At Mobile World Congress 2013 last month in Barcelona I came across this odd stand in Hall 8 (App Planet): Motorheadphones

Now, I know there is an interesting trend in the branding of audio products, where the brand of an artist can become the selling point.
Beats by Dr. Dre are probably the best example of this, and have had a huge market penetration.

However, I was still surpised to see a product whose main appeal seemed to be a good pun.

Anyways, it reminded me of my teenage youth going to see Motorhead and other heavy metal bands (including AC/DC) in venues such as the Ulster Hall in Belfast. In the Northern Ireland of the troubles, this was a comparatively safe non-sectarian way to be a teenager. Later I got more into the more subltle blends of Hawkwind, where Lemmy of Motorhead originally came from, and indeed their signature tune was originally a Hawkwind track.

On a side note I recommend watching Jon Udell’s screencast on the evolution of the “Heavy Metal Umlaut” as an analysis of the culture of Wikipedia. For a more complete discussion try the excellent article by Bruce Cambell Do you want umlauts with that?.

Anyway, back to the day job.