This is Our Band Name. Period.
The shockingly interesting history of incorrect punctuation in artist names
Before jumping into our history of band name punctuation, I wanted to let everyone know that on Thursday, October 31, I will be appearing in an online event with my former colleague Dave Edwards. This conversation is part of a series called The Smartest People in the Room that features “one-on-one conversations between music industry executives and personalities.” While I won’t claim to be one of the smartest people in any room, I’m really excited for this. In the past, the event has featured the likes of Stewart Copeland, Bob Lefsetz, Gloria Gaynor, and Simon Napier-Bell, among many others.
As noted, Dave Edwards and I worked together at Audiomack for years. As our Chief Revenue Officer, he has deep insight into the economics of how music streaming works and how it can be better. Recently, he left Audiomack to become the SVP of Revenue & Operations at Warner Records. Over an hour, we’re going to talk all things music. If you want to join us, feel free to register by following this link.
This is Our Band Name. Period.
By Chris Dalla Riva
Before the release of their 2008 album, Pretty. Odd., the Las Vegas pop punkers Panic! at the Disco decided to drop the exclamation point from their name. What seemed to be a harmless move resulted in enough online backlash that the group had to comment on their decision. “It was never part of the name to us,” guitarist Ryan Ross told MTV News. Frontman Brendon Urie went on, “[E]very time I write [our name], I never put an exclamation point in there.”
While the decision may have seemed innocuous, things changed for the group after nixing the exclamation mark. With the mark, the second single from their debut album, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”, cracked the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Nothing from Pretty. Odd. even entered the top 40.
A year later, when the group decided to reinstate the exclamation mark, two members left for other musical projects. Though a reconfigured version of the band would continue to build a loyal following throughout the 2010s, they wouldn’t have another true hit until 2018’s “High Hopes.” By the time that song was released, frontman Brendon Urie was the only original member left in the group.
So, am I saying that the arc of Panic! At the Disco’s career is governed by some cosmic energy surrounding around an exclamation mark? No. Punctuation marks aside, they’ve had a very successful career. That said, their career is illustrative of the fact that musicians take punctuation and typography seriously. Note that as Panic! At The Disco shrugged at removing the exclamation mark from their name, they also put out an album that had two periods in the title (i.e., Pretty. Odd.) Punctuation is serious business. But it wasn’t always that way.
While musical ensembles existed throughout the entirety of the 20th century, most in the first half had pretty straightforward names, especially in the pop world. Often these groups were just referred to as the band leader’s name with some variant of “Orchestra” attached to the end (e.g., Tommy Dorsey & his Orchestra). If that wasn’t the case, the name wouldn’t be anything too exotic (e.g., Andrew Sisters, Ames Brothers, The Weavers, etc.), and it certainly wouldn’t have any strange punctuation. The punctuation revolution didn’t begin until rock bands began to dominate the pop charts after 1955. Before we quantify that revolution, let’s break down the most common punctuation marks used in unexpected ways by artists.
Question Mark
Not common, the question mark’s heyday occurred in the mid-1960s with the success of groups like ? & the Mysterians and Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. It’s clear why the former fits the bill, but what am I talk about with the latter? There doesn’t seem to be a question mark found in either “Frankie Valli” or “the Four Season”. And there’s not. But just as ? & the Mysterians splashed on the scene in 1966 with their proto-punk smash “96 Tears”, Valli and his bandmates put out some horrible music under the name The Wonder Who?, including an Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks-esque cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”.
Though its usage is limited, the question mark’s goal is clearly to evoke some mystery. In fact, during the initial success of “96 Tears”, the frontman of ? & the Mysterians was only referred to by the inquisitive punctuation mark rather than his actual name, Rudy Martínez.
Period
The unexpected period came into vogue in the 2000s with the rise of artists like India.Arie and will.i.am. In most cases, it just seems like artists with generic names used periods to differentiate themselves, like fun. and B.o.B and H.E.R. Others claim the period has more meaning, though. Anderson .Paak, for example, told NPR that the dot in his name “stands for ‘detail’ — always be paying attention to detail.”
Exclamation Mark
While the exclamation mark can function as a differentiator for a generic name in the same way as the period (e.g., P!nk), in most cases it seems to be used convey energy. It came to prominence in the 1980s with artists like Wham!, Snap!, and Al B. Sure!
