Christianity. A little boy asks his father if he can get a sixpence—a very small amount of English currency—to go and get a gift for his father. The father gladly accepts the gift and he's really happy with it, but he also realizes that he's not any richer for the transaction. C.S. Lewis was comparing that to his belief that God has given him, and us, the gifts that we possess, and to serve Him the way we should, we should do it humbly—realizing how we got the gifts in the first place."

* Coheed and Cambria (characters in the story line their albums and vocalist Claudio Sanchez's comic, ''[[The Amory Wars]]'', share)

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* Don Knotts Overdrive.

* [[Joy Division]] (from a book they read about [[World War Two]] history-- "joy divisions" were groups of Jewish or Gypsy women that the Nazis kept for... certain purposes)

** Both '''this''' band and its successor ([[New Order]]) having names with Nazi origins (chosen for [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|shock value]]) has [[Unfortunate Implications]]. However the substance of the ~~metaphor--that~~ "a whorehouse in a concentration camp" described [[Joy Division|Joy Division's]] position within the music ~~industry--still~~ stings.

** Both '''this''' band and its successor ([[New Order]]) having names with Nazi origins (chosen for [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|shock value]]) has [[Unfortunate Implications]]. However the substance of the metaphor—that "a whorehouse in a concentration camp" described [[Joy Division|Joy Division's]] position within the music industry—still stings.

* Maxïmo Park are named for a park in Cuba

* Mogwai are named after the species of Gizmo in the movie ''Gremlins''

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----

== Special subcategory of bands named after ''one of their own'' songs: ==

== Special subcategory of bands named after ''one of their own'' songs ==

=== Named after one of their own songs Examples ===

* [[Black Sabbath]]

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* [[Green Day]]

* Iced Earth

* [[wikipedia:Bad Company|Bad Company]] -- [[wikipedia:Bad Company ~~%28album%29~~|Bad Company]] -- [http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569466647706207 Bad Company].

* [[wikipedia:Bad Company|Bad Company]] -- [[wikipedia:Bad Company (album)|Bad Company]] -- [http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569466647706207 Bad Company].

* Similarly, Blackfield's first album, Blackfield, contained a song titled Blackfield.

* [[Blind Guardian]] ~~-- Guardian~~ of the Blind

* [[Blind Guardian]]—Guardian of the Blind

* Inverted by [[They Might Be Giants]], who wrote a song called "They Might Be Giants", but it went on their third album, ''Flood'', rather than their first album, which was of course called ''[[They Might Be Giants]]''. They were named after a film, not their own song.

* The Shins almost fit this trope: Flake Music, who were essentially The Shins prior to a name change and some switching instruments around, had a song entitled, er, "The Shins".

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* Subverted: [[Restart]]'s [[Signature Song]] is named "Recomeçar" (which translates to "restart", natch), but the band wasn't named after it. It just happened to be a coincidence.

* Schoolyard Heroes

* Nine ~~Days-- they~~ did have a song called "Nine Days of Rain" in their first album, although they insist that wasn't where the name came from.

* Nine Days—they did have a song called "Nine Days of Rain" in their first album, although they insist that wasn't where the name came from.

* 4Lyn started as Headtrip, but they changed their name after the success of their song "Lyn".

* Angels Of Light were originally supposed to be called The Pleasure Seekers, but the name was already taken, so they simply used the name of one of their songs, "Angels Of Light".

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* VersaEmerge

* [[Nickelback]]

** Came from Mike Kroeger's time working at Starbucks, at which the coffee was priced so that the customer would get a nickel in ~~change--he~~'d tell them "Here's your nickel back." Then, when he was asked about a name, he memetically replied "Nickelback" and it stuck.

** Came from Mike Kroeger's time working at Starbucks, at which the coffee was priced so that the customer would get a nickel in change—he'd tell them "Here's your nickel back." Then, when he was asked about a name, he memetically replied "Nickelback" and it stuck.

*** And the similarity to the words Nickel Bag, slang for a $5 bag of marijuana, [[Sarcasm Mode|is purely coincidental]]

*** Coincidentally, a nickelback is also a term used in American football for an extra (fifth) defensive back, coined by analogy with "quarterback" on the offensive side. <ref>There's also a dimeback for a second extra d-back for deep passing situations; presumably a pennyback (a [[Serial Escalation|seventh d-back]]) would be possible in Canadian football, which has one extra player on the field.</ref>

*** Coincidentally, a nickelback is also a term used in American football for an extra (fifth) defensive back, coined by analogy with "quarterback" on the offensive side.<ref>There's also a dimeback for a second extra d-back for deep passing situations; presumably a pennyback (a [[Serial Escalation|seventh d-back]]) would be possible in Canadian football, which has one extra player on the field.</ref>

* [[Coldplay]]

* Finntroll