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On a train of thought inspired by @Bebs' question, there are many one-off fun aliases made up for "off-contract" work : for example Luther Grosvenor as Arial Bender, Bob Dylan as Blind boy Grunt and so on.

"Blind boy Grunt" appears to have also been used by Janis Ian according to this article, so some overlap with the other question.

Is there a musician who is acknowledged to have used the most (different) one-off aliases ? I mean an alias used in credit for individual work on someone else's project, or for a solo work. If the musician's regular stage name is already an alias, that is included.

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    I suppose misspellings, typos, initials don't count, like this artist.
    – Bebs
    Dec 15, 2017 at 7:33
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    alternate spellings I think are still connected to the original name, so not an alias, but valid question.
    – Angst
    Dec 15, 2017 at 17:30

7 Answers 7

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If you have 9, I have 10.

Richie Hawtin has 17 aliases according to discogs.com

"Buzz" Aldrin, 80xx, Childsplay (9), Chrome (7), Circuit Breaker, Concept 1, F.U.S.E., Forcept 1, Jack Master, N. Armstrong (2), Plastikman, R.H.X., Richard Michaels, Robotman, Spark (6), UP!, Xenon

Those bolded are one-off (only one work associated with that name). I count 10.

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Let's not forget a musician so respected, he's often referred to simply as "The Artist", also known as:

Alexander Nevermind, Azifwekaré, Camille (3), Christopher, Crucial (7), Ecnirp, Freddie "The Phantom", Gemini (90), His Royal Badness, Jamie Starr, Joey Coco, John Lewis (23), King (34), Majesty (33), Mr. Simple (2), P. Mann, Rocker Happyfeller, Son Of A King, The Artist (Formerly Known As Prince), The Starr * Company, The Symbol, Tora Tora (5), and

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List is from https://www.discogs.com/artist/28795-Prince and includes 23 aliases, not including his Twitter handles and his real name (Prince Rogers Nelson). It's also worth noting he wrote or produced a number of chart-topping hits under those alternate monikers. I think my favorite might be "Azifwekaré" (try pronouncing it out loud). (I'm not sure how to tell which among these he only used once).

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  • Several of those are nonsense. He never called himself "Crucial" or "His Royal Badness", for instance.
    – BCdotWEB
    Dec 15, 2017 at 16:49
  • An alias needs to be associated with a definite credit or "artist's name" for a work in order to count. However, that is what discogs as a site is about, and although the recordings made as "Crucial" and "His Royal Badness" are bootlegs, they still happened. Harder to be certain of the connection, but I guess they are authenticated in some other way.
    – Angst
    Dec 15, 2017 at 17:38
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    So a name a bootlegger uses to print up CDs on the sly now counts as an "official" alias? Come on, let's be serious. "King", "Majesty", "Mr. Simple", "P. Mann", "Son Of A King", "Crucial", "Gemini", "His Royal Badness", "The Symbol" are simply irrelevant nonsense.
    – BCdotWEB
    Jan 22, 2018 at 11:22
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Answering my own question here, but hope that someone can top this with another answer.

The BBG article also mentions "Bob Landy", "Tedham Porterhouse" and "Robert Milkwood Thomas" as Dylan aliases. American Routes blog adds "Elston Gunn", "Boo Wilbury" and "Sergei Petrov". And "Bob Dylan" is already an alias, so this makes for a score of 7.

but he is outdone by electro DJ Richard James with 9 : ("AFX", "Polygon Window", "Caustic Window", "Blue Calx", "The Dice Man", "GAK", "Power-Pill", "Q-Chastic", "The Tuss"). wiki

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Belgian trance producer Laurent Vérronez is also a contender with a possible 27. It looks likely that the DJ/producer world might be the place to find a winner, but Prince clearly has a strong claim.

The list below is compiled from cross-checking Discogs with NL wikipedia

Airwave, Airwave 2, Airwave 3, Cloud 69, Cosmic Junkie, Green Martian (The),Indoctrinate, L Vesonnez,Larry Laffer, Laurent Verzonnez,Lolo, L-Vee, Magnetix, Meridian, Miami Nights, North Pole,Nova(12),Nurbisa,Sagittaire, Symphony Of Drums, U-One, Velvet Girl, V-One, V-Three, V-Two, Worf.

"Worf" is also sometimes "Mr Worf" but I disallowed that.

Some of his aliases are close to his given name, but the misspellings of his name are clearly pronounced differently, so not the same as an alias to ensure correct pronunciation. Likewise if you allow V-One, V-Three, then you have to allow Airwave 2, Airwave 3....

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There's an electronic artist called Waqs (amongst other things) who has about 33 different aliases, each alias has a separate and different work attributed to. All (or, at least, most) aliases and works are documented in it's own discogs page, all attributed to one person.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/2963464-Waqs

List of some of his/her most known aliases: Waqs, DJ Sailor Moon, Lolipusher, i want to be dead, etc...

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J.G. Thirlwell/Foetus had quite a few. He even made up complete band line-ups only consisting of him, but under different aliases. On Rym, there were about 30 aliases he went by. Another I can think of is James Ferraro with also about 35 aliases. Mikko Aspa of Deathspell Omega also has quite a few aliases, not that much compared to others here, but he once made a three-way-split only with himself. However, many noise/experimental musicians have probably the most aliases. Richard Ramirez is probably the best known example for this, he has about 75 aliases and probably as many bands he plays in. Ivan Sandakov (about 85) and Octa Möbius Sheffner (over 100) are two others with even more, but they're quite obscure. But the one who beats them all is Bobby Maggard. He is a gorenoise musician with, according to a list of all his projects, about 250 aliases. They're also all more or less entertaining, I mean who wouldn't love to listen to a project called "Urethrive Decortico-Xanthomatose Muco Gestated Scaffolds", "Urinary Tract Infection From Severe Pus Clots" or even "Foetal Defects Due to Prolonged Embeyonal Cytomegaloviral Influx Capacity Incidental to Infantile Tissue Circinate Erythema Accompanying Pyloric Buyltic Atresiae". So we seem to have a winner, for amount and aditionally for creativity.

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Ginger Wildheart has a notable amount of side projects alongside his day job as lead singer and guitarist of The Wildhearts. They include:

Super$hit 666, with Dregen of Backyard Babies and Nicke Andersson of The Hellacopters

Clam Abuse, with Alex Kane.

Silver Ginger 5, releasing Black Leather Mojo (2000).

Brides of Destruction.

Ginger & the Sonic Circus

Howling Willie Cunt, releasing World of Filth (2006). Ginger for many years refused to confirm that he was Howling Willie, instead insisting that this was another person who was signed to Ginger's record label, Round Records. Ginger later admitted that he was in fact Howling Willie.

In 2010–2011, Ginger joined the backing band for former Hanoi Rocks lead singer Michael Monroe. He appeared on Monroe's live album Another Night In the Sun: Live in Helsinki and the studio album Sensory Overdrive, which reached #1 on Finnish albums chart and #13 on the UK rock albums chart.

Hey! Hello!, a classic rock-oriented project with singer Victoria Liedtke. Ginger played all instruments for this project, including drums for the first time.

Mutation, an industrial rock/noise project formed in 2012 with Mark E. Smith and members of Napalm Death, Exit International, The Sisters of Mercy, Hawkeyes, and Cardiacs.

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