Name's the Same/Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


As there are literally thousands of potential song-title examples, please do not add any further ones unless (1) the songs really are different songs, not covers of the same song; (2) they really do have the same title, not just similar titles (e.g. Van Halen's "Jump" and the Pointer Sisters' "Jump (For My Love)" isn't an example); (3) they have something else in common apart from the name. And even then, ask yourself whether it would make more sense to create a disambiguation page instead.

  • In the mid-90's, there was a surf rock band named The Havalinas, and an eclectic rock band named Havalina. The latter changed their name to Havalina Rail Co. to avoid confusion. But in 2002, following several personnel changes, and the disbanding of The Havalinas, HRC shortened their name back to Havalina. And now that they've broken up, there's another, completely unrelated rock band from Spain named Havalina.
  • Norwegian metal group The Kovenant was once known simply as Covenant once, and even released their first two albums under the name. Trouble arose when an Industrial group also called Covenant sued them and forced them to change their name. Ironically, The Kovenant changed its musical style to a more Industrial Metal style shortly afterwards, opinions differ on whether this was Growing the Beard or Jumping the Shark, depending on one's musical preferences.
    • To add insult to injury, there's also a Dutch metal band named The Covenant.
  • Apparently, one of the things that contributed to Swedish death metal band Nirvana 2002's splitting up was their name's similarity to... well, yeah.
    • There was also a British psychedelic pop group from The Sixties named Nirvana - they sued the better known band (NOT the Swedish Death Metal group) for the name (they won, but both bands got to keep the name evidently), and even did a slightly tongue-in-cheek cover of "Lithium".
  • An obscure French band called Muse released an album called Innocent Voices in 1997. The English band Muse released their first EP the following year. Many latter Muse fans using file sharing networks ended up downloading Innocent Voices only to be totally confused.
  • There have been two Australian electronic bands called Pendulum . The first came from Melbourne, were ambient house and recorded one album in 1997 called "3 Knocks" before breaking up. The second come from Perth, and are drum and bass/dance-rock and have been much more successful, releasing 3 albums and a live album so far. Of course there are plenty of people who download "3 Knocks" thinking it is by the latter day Pendulum.
  • In the '60s, two British rock and roll groups (The Rolling Stones and a much-lesser-known outfit called The Undertakers) had members named Brian Jones. One of those two guys played saxophone on The Beatles' "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", but there have been conflicting claims over the years as to which one it was.
  • Along with the much better known hip hop group, there have been three bands called Public Enemy in different subgenres of Hardcore Punk - including a white power band that took on the name as a deliberate Take That aimed at the hip-hop one.
  • There's the techno group The Prodigy and the rapper Prodigy. Particularly confusing because the former had a couple of albums where the front cover billed them as just Prodigy.
  • The songs "Fuck You". One by Lily Allen, the other by Cee Lo Green.
    • Canadian hardcore band D.O.A. as well.
    • However, Cee Lo's song later became known as Forget You, unlike Lily Allen.
  • The poppy, upbeat number "Big In Japan" by Alphaville, as opposed to the scratchy, werewolf-voiced Tom Waits song by the same name. And Alphaville's other big hit, "Forever Young", is not to be confused with the scatchy Rod Stewart-voiced song by the same name, even though both hit the US charts in the fall of 1988.
  • The band Kittens For Christian happen to have a member named Neil Young. Obviously, it's not that Neil Young. And there's yet a third Neil Young who's a recording engineer - at least one DJ has scanned the liner notes to Weezer's non-album single "Christmas Song" and noted that Neil Young helped produce it. Which is technically true, but...
  • There are two Nordic bands called Shining, one from Sweden and one from Norway. This would have been confusing enough if they had stuck with their original styles of black metal and jazz, respectively, but as time has gone on the Norwegian one has gone on incorporating more and more guitars into their work, to the point where their most recent album, Blackjazz, is effectively a hybrid of black metal, avant-garde jazz, industrial, and progressive rock. Needless to say, the confusion between the two artists at this point is pretty widespread (not to mention the constant arguments between fans of the two groups), and neither artist is likely to change their name anytime soon since they both started at around the same time.
