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Rolling Stone: Beatles a 'horrible' band name

Admittedly, there are some questionable band names out there. Nickelback. Limp Bizkit. Kajagoogoo. But The Beatles? The legendary Fab Four who shook up the music world in the 1960s like no other group?

According to Rolling Stone's list of "The Thirteen Dumbest Band Names in Rock History," yes. The Beatles' name makes their bad-name list, published Monday.

"Before you start writing furious comments, stand back and think about this stupid band name." wrote Andy Greene. "The Beatles is a dumb pun. That's all. They took the idea of naming themselves after an insect like the Crickets, but changed the spelling for a pun on musical beats. It's a simple as that. There's no deep hidden meaning. There's no wisdom here. Just a pun that might have provoked a very mild chuckle back in 1962. We accept it because we've heard it 50,000 times and they're the best group in history, but that doesn't mean they don't have a stupid name."

The article also took to task Hoobastank ("vulgar and gross"), Toad the Wet Sprocket (sounds "like the male sex organ"), and Cherry Poppin' Daddies ("where to even begin?"). It included even the straightforward Dave Matthews Band, noting, "There are probably people with less exciting names in the world than Dave Matthews, but we've yet to hear about them."

Readers, of course, had their issues -- much as they did with the L.A. Weekly 2012 list of worst bands of all time we recently covered.

Some disagreed politely, with one reader writing, "You could have done a lot better if you didn't include the Beatles (which is actually clever), and Dave Matthews Band (just a boring name, not the worst ever)."

Some readers didn't agree with Rolling Stone's take on the origin of the Beatles' name and couldn't hide their contempt for the list. Wrote one: "Actually, The Beatles spelled it with an A to reference their love for beat poetry. Moron."

Others defended the other bands on the list, with one writing, "Nobody is sitting around listening to the band name. The MUSIC is what matters, is it not? Hoobastank is one of my favorite bands and I have only once thought to myself, "wth is a hoobastank?" And then some dust floating in the room took priority and my life went on..."

And of course, some readers chimed in with suggestions of bad band names that were left off. Foo Fighters, Neutral Milk Hotel, My Morning Jacket, Dishwalla and others were nominated.

And some felt the topic itself wasn't worthy of coverage. "Rolling Stone should quit publishing stupid articles like these and leave such debates to late night dorm-room conversations and whatnot," wrote one reader.