I will admit that I shamelessly stole this idea from McSweeney’s, a quarterly publication edited by Dave Eggers. That said, these lists are the product of at least 10 minutes of concentrated effort, during which I wracked my brain and tested the limits of my pop-culture knowledge. It was an exhausting but fulfilling experience.
Names of rappers that become markedly less threatening with the addition of one word or phrase:
-Scientific Method Man
-Mobb Deep-Sea Diving
-The Lox and Bagels
-Jadakiss Goodnight
-Rise and Shyne
-DMX-Box
-Christmas Eve
-Missy Elliot Smith
-Petey Pablo Neruda
-Chingy Chingy Bang Bang
-Jay-Z Pack
-Snapple Ice T
-Ice Cube Tray
-Run/Walk DMC
-Dizzee Lil’ Rascal
Crime fighting bands:
-The Police
-Interpol
-Saves the Day
-Warrant
-Sting
-Snow Patrol
And their arch nemeses:
-Thievery Corporation
-The Killers
-Social Distortion
-Minor Threat
-10,000 Maniacs
-Bicycle Thieves
Led Zeppelin songs that can double as predictions for the apocalypse:
-Stairway to Heaven
-Going to California
-Battle of Evermore
-When the Levee Breaks
-Black Mountain Top
-Your Time is Gonna Come
-Good Times, Bad Times
-The Rain Song
-Ramble On
-Achilles’ Last Stand
-What is and What Should Never Be
-In My Time of Dying
Band names that could also be medical afflictions:
-Chumbawumba
-Radiohead
-Black Eyes
-The White Stripes
-Incubus
-The Faint
-Chemical Brothers
-Massive Attack
-Portishead
-Weezer
-Dismemberment Plan