    • By the way, neither band featured Jack Nicholson.
  • On YouTube, you will find two different artists named Mayhem: The most infamous band in Black Metal... and one of the many, many alias of electronic musician Renard, represented by a shark girl dressed like a raver. The latter's videos have commentators confusing her for the former.
  • Two different famous jazz musicians have the name Bill Evans. One was a pianist, the other is a saxophonist. Both of them have been sidemen for Miles Davis.
  • "Donna" is both a cheesy late-50s song by Ritchie Valens (later covered by Marty Wilde), and a deliberately-cheesy early-70s song by 10cc which sends up the genre of such songs.
  • Alan Parsons produced the Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon, which has a track called "Time". A few years later, he was involved with The Alan Parsons Project's album The Turn of a Friendly Card, which has a totally different track called "Time".
    • There are also unreleased tracks by Yes and Joe Satriani called "Time", and a 1987 rock musical called Time, with a theme song sung by Freddie Mercury.
    • None of these is to be confused with Electric Light Orchestra's album Time, which thankfully does not have a song that shares its title.
    • Or "Time (Clock of the Heart)" by Culture Club
  • Cream: a 1960s blues/rock band, or a 1991 Prince and The New Power Generation song? Or the hit 1994 track by the Wu-Tang Clan?
  • The Beatles narrowly averted this. On Abbey Road the song "Sun King" originally had the working title of "Here Comes the Sun King", which is more than a tad similar to "Here Comes the Sun" that appears earlier on the same album.
  • The Flying Machine was a British pop group of the late '60s, as well as the name of James Taylor's original backup group around the same time. (This led to an album from the latter outfit being called James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine.)
  • There's Gene Simmons, singer/bassist for Kiss. And then there's Jumpin' Gene Simmons, a '50s and '60s rockabilly singer who's best known for his novelty hit "Haunted House". (Neither, of course, should ever be confused with the actress Jean Simmons.)
  • There are 5 known bands called Sugar, the most popular ones being an American 90's alternative rock band fronted by Hüsker Dü's Bob Mould, and a Korean all-girl pop group.
  • There are two songs (by Iron Maiden and Warlock, respectively) and one band called "Wrathchild". Wrathchild, the band, is probably the first Glam Metal band and is often referred to as "Wrathchild UK" to distinguish it from the US Thrash Metal band Wrathchild America, which changed its name in 1993 to Souls at Zero...which is the same name as the third album by the atmospheric sludge metal band Neurosis.
  • There were two bands called The Spinners: a folk group from Liverpool (UK), and a soul group from Detroit. To avoid confusion in the UK, the latter were known as "The Detroit Spinners". Presumably the first lot were known as "The Liverpool Spinners" elsewhere.
  • There's a Britpop group called the Flowerpot Men, and an Industrial group in The Eighties of the same name (whose frontman, Ben Watkins, later founded Sunsonic and Juno Reactor)
  • Scanner is the artist name of a dark ambient musician (Robin Rimbaud), and a German metal band.
  • Many Eurobeat songs reuse the titles of popular songs, such as "Domino Dancing", "Like a Virgin", "We are the Champions", "One Night in Bangkok", "Station to Station", "Send Me an Angel", "What is Love", "I Will Survive", etc. Also, artists from different labels sometimes use the same name.
    • And a few years before the well-known "I Will Survive", there was a different one by Arrival. ("Iiiii -- will survive / Iiiii -- will survive / While I'm alive / I'll survive...")
    • "Send Me an Angel" is also the name of a song by The Scorpions.
    • Modern Talking was notorious for this ("Jet Airliner", "Brother Louie").
  • "Born Slippy / Born Slippy NUXX" by Underworld, which are themselves two different songs, and "Born Slippy" by Richard Durand. Both were probably named after a famous greyhound.
