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~ Monday, February 10, 2003
SHORT CUTS 39 bands who shortened their name: 1 Santana Blues Band > Santana 2 Arabacus Pulp > Pulp 3 Balaam and the Angel > Balaam 4 Chicago Transit Authority > Chicago 5 The Silver Beatles > The Beatles 6 Tripsichord Music Box > Tripsichord 7 Wah Heat! > Wah! 8 Ambrose Slade > Slade 9 X Mal Deutschland > X Mal 10 Generation X > Gen X 11 The Fatback Band > Fatback 12 The Easy Cure > The Cure 13 Hawkwind Zoo > Hawkwind 14 Southern Death Cult > The Cult ^ 15 Tyrannosaurus Rex > T.Rex 16 The Leyton Buzzards > The Buzzards 17 The Nipple Erectors > The Nips* 18 The Moody Blues Five > The Moody Blues 19 The Guildford Stranglers > The Stranglers 20 Silmarillion > Marillion 21 The Staple Singers > The Staples 22 Pogue Mahone > The Pogues * 23 Clan of Xymox > Xymox 24 Kajagoogoo > Kaja 25 Spirits Rebellious > Spirit 26 The Count Bishops > The Bishops 27 The Cranberry Saw Us > The Cranberries 28 The Merseybeats > The Merseys 29 The Glitter Band - The G Band 30 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band > The Dirt Band 31 J Geils Band > Geils 32 The Heavy Metal Kids > The Kids 33 Mott the Hoople > Mott 34 The Special AKA > The Specials 35 The Jazz Crusaders > The Crusaders 36 Dalek I Love You > Dalek I 37 The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band > The Bonzo Dog Band 38 Sweetshop > The Sweet 39 The Troglodytes > The Troggs There are many reasons to change a name - the original was too long or silly or pretentious (note the large number of glam and goth bands on the list). Some bands changed due to the too-rude-for-radio factor of the original name (* mostly bands featuring Shane McGowan). Some even changed twice (^ SDC becoming DC becoming The Cult). Other name changes (see Kaja, Mott) seem to be due to a last gasp attempt at staying on the pop map, or perhaps a legally caused adaptation of a debated name. Here are six further types of name-shortening which I ignored when making the list: 1 Name changes where the band essentially, aesthetically became a new band eg The Small Faces to The Faces 2 Changes due, perhaps, to the band not exactly being the band it was eg The Rollers, The Tops, later versions of The Bay City Rollers / The Four Tops 3 Official adoption of comon abbreviations eg OMD, NKOTB 4 Shortenings used for legal reasons in other countries eg Yazoo, Comsat Angels (Yaz, CSAs in the USA) 5 'XY and the Zs' becoming just 'The Zs' or, say, Patti Labelle and the Bluebells changing to Labelle 6 Shortenings caused by personnel changes eg The Jacksons, S Club (The Jackson 5, S Club 7) Source: various; by RcL (originally Roderick Chalmers Lumsden) |