Dollar Sign
Albeit not a punctuation mark, the dollar sign has become one of the most popular symbols that artists use in their names. Its origin goes back to rappers like Too $hort who made a braggadocios strain of hip-hop in the late-1980s and early-1990s. By the 2010s, it felt like if you were a rapper with an “S” in your name you had to substitute it with a dollar sign (e.g., A$AP Rocky, $NOT, Ty Dolla $ign).
The arc of these oddly-used punctuation marks is honestly sort of odd. We don’t begin seeing artists charting on the Hot 100 with these names in any regularity until the 1980s. By 2013, one out of every 20 artists charting a song on the Hot 100 had an unexpected punctuation mark in their name. Then that rate collapsed. In 2022, you had the same rate of artists with unexpected marks in their names as in 1984. I think this is kind of deceptive, though.
Last year, when I recounted the history of the song title, I noted that in the 2010s we began to see artists using unexpected capitalization and typography in their song names (e.g., “idontwannabeyouanymore” by Billie Eilish, “h u n g e r . o n . h i l l s i d e” by J. Cole & Bas, “XO TOUR Llif3” by Lil Uzi Vert). We see a similar thing with artist names (e.g., WALK THE MOON, Juice WRLD, XXXTENTACION). And when you pool unexpected capitalization with unexpected punctuation in artist names, you see that the rate of artist name weirdness has actually continued to rise. Between 2010 and 2020 roughly between 10% and 20% of songs on the Hot 100 were by artists with odd capitalization or punctuation in their names.
So, what’s causing this trend? Likely the same thing causing the shift in titling: people spending tons of time on the internet. Scroll around on Twitter or Reddit or Facebook and you will see people using punctuation and capitalization in ways that would make your tenth grade English teacher wince. Still, I think something else is at play.
When Josh Homme, John Paul Jones, and Dave Grohl formed the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures in 2009, people were a bit confused by their band name. Jones, the former Led Zeppelin bassist, explained to the Wall Street Journal why they chose to refer to their band by that weird combination of words: “Every other name is taken. Think of a great band name and Google it, and you'll find a French-Canadian jam band with a MySpace page.” If finding a name was hard in 2009, imagine how much harder it is now.
A New One
"Give Enough" by SYTË
2024 - Alt. Pop
One piece of artistic typography that we didn’t discuss in this piece is the unnecessary umlaut. Most notably used to conjure a Germanic undertone by hard rock acts like Blue Öyster Cult, Mötley Crüe, and Motörhead, the unnecessary umlaut has found some usage in the 2010s via non-rock acts like Yeat and Jack Ü. Though SYTË’s all-caps names is very 2010s, it’s use of an umlaut over the final “E” isn’t a stylistic choice. It’s necessary.
Though the duo is currently based in New York City, SYTË hails from Kosovo. Their name is simply the Albania word for “eyes.” Of course, enjoying their alternative strain of indie pop doesn’t require your ocular nerves, but I recommend that you use them. The grainy, DIY videos they release with their songs are quite compelling, especially the video for their latest single, “Give Enough”.
An Old One
"One Girl / One Boy" by !!!
2013 - Alt. Dance
For most artists, one of the key tenets in selecting a name is choosing something that will allow people to find your music, whether that be online or in a record store. We see that with the rise of unexpected punctuation in band names. It might be hard for a new fan to find your music if you give your band a generic name like “Fun”. But make that three-letter word lowercase and throw a period at the end (i.e., “fun.”), and suddenly you stand out a bit more. Not every artist follows this line of thinking, though. In fact, some bands like !!! eschew it.
A California outfit formed in the 1990s, !!! — often pronounced Chk Chk Chk — might be the most unfindable band of all-time. Search for “!!!” on Google and nothing will be returned. And I mean that. Google returns zero search results. That hasn’t stopped !!! from amassing a fanbase, though. The group’s dancey blend of rock and electronic music has amassed tens of millions of plays on Spotify. Their disco-descended 2013 song “One Girl / One Boy” is a good example of how an insatiable groove can overcome even the most esoteric band name.
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While not directly related to band names, I have to say that the outstanding compilation coming from Red Hot in November has left me searching out the original email so I can give you a copy/paste for this: TRANƧA.