  • "Out of the Blue"; a song by Roxy Music, an album by Electric Light Orchestra, a song and album by Debbie Gibson, or a song by System F(Ferry Corsten)?
    • George Harrison had a song called "Out of the Blue" on All Things Must Pass. David Gilmour had a song called "Out of the Blue" on About Face. The Band had a song called "Out of the Blue" on The Last Waltz soundtrack.
    • There was also an '80s jazz group on Blue Note Records called "Out of the Blue".
    • The German retro synthpop group Systems in Blue also had an album and song of the same name.
  • There have been at least three dark ambient artists named Seti(after the pharaoh) / S.E.T.I.
  • At least two different trance artists/groups used the name Alphazone.
  • Sonique, in addition to being the artist name of Sonia Clarke, was also the name of an MP3 playing application.
  • "Show Me Love" by Robin S. and "Show Me Love" by Robyn.
  • "Point of No Return"; by Expose or Nu Shooz? Both are from The Eighties, and in similar styles.
    • Then there's "Point Of Know Return" by Kansas.
    • Speaking of Nu Shooz, "I Can't Wait" was the name of a Stevie Nicks song from 1985 and a Hilary Duff song from 2002.
  • Mauro "Mark" Farina the Eurobeat producer, or Mark Farina the jazz/house DJ?
  • Patti Smith was an influential proto-punk musician. Patty Smyth was the lead singer of Scandal.
    • Not, of course, to be confused with the Japanese band Scandal.
  • In 1990, George Michael made a song named "Freedom". But, oops, there had already been another song named "Freedom", which he himself had written (and sung) in The Eighties in the pop duo "Wham!". How to distinguish between these two? Well, very simply: just graft the year of release onto the title of the second one! So, the song was named "Freedom 90", which can confuse some listeners who are unfamiliar with the first song "Freedom".
  • A goa-trance group, an Industrial artist, and a heavy metal band all share the name Cydonia. The latter two also both had self-titled albums.
  • Italo-disco artist Gianni Coraini did "Hey Hey Guy" as Ken Laszlo, then later did a Eurobeat song also titled "Hey Hey Guy" under the alias Jean Corraine.
  • Tandu was an Israeli psytrance group. (DJ) Tandu (Ingo Kunzi, as mentioned above) was a German trance artist/DJ.
  • "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes", by Ultravox, or by Ke$ha?
  • There once was a MOD artist by the name of Moby, around the same time that the Moby got started. The former Moby has since changed his pseudonym to El Mobo.
    • There's also a country radio DJ out of Atlanta who goes by Moby.
  • Depeche Mode recorded "It Doesn't Matter" for 1984's "Some Great Reward" and "It Doesn't Matter Two" for 1986's "Black Celebration."
  • Howard Jones is the name of a British synth-pop musician and the American lead singer of Killswitch Engage.
  • Disturbed is either a 00's Alt Metal band from Chicago or a 80's Thrash Metal band from Minneapolis. Both seem to have been influenced by Metallica.
  • There are three bands by the name Slipknot: the well-known nine-man Nu-metal band today, a cross-over thrash band of the 80's with one third the membership of the last and an unknown jam-band from the 90's.
    • Also, Paul Gray is the name of Slipknot's (the nu-metal band) former bass-player (R.I.P) and an English bassist known for playing in Eddie & The Hot Rods and The Damned.
  • Phil Collen is the lead guitarist for Def Leppard. Phil Collins is the drummer for Genesis.
  • There's Nancy Wilson, the jazz singer. And then there's Nancy Wilson, the singer/guitarist who with her sister Ann formed the rock band Heart.
  • Everyone knows Ray Charles, but there was another musical Ray Charles who headed up an easy-listening vocal group, the Ray Charles Singers, in the 1950s and '60s (and who was the male vocalist on the Three's Company theme song in the '70s).
