The Unpronounceables

As none of you may know, I co-host a two-hour long radio show on an Internet station that no one ever listens to, that also happens to be part of the university where I am "studying". Although most of the time we try and play fairly radio-friendly mainstream-ish stuff, it did make me wonder about the pronunciation of certain band names, who seem to have made a conscious decision to not be able to be said on the radio.

I mean, obviously you can't swear. At all. Not even after 9pm really. So SHITDISCO and HOLY FUCK are out. As is ANAL CUNT, but that does without saying. Which is lucky because we aren't allowed to.

But, !!!, at least, when I first heard about them, were completely unpronounceable. Although now I know them as CHKCHKCHK as opposed to "that band that is spelt with 3 exclamation marks", technically speaking that isn't really right either. According to their website "!!! is pronounced by repeating thrice any monosyllabic sound. Chk Chk Chk is the most common pronunciation, but they could just as easily be called Pow Pow Pow, Bam Bam Bam, Uh Uh Uh, etc". Riiiight.

In similar confusion, recent hype band MGMT, referred to most as their abbreviation suggests (i.e. emm gee emm tee), they used to be known as "The Management" and are still occasionally referred to as much by, well, me, in the same way that MSTRKRFT or that Primal Scream album XTRMNTR are spelt without vowels like a garbled text message from your 13 year old cousin.

Another petty annoyance is the pronunciation of toytronica duo PSAPP. Pronouncing it wrong makes it sound like the sound of a bottle of lemonade opening. Protip: drop the first and last letters.

But while these band's confusing names are somewhat self-inflicted, probably to confuse those "out of the loop", for some bands, their foreign names can be a problem. Case in point, absolutely awesome "slow-motion rock band" SIGUR ROS is more than often pronounced in the very English corruption "Sigger Ross", whereas in reality the pronunciation is closer to "See your rose". Their compatriots MUM are also pronounced differently . (actually "moom")

But I haven't got a clue how on earth to pronounce LES SAVY FAV.

COMING SOON: something more interesting.