Band names beginning with definite article "THE" are ten times lamer than those without

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Flipping through the Spin Top 40 of the year, almost all the bands that start w/ "The" have awful awful names. Tell me that the following band names would not be so much better if they dropped "The."

The Distillers
The Libertines
The Darkness
The Rapture
The Thrills
The Jealous Sounds
The Main Reason YYYs Don't Suck Is Because They Aren't "The Yeah Yeah Yeahs"
The Raveonettes

― Leee Majors (Leee), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 06:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Jealous Sounds and Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs definitely. The others don't sound much different to me.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 06:35 (twenty-one years ago)

The The...definitely should've been The. Or just

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 06:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Darkness. sounds gothy

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 07:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Libertines and Raveonettes are ok without the definite article

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

The Spice Girls would be the suck! Fortunately, Spice Girls are da bomb!

― Leee Trevino (Leee), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 08:00 (twenty-one years ago)

"libertines" without the definitive article sound like a Popstars group

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 08:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Rapture? No doesn't work. The Rapture. That's better.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 09:42 (twenty-one years ago)

There is already at least one death metal band called The Darkness

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 10:07 (twenty-one years ago)

No confusion, then.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 10:20 (twenty-one years ago)

*clang* I meant to type Darkness, without the "the"... the point being it helped to avoid confusion. As you were

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 10:32 (twenty-one years ago)

TS: Smashing Pumpkins vs. The Smashing Pumpkins
Speaking for myself, I prefer the latter, but that's got everything to do with music and nothing to do with absent articles.

― Schwingung (Damian), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

anyone who capitalizes a "The" in the middle of a sentence (unless it's in a title, not a name) is a fucking moron and should be excised from history.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Poor Germany :(

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Wait, I read that wrong. You might want to excise me from history instead. Or I'll just do the job for you.

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 14:52 (twenty-one years ago)

a certain person I know does it all The time and it looks ridiculous.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

My band the Vowels decided a little while to drop the "the" and start calling ourselves Vowels. We love it, but no one uses it. Everyone (well, all 10 of our "fans") still call us "the Vowels" regardless. Plus, it creates some awkward grammatical situations. "I'm going to see Vowels." "Good evening, we're Vowels." etc.

― scott m (mcd), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

regardless of whether or not the band wants it, nearly any band whose name is plural will bestowed a definite article for syntactical efficacy.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:06 (twenty-one years ago)

even releasing an album called "the name of this band is talking heads" -- you really can't get any clearer than that -- hasn't prevented talking heads from being saddled with a "the" almost every time they're written about. damn those syntactical efficacists.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Sparks manage it, but Buzzcocks don't.

― F. Anthony O'Reilly (Ferg), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

The Vowel Movements!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't recall once seeing an article that wrote about The Talking Heads.

The correct practice is to write a lower-case "the" when used in the middle of a sentence, eg "Out of all the Spice Girls, Mel C is the only one of that talent vacuum I'd be tempted to have a drink with", or "Why the Boredoms insist on not using the definite article for their name is frankly beyond me".

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:18 (twenty-one years ago)

at my school's poolhall, in the jukebox, is the work of a band called "The Joy Division"

― fjkdojsdf, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:27 (twenty-one years ago)

your school has a poolhall? with a jukebox? that has joy division?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:33 (twenty-one years ago)

thirteen years pass...

The Dele.

― Mark G, Thursday, 30 November 2017 12:43 (seven years ago)

I gunned hard for the band name Definite Article Plural Noun back in the day but I was shockingly voted down.

― Ripped Taylor (Old Lunch), Thursday, 30 November 2017 13:13 (seven years ago)

All those bands like Foals, Editors, Savages, Villagers, Errors etc. are essentially just 'The' bands too conscious to use a 'The'

― PaulTMA, Thursday, 30 November 2017 14:06 (seven years ago)

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