  • In 1978, a British group called The Beat was founded in Birmingham. One year later, an American band called The Beat was founded in Los Angeles. Upon becoming aware of each other, the former began billing itself as "The English Beat" in the U.S., whereas the American band is billed in Europe as "Paul Collins' Beat".
  • There's Mike Mills the REM bassist, and Mike Mills the director and graphic designer. You wouldn't think there'd be a lot of room for confusion between the two, but the latter often directs music videos and designs album artwork, and he was even a member of the Cibo Matto side-project Butter 08.
  • John Lennon, Wilson Phillips, Yes, Benjamin Orr, En Vogue, Badfinger, and Good Charlotte are just some of the artists with different songs called "Hold On".
  • In the mid-80s, three different songs with the title "The Power of Love" were released: one by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, one by Huey Lewis and the News, and the other by Jennifer Rush (which later got covered by Celine Dion).
    • The most well known of the three, of course, is the Huey Lewis song.
    • The versions by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Jennifer Rush were UK #1s within the space of a year (Huey Lewis's version wasn't). In 1976, two quite different songs called Forever and Ever (by Slik and by Demis Roussos), both topped the UK chart within six months.
  • bôa is an English alternative rock band. Boa is a Korean pop singer. Adding to the confusion, songs by both have been used as anime theme songs (Serial Experiments Lain in the case of the former, Inuyasha and Monkey Typhoon in the case of the latter.)
  • In the 1975's, there was a folk-rock band named Jubal's Last Band, who shortened their name to Jubal. In 1975, they had a chance run-in with a country-rock band, also named Jubal, at a Maranatha Music Group meeting. Upon realizing the overlap, both bands immediately changed their names--the folk band became Daniel Amos and the country band became Gentle Faith.
  • Korn is the name of a Nu-metal band. It's also the name of a Japanese pop artist known for his appearances on Iron Chef.
  • Engelbert Humperdinck was a turn-of-the-century German composer best known for his opera Hansel and Gretel. In the '60s a British pop singer named Arnold Dorsey adopted "Engelbert Humperdinck" as his stage name...and, eventually, as his legal name.
  • Randy Jackson: One of the Jacksons, or the session bassist who is now a judge on American Idol?
  • Aside from the post-grunge band, there are a few other bands called Fuel - the most prominent is a San Francisco punk band heavily influenced by Fugazi (enough so that they earned the nickname "Fuelgazi"). Once the album Monuments To Excess by the latter was reissued, some fans of the post-grunge band occasionally mistook it for some kind of collection of their early work and presumably thought there was some serious Early Installment Weirdness going on.
  • "Dancing With an Angel", a Eurodance song by Double You, or Solid Base? And by the way, there was also a now-deceased Dutch happy hardcore artist named Solid Base.
  • How many songs titled "I'll Be There" can you name?
  • The Eurobeat song "Sky High" by Lucyfer has no relation to the Jigsaw song, which ironically also had a Eurobeat remix (based on Newton's version).
    • Yet another song titled "Sky High" was composed by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi for Daytona USA.
    • Neither should be confused with the movie starring Kurt Russell.
  • The BBC once announced that their Record Library's catalogue included over 400(!) different tracks called "Goodbye" -- although it's likely that a lot of them were cover versions of earlier ones. Those which were different from one another include those by Flanagan & Allen, by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, and by Mary Hopkin.
  • There were two blues harp-blowers/singers in Chicago named Sonny Boy Williamson. The first was John Lee Williamson, who recorded in the 1930's and 40's. The second Sonny Boy's real name was Rice (or Aleck) Miller, and he recorded after the original Sonny Boy's death in 1948. To avoid confusion, the latter singer is often referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II.
  • There were two One-Hit Wonder singers named Sylvia. The first charted in 1973 with "Pillow Talk"; the latter charted in 1982 with "Nobody" (this Sylvia did have a few more hits on the Country charts). The two singers are quite different; the former is black, and the latter is white.
