Every year, the Onion’s AV Club puts out a collection of the Worst Band Names the staff encountered over the course of the year, and this annum’s list is really, really funny. The bands are categorized under headers, eg,

Just Plain Bad
- Dyslexic Speedreaders

Funk
- Hubble Funk-o-Scope

Wookies?
- Legowookie

These are band names pulled from near and far, and they draw on a seemingly infinite number of ways to suck. Now, if you’re in a band, the music you make isn’t a necessarily direct reflection of the name; but, if said band is called Stiffler’s Mom, or, say, Candygram for Mongo, then you’ve set up some hurdles for your band to clear on its way to success. Do fans of Scottish blues music understand the sardonic relevance of Harmonica Lewinski? Will potential showgoers respond to the stinky implications of the name Beneath the Massacre? Perhaps they’d rather soak in the direct command of the name Enjoy the Massacre.

(Sidenote: if you had to call it right up front, which of those two is more for you? It’s not like I’m prone to sitting around digging the massacre, and, outside of my preferences, Enjoy the Massacre is a freaking slogan with the product name replaced. You can almost hear them brainstorming different ways to finish the phrase—the progression from soda to tragedy:

Enjoy Coca-Cola. Enjoy the Burning Sensation. Enjoy Waiting for Hours in the ER. Enjoy Nobody Coming to See You in Intensive Care. Enjoy a Slow & Painful Death. Enjoy Not Just You But Everyone Around You Dying Too. Enjoy the Massacre.

On the other hand, I just don’t think there’s a way the music of Beneath the Massacre is for me. Intellectually, it seems like a nifty reference to the underground, but the accompanying visual image is too complicated. Really? You want to sing to me about the frozen dirt under the mass grave? Eh.)

As you sift through the stunning, almost exhausting number of entries, you’ll discover a single common question—one question that presents itself in every case. Did they mean to.

Every single band name on the list laughs in the face of goodness; this is self-evident. But the thing is, there’s an awareness level involved—a matter of whether the band members knew what they were doing, when they agreed on the name.

The Berg Sans Nipple. Did they mean to.

Yo Moma’s Big Fat Booty Band. Did they mean to.

I Sank Molly Brown. Did they mean to.

It’s a shockingly relevant question: when these dudes chose the name for their band, did they mean to. How much of the badness, if any, was on purpose?

Ringo Deathstarr. These cats meant to be a little playful and a little inventive, I think—they mashed together two things from the popular culture, and they gave birth to something that is new, but feels kind of dated.

Butt Stomach. Yes, is the answer. Yes, they meant it. And this is a good thing to know; because, for every other question that can be asked about Butt Stomach, the answer is no or sometimes.

To Live And Shave In L.A. Confusing, at first—did they mean to? Well, absolutely they meant … something. But what? Is that a happy band name or a sad one? Sarcastic or suicidal? It looks like someone found a Madlib and filled it in. “To ____ and ____ in __.”

Speaking of Madlibs—in case you’ve lost track, the ultimate lesson today is what the ultimate lesson always is:

If you start a band without getting your college degree online, you may end up in Robin Williams on Fire .

The AV Club’s Worst Band Names of ‘07 feature is great fun.