Until very recently, I thought that voice assistants were a bit of a gimmick for tech addicts or the lazy, but since having a baby last year, I’ve realised that they are a great way to queue up some music when your hands are full.

I’ve paired my Spotify account to my Google Mini home assistant and Chromecast, so I can just say ‘Play X’ and voila, a greatest hits-style playlist starts up on my TV. Not exactly rocket science you’d think, but as the title of this post implies, there are some bands whose names just plain don’t work:

1. A

I have no doubt the band didn’t see this coming when they came up with their obnoxious name, but searching for their music on Spotify via voice command is nigh-on impossible. It just assumes I want to hear anything on Spotify and resumes my last-played music.

2. The Music

See ‘A’ – it doesn’t even work if you ask for ‘The Music, the band’ – you just end up with a band called ‘The Band’. Confused yet? Me too…

3. Hundred Reasons

One I was really surprised by as their name is two fairly basic words put together, but search with your voice and you get…

4. Only Echoes Remain

Maybe because they’re not (yet) a household name, but Google doesn’t know what to do with this band name. And it’s not just because they’re post rock – I was able to request Maybeshewill, And So I Watch You From Afar, 65daysofstatic and TTNG without any problems. However, when I asked for Only Echoes Remain, I got…

5. The Xcerts

Shout out to Claire for this one – if you search for the Xcerts via voice command you get the equally excellent, but really quite different:

6. !!!

Admittedly not a band I often listen to, but I thought I’d give it a go for the purposes of bringing this blog post to a nice round half-dozen. Apparently their name is pronounced ‘chit, chit, chit’, which Google interprets as:

*Sigh*

Bonus tip: If you’ve got a Google Home Hub (or Amazon Echo or Apple HomePod), you can ask: ‘What’s this song?’ when the radio’s playing and it will identify it. No more need for Shazam. Neat, huh?

What I have I missed? Let me know in the comments…