    • In the late 90's/early 2000's, a one-track wonder also named Sylvia did a cover of Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You".
    • Another Sylvia is a Swedish singer.
  • George Strait cut two different songs called "She'll Leave You with a Smile" five years apart and released the newer one as a single.
  • Collin Raye did the same with two different songs both titled "If I Were You", but in his case the gap was only three years — and the latter came only one year before Terri Clark released a third song of the same name.
  • Both Reba McEntire and John Michael Montgomery released different songs called "How Was I to Know" at opposite ends of 1997. Both even went to #1 on the Radio & Records charts.
  • Jimmy Rogers (pop pianist), Jimmy Rogers (Chicago bluesman), Jimmie Rodgers (early 20th century country singer known as the Singing Brakeman) or Jimmie Rodgers (pop singer known for his song "Honeycomb")?
  • Exile: American country/rock band that used to be a pop band ("Kiss You All Over") or Japanese pop band with 14 members?
  • Defied by Alan Jackson, who wanted to release his song called "Home" in 1990 but decided against it after Joe Diffie released a song of the same name. Jackson's "Home" was finally released in 1996. Then there's the issue of Blake Shelton's cover of the identically-titled Michael Bublé song...
    • And then there's that song by Daughtry...
      • Jethro Tull has a song called "Home" from the Stormwatch album, while "Home" is also a Roger Waters song from 1987's Radio KAOS.
  • There are also two unrelated country music songwriters named Anthony Smith. One was born Ralph Anthony Smith, and the other is typically credited as Anthony L. Smith to avoid confusion. The former usually writes with a marked rock influence, while the latter usually writes ballads (and is black). Interestingly, Montgomery Gentry's Carrying On album features songs co-written by both Anthony Smiths.
  • Also in country music, there's Tim James (co-writer of Toby Keith's "My List" and The Lost Trailers' "Holler Back"), who is not the same person as pop songwriter-producer Tim James (who typically works with Aly & AJ and Miley Cyrus). Even Allmusic conflates the two, but a quick search on BMI shows them to be separate people.
  • "Thong Song". One is a song about the underwear recorded by Sisqo, with a pretty big Hatedom. Another is an awesome Kyuss song about the brand of shoes.
  • There are two bands named Indica--one (the more famous one, relatively speaking) is a Finnish rock band associated with Nightwish, the other is an Argentine electronica band. It's not just buyers on Amazon who get them confused--the former's Myspace page includes music from the latter.
  • There are two bands by the name of Artful Dodger. One is a 70's rock band from the US, the other is a popular British R&B & UK garage band. Ask any music fan and most of them will only know about the latter.
  • Steve Martin was the stage name of the lead singer of the Baroque Pop band The Left Banke in The Sixties. He later added "Caro" after the comedian of the same name became well-known.
    • And the latter Steve Martin is an accomplished bluegrass player, no less!
  • There's The Avalanches, an electronic music group known for their extensive use of Sampling, and The Avalanches, a 60's surf group whose gimmick was winter-themed song-titles and Christmas Song covers. The latter is much more obscure, but albums by both show up when you look up the name on itunes. Interestingly, the electronic Avalanches included a Shout-Out to the surf-rock band in the video to "Frontier Psychiatrist": A giant record of the other Avalanches' Ski Surfin' shows up as a prop towards the end of the video.
  • A 50's R & B vocal group and a currently active indie rock band formed in the 90's share the name The Wrens. As with the Avalanches example, looking up the name on iTunes gets you albums by both.
  • There are two bands called Solstice, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States, and they play Doom Metal and Death Metal respectively. Same name, very different sounds.
  • Confusingly enough, Thin Lizzy have two completely different songs called "Sarah": One was released in 1972 and is about Phil Lynott's grandmother, and the other was released in 1979 and is about his then newborn daughter.
  • Jack Johnson, Guster, The Decemberists, Mark Sandman, and Bjork have all written a song called "Cocoon," and there are five bands with that name as well.
