Contest Winner!
First, of course, a few last notes about the contest.There were two extremely clever submissions that were past the deadline. First, Eduardo X submitted the album name "Lanky Strut." That's got to be one of the best album names, real or imagined, that I've ever heard.
Amy Benton also had a post-deadline submission with the brilliant band name "Uteri." An all-female band, obviously, and their album name was "Built for Birthing."
Thanks to all of you who entered.
Now, on to the winner. To explain why this entry won, let me mention what I thought about last night. I was leaning toward a particular entry, but then I started thinking about music in general, and music culture, and if any of these entries had any significance beyond being clever.
As it turns out, one did, and it happened to be the same entry I was already leaning towards.
Let me tell you how I understand the philosophy and culture of heavy metal. Mind you, I'm not saying this is the correct interpretation--it's just mine. To me, heavy metal has always represented a darkly cynical view of humanity. In Christian culture, all men have fallen, but they can be redeemed. In heavy metal, all men have fallen, but no redemption is possible.
I think a collateral belief of the culture is that absolutely nothing is sacred. Heavy metal music is irreverant and often deeply offensive. At the micro level, much of it could be considered just noise, really, but at the macro level, when seen in aggregate, what it says about us is surprisingly challenging.
So any band name that was able to combine all this conflict would be brilliant, not just in a band name contest, but in real life. And that's why, unquestionably, the winner of the contest is Brent Pedersen. His band name Improper Pontiff and the album Genurection (which is a brilliant and funny combination of "genuflection" and "erection", although I'm sure you already knew that) are both clever and very representative of real music culture.
I think I'd like Fallen Pontiff even more, but I'm quibbling.
Brent also submitted an album cover, which didn't help him win, but it's a nice bonus, and again, I could easily see this as a real album cover. Here it is:
Congratulations to Brent, and again, thanks to all of you who entered. I have two more album covers that I'll put up this afternoon.
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