"what band are you seeing next?"
"you know, it's the one that has a bunch of letters"
"SBTRKT?"
"No, it wasn't SBTRKT?"
"Hmm. Not sure I can help you then"
"It definitely had letters though, similar to SBTRKT"
"Was it maybe SHXCXCHCXSH?"
"No, it was shorter than that"
"You're not talking about XXYYXX are you?"
"The xx?"
"No XXYYXX"
"No, I'm not talking about any of those guys"
"Oh, I can't remember what it's called"
*googles "band with name letters similar SBTRKT"
finds link 10 Great Bands with All-Caps, No-Vowel Names*
"Ah, this is extremely helpful. Look I was talking about STRFKR!"
"Ohh, STRFKR! Of course. Man that is very similar to SBTRKT"
"Yeah, but SBTRKT is pronounced subtract and STRFKR is a vowel-less version of Starfucker"
"Oh, that took a turn"
"I guess so".
"Alright, g2g, I'm seeing iamwhoiamamiwhoiam"
"You mean iamamiwhoami?"
"Right"
"Cool, I'm seeing !!! and then ?"
"Catch you later"
The Starbucks test is going into Starbucks, saying your name, and the barista from hearing it once can write it correctly on the cup.
So it's pronounceable and also possible to spell correctly from hearing once.
In our age of 'let me google that quickly', having a band name that a normal human, with no special skills other than language and typing can find quickly on google is in general a good strategy.
The only exception to this is being full hipster and only ever wanting hipsters to listen to your music, where the 'you know it's not pronounced three exclamation marks but chk chk chk' is truly a part of the experience.
Or if you're about to release a highly anticipated album with guaranteed radioplay where you can play a prank on all the radio hosts with track names like these:
So practical. Not at all scary and alienating. The question marks represent greek letters, dice, the infinity symbol, triangles and something that looks other worldly.
The main question this tracklist is leaving us with is if one has to differentiate between the four and the five underscores in the second to last song? "And next up is 'four underscores forty five five underscores' by Bon Iver!". Rolls off the tongue.