  • There's an acoustic singer, an R&B singer, and an electropop singer all named Kelly Rose. The first appears to be of Hispanic descent, the second is a blonde from New Zealand, and the third is a brunette from Rancho Santa Fe, CA. The latter two both prominently use Auto-Tune in their songs.
  • Samantha Cole did two different songs called "Obsession". The latter, which was never released to the public, was a cover of the Animotion song (which was itself a cover of a Michael Des Barres & Holly Knight song).
  • For a while, there were two metal bands named Shaman, one from Finland and one from Brazil. The Finnish band changed their name to Korpiklaani.
  • "Hold Me Tight": The Beatles' effervescent 1963 tune and Johnny Nash's reggae-tinged 1972 hit.
    • Paul McCartney And Wings recorded an entirely different "Hold Me Tight" as part of the suite at the end of Red Rose Speedway.
  • Comedy but recorded entertainment nonetheless: "Who's On First" (about baseball) by Abbott & Costello, and "Who's On First" (about rock and roll acts) by the Credibility Gap.
  • "Somewhere Out There", a trance song by Mythos & DJ Cosmo, bears no resemblance to the Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram ballad.
    • Or the song by Our Lady Peace.
  • There were three groups called The Firm: one did "Radioactive," one did "Star Trekkin'," and one did "Firm Biz." The first one had Paul Rodgers & Jimmy Page (among others), and the last one had Nas & Foxy Brown (among others). The second one had nobody of note.
  • The Wall of Sound either refers to a lush studio recording technique or a precise live sound system.
  • Yaz (known as Yazoo in England) was an early 80's New Wave synthpop duo. Yazz (Yasmin Evans) was a late 80's solo pop singer.
  • There are two Scandinavian bands called the Teddybears on iTunes. One's a Swedish electro-rock group; the other's a Norwegian garage-rock group. Neither of these is to be confused with the American doo-wop group of the same name from the 1950s.
  • Bruce Dickinson is both the lead singer for Iron Maiden and a creepily emaciated record producer (based on a real person, incidentally) who's "gotta have more cowbell!"
  • Jon Secada, Oingo Boingo, and John Cena (yes, the WWE wrestler) have all recorded songs titled "Just Another Day." None of them are exactly what you would call happy tunes.
  • The soundtrack to Wizards of Waverly Place has THREE songs entitled "Magic" on it, each of which were marked by one or more asterisks matched to the artists who originally performed them. (The songs were originally performed by The Cars, Pilot, and Olivia Newton-John)
  • Kamen Rider Double's songs have this, but they're named after some Disney songs: Nobody's Perfect and Naturally. The former song has two: One of a upbeat song sung by Hannah Montana, the other is a gloomy one by Koji Kikkawa. The latter one: One's an upbeat song by Selena Gomez (and the Scene), the other sung by Wakana Sonozaki. Double ponts: It helps that Avex distributes The Walt Disney Records/Hollywood Records label in Japan, and Avex is the one making songs for the Kamen Rider Franchise since 2001, so the titles are (maybe) coincidence.
  • Silent Hill's soundtrack album has two different tracks titled "Never Again".
    • "Never Again" was also popular for Nickelback and Kelly Clarkson
      • It is also a recent song by the reformed original lineup of Asia.
  • Thomas A. Dorsey was an African-American gospel musician. Tommy Dorsey was a Caucasian big band leader. Both are honored (and disambiguated) as part of the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.
  • Three prominent jazz musicians: Benny Green (US pianist), Benny Green (UK saxophonist) and Bennie Green (US trombonist).
  • The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles once managed to confuse the actor Clint Eastwood with the very definitely not-related Jamaican reggae duo Clint Eastwood & General Saint.
  • There's Ray Davies of The Kinks, but also another Ray Davies who is one of the leading composers of production/library music in the UK. Without knowing it, most Brits, unless they're really avid Kinks fans, will almost certainly have heard much more of the latter's music than the former's.
