Having recently noticed the number of successful Australian three-piece bands and publishing my Top 10, once again while walking the dog I thought of the various bands that have numbers in their names.
(Don’t ask me why or what goes through my head while I walk Murphy, just go with it.)
There are so many bands of this genre that I thought I’d nerd it up even more and try to go for a Fibonacci sequence. That didn’t prove possible so I went with an alternative version for my escalating Top 10 here.
Apologies are below (as are those I toyed with but felt what little credibility I had would disappear if named).
Cheers!
List:
U2
Dirty Three
Gang of Four
Ben Folds Five
D12
Heaven 17
21 Pilots
Sergio Mendes and the Brasil ’66
Haircut 100
10,000 maniacs
Apologies: Three Dog Night, Four Tops, Dave Clarke 5, Jackson 5
No apologies: One Direction, Three Doors Down, Hi 5, Maroon 5, Six and Out, S Club 7, East 17, 30 Odd Foot of Grunt
More from Sean Curtain Here.
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About Sean Curtain
"He was born with a gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad". First line of 'Scaramouche' by Sabatini, always liked that.
I’ll offer a few off the top of my head, Sean:
10cc,
Blink 182,
UB40,
Nine Inch Nails,
The Four Tops,
B 52s.
Lucinda Williams live backing band since 2010 has been called The Buick 6
And then there are these great bands:
The 5,6,7,8s
BR549
Highway 101
Old 97s
L7
The Four Aces
My mate Neil’s 80s rock band was called One Out One Back
and singers:
George Hamilton IV
Hank the III
Here’s a few more:
The Loved Ones
The Three Degrees
Ten Years After
The 13th Floor Elevators
Matchbox Twenty
singer:
Loudon Wainwright II – if only for his song ‘Dead Skunk’.
Boyz 2 Men (although lose points for spelling error)
Sixpence None the Richer
From the distant past:
Nineteen Ten Fruitgum Company (“Sugar Sugar; Honey Honey; You are my destiny….”)
Johnny Cash’s backing band was the Tennessee Three
The Dave Clark Five
Franki Valli and the Four Seasons
(No music of any note has been recorded this millennium)
To prove the death of music this century I offer:
2Pac
50 Cent
Five
The 5th Dimension
1927
Electric Light Orchestra Part II
We 5 – ‘You Were On My Mind’ (great song from mid 60s)
Unit 4 + 2 – ‘Concrete and Clay’
Ol’ 55
The Only Ones
Count Five (remember the great 60s garage punk song, Psychotic Reaction)
The 13th Floor Elevators (Rory Erickson’s band)
Sir Douglas Quintet (brilliant band, formed by Doug ‘She’s About a Mover’ Sahm)
The Bobby Fuller Four (I fought the law)
Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five (then, his Hot Seven)
and adding to PBs great call re Johnny Cash, his backing band was also called The Tennessee Two
Finally, not sure this band counts as it is an imaginary band from the Springsteen song, County Fair: James Young and the Immortal Ones
MC5
801
The 101ers
Fun Boy Three
Sham 69
28 Days
Do The Numbers count?
If there isn’t a German punk bank called the Sechs Pistols then there should be
Great pick up re The 101s Swish!
Here are 2 pretty decent UK bands
The 1975 (active since 2012)
Half Man Half Biscuit (started life in the 1980’s and released 17th album earlier this year)
Alabama 3 (The Sopranos lead song, Woke Up this Morning)
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (The Message, one of hip hop’s first big hits that signaled a new, incredibly innovative and enduring genre)
KRS-One, another Hip Hop legend and you might remember him for the REM collaboration
Andre 3000, of Outkast and maybe the best hip-hop-pop song of the last 30 years, Hey Ya
Soul II Soul, late 80s British soul band with grooves galore
M83, French rock band, worth a listen