  • Take your pick from "Baby Baby": Smokey Robinson's smooth and wistful version, or Amy Grant's squeaky-clean pop hit from 1991 (a.k.a. "Hearts In Motion").
  • "It's Too Late": Bobby Goldsboro's 1965 tune, Carole King's 1971 cut from her album "Tapestry," or Robin Trower's progressive take from 1981.
  • LIGHTS is either a Canadian electropop singer, an Irish synthpop artist (Neil Dixon, aka LIGHTS DC), or a prog-rock band.
    • And then there's the Journey song "Lights".
  • There was a band in the early 1990s called Courtney Love, which confusingly appeared on the same compilation as Nirvana.
  • "Woman": Peter and Gordon's 1966 tune (written by Paul McCartney under the pseudonym Bernard Webb) and John Lennon's 1980 ballad to wife Yoko.
  • Lindsay Cooper: English female oboe player, member of the band Henry Cow, and session musician on Mike Oldfield's album Hergest Ridge. Lindsay L. Cooper: Scottish male bass violinist, session musician on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells.
  • There's John Anderson, the country singer. Then there's Jon Anderson, lead singer of Yes.
  • There is an alternative folk-rock guitarist-singer-songwriter from New York called Roger Manning. Another Roger Manning, a keyboardist, worked with Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, Moog Cookbook and Air, who produces solo albums. The later one, to avoid confusion, is credited under Roger Joseph Manning Jr. He has lampshaded this with great Self-Deprecation on his website. Interestingly, both have worked with Beck. All Music has put folkie Roger and power-popster Roger in similar lists, by the way.
    • Interestingly, former Jellyfish bassist Tim Smith shares a name with the leader of the Cadiacs.
  • During The Eighties, Whitesnake, Richard Marx and Survivor all had songs called "Children Of The Night", none of which were covers of one of the others.
    • And one decade later, German eurodance band Masterboy also released a song with this name, and it wasn't cover of any of aforementioned songs.
  • Andy Bell is the name of both the singer in Erasure and the bassist (now guitarist) in Oasis/Beady Eye
  • Both Alexia and Lady Gaga have released songs called "Money Honey".
  • Incidentally, there have been at least two artists calling themselves Alexia. The aforementioned one is Italian, the other English.
    • Also, Alexia (Phillips), a Latina-American singer.
  • Ann Murray is an Irish opera singer. Anne Murray is a Canadian country singer.
  • The Oak Ridge Boys released two songs called "Come On In": one in 1978 and another in 1985. The newer one is subtitled "Come On In (You Did the Best You Could Do)" to avoid the confusion, although Allmusic listings still credit the former to the writers of the latter. Interestingly, they both peaked at #3.
  • Edge of Insanity is either Tony Macalpine's first album, or a Skinny Puppy song.
  • The EBM bands Assemblage 23 and Colony 5 both produced songs titled "Ghosts".
  • Jamey Johnson is a country singer. Jamie Johnson is a member of the bluegrass group The Grascals.
  • Keith Urban recorded two different songs titled "Without You". The first was when he was still a more pop-oriented singer in Australia in 1991, and the second was a number-one country hit in 2011.
  • "Fuck the Millennium" was a song by 2K (The KLF), and later a Scooter song.
  • Orbital is a techno duo from the UK. The Orb is an ambient electronic duo from the UK. William Orbit is an electronic composer from the UK. All three of them were active in the 90s and afterwards, and all three of them released remixes of other people's songs labeled "Orbital Remix".
  • Pirates of the Mississippi and John Anderson, two country music acts, released albums named Paradise only a few months apart (April 1995 and January 1996, respectively). While this would not typically be notable, both albums have the same song as their title track (although only Anderson's version was a single).
  • Not exactly identical titles, but Cheap Trick have two different songs called "O Claire" and "Oh Claire". "Oh Claire" was a very short bit of Album Filler on 1978's Heaven Tonight, which was meant as a Shout-Out to their Japanese fans (the only lyrics being "oh, Konnichiwa"). "O Claire", on the other hand, was a full-fledged four minute song on their 2006 album Rockford. The title of both would be a pun on the city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
  • Both Madonna and Avril Lavigne have songs called "Don't Tell Me."
  • Believe it or not, but Led Zeppelin's quintessential hit was not the first song to be entitled "Stairway to Heaven". Eleven years earlier, in 1960, Neil Sedaka also recorded a song with that title. Interesting enough, Neil Sedaka's song managed to hit number nine on the Billboard charts -- while Led Zeppelin's song never even hit the charts, as it was never released as a single.
  • Locust is the ambient techno project of Mark Van Hoen. The Locust are a noise rock band.
  • There were two different bands called The Monks: One is a garage rock band formed in the sixties by American soldiers stationed in Germany. The other was a group formed by former members of The Strawbs to spoof early Punk Rock.
  • Edge of Dawn was the name of a song from the Swedish industrial/futurepop band Covenant's first album, and also the name of a German futurepop band.
  • Blue October is the name of both a British band and an American one.
  • Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez both have songs called "The Way I Loved You" about pretty much the same thing. Gomez's is more mournful, though. Bonus points for coming out within a year of each other.
  • Two of the biggest 90s Alternative Rock bands, Radiohead and My Bloody Valentine, had songs entitled "All I Need".
  • Summercamp were an Alternative Rock band who released one album, Pure Juice, in 1997, and had songs appear in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Baseketball. Summer Camp are a currently active indie pop duo.
  • Another case where punctuation makes all the difference: The Go! Team (a six-piece British band who were formed in 2000) and The Go Team (an American group from the 80's whose main members were Beat Happening's Calvin Johnson and Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail).
  • The music industry has two guys named Jonathan Davis; one is the lead singer for Korn, and the other is rapper Q-Tip's real name. Korn was on one of Q-Tip's songs, too.
  • There is the Indie Pop band from Glasgow, Scotland named Camera Obscura, and then there is a synth-heavy Post-Hardcore band from San Diego also named Camera Obscura who only released one album.
  • Sad, But True: a song by Metallica? Or Jill Valentine's boss theme?
  • In the early 90s, music journo Fred Dellar noted that he knew of twelve different actively gigging groups called Surrender Dorothy. There have been more since.
  • There are a bewildering number of different groups called Crossfire. A few appear to be named for the literal concept of crossfire, but the bulk seems to be split about evenly between Christian Rock / gospel groups, and heavy metal bands with an anti-religious stance.
  • Long before the more well known 90's adult alternative band, Toad The Wet Sprocket was the name of an obscure 70's British hard rock group. Both of course got their names from a Monty Python skit mocking nonsensical band names.
  • One lineup of the group Trotsky Icepick had a bassist named Mike Patton, but it wasn't that Mike Patton.
  • Digital Base is a Spanish breakbeat producer. Digital Base Project is a Russian eurodance band. And the latter was formerly known as simply Digital Base.
  • David Bowie originally wanted to use his real name, David Jones, but adopted the stage name to avoid confusion with The Monkees' Davy Jones.
  • The Visual Kei band Versailles, when they learned there were other bands with the same name in America, extended their name to Versailles-Philharmonic Quintet.
  • Heavenly: wait, do you mean the French Power Metal band or the now-disbanded British indie pop band?
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau had the misfortune of writing two unrelated one-act operas titled Anacréon. On Wikipedia, you can find both of them to solve the problem.
  • "Heartbreaker" is the name of a multitude of unrelated songs. Two of the most popular are by Pat Benatar and Led Zeppelin.
  • U2 and Linkin Park share two song names (Numb and One Step Closer).
  • Mono is the name of both a Japanese Post Rock group and a British trip hop duo (the latter broke up after releasing one album, Formica Blues).
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