Genuinely Weird Albums You Love

Also, pretty much anything by the king of “outsider music”, Jandek.

Proud owner of the soundtrack from Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Once More With Feeling.

Are you aware that Todd is going to be doing a one-off show of AWATS in Akron, Ohio?

My favorite review of The Dreaming was “This is what progressive rock would have sounded like if it had actually progressed.”

For genuinely weird but good stuff, there’s not much that beats The Langley Schools Music Project. It’s a bunch of elementary school kids doing covers of 70s hits in the school gym. It’s very, very strange.

Color me intrigued.

There’s always “The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World” but it makes my brain bleed a little. Plus, under the title of the thread, I cannot claim to “love” it, let alone like it beyond it’s “Oh Jesus, no!” factor.

I just listened to a clip or two of that. Any idea where to get the whole shebang?

Amazon has it.

I don’t think anyone genuinely loves the Shaggs’ music. Not even their mom.

I heard ‘wierd’ and though of this one immediately.

Also, from the hard rock catagory I offer two related records from Bumblefoot
Normal

Abnormal

Oooooo, a thread for me. :slight_smile:

Koeeoaddi There (YouTube).

“Born to Laugh at Tornadoes” by Was (Not Was), featuring guest vocals by Ozzy Osbourne. Mitch Ryder and Mel Torme, plus cameos by any musician who’s ever lived in or around Detroit.

Oh, I thought of a couple more that are strange in a different vein.

These are strange albums of cover songs by normal bands. It isn’t really so much weird as it is different and wonderful.

Shoolhouse Rocks! - The songs from Schoolhouse Rock being performed by mid 90s Indy musicians like The Leamon Heads and Pavement. Its a fantastic album. I can not tell you how fantastic it is.

The other one is Saturday Morning Cartoons Greatest Hits which is the same idea but with Saturday Morning Cartoon theme songs. Spiderman as performed by The Ramones or Josie and the Pussycats by Juliana Hatfield.

While I was writing the above I remembered that there is also The Power Puff Girls: Heroes and Villains, original music inspired by The Power Puff Girls. Music by Frank Black, Devo, Apples In Stero, Shonen Knife etc.

Strange albums, but good music.

I don’t think it gets much stranger than Aphex Twin. I mean, this is a man who drives a freakin’ tank. :slight_smile:

Also, I recently dug up Orblivion after finding out that The Orb are doing a show here in Toronto in a couple of months (and yes, I’m so totally getting tickets, if only for the nostalgia factor). It’s as wonderful and weird as I remember it being, and has aged surprisingly well when you consider it was released over 10 years ago.

Other lovely, wonderful, strange bands I like:
Murder By Death: Gospel meets punk meets rockabilly meets indie meets alt country. Plus cellos. And awesome song titles like “Knife Goes In, Guts Come Out”.
Mouse on Mars: IDM for people with ADD.
Noah and the Whale: indie music for nerds, because the world needs more love songs that use molecules as metaphor.
The Dresden Dolls: three words - Coin Operated Boy.

“Hallelujah!” by The Portsmouth Sinfonia (1974)

“Olias of Sunhillow” by Jon Anderson (1976)

Where to begin?

Lol Coxhill – Ear of Beholder. His version of “I am the Walrus” is hands down the weirdest song ever.

Wild Man Fischer – An Evening With Wild Man Fischer. Schizophrenic (literally) LA street singer.

Various Artists – Zapped. A sampler of songs from Frank Zappa’s Bizarre and Straight records.

The Anemic Boyfriend – Guys are Not Proud. Probably the biggest group to come out of Anchorage, this was an obscure new wave single, with unforgettable lyric “Guys are such creeps/They’ll even do it with Sheep.”

The Bonzo Dog Band – their first three albums (Gorilla, The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse, (US title: **Urban Spaceman), **and “Tadpoles”) are chock full of weirdness.

Roger Ruskin Spear – Electric Shocks. Solo album by a former Bonzo member, and as strange as they were.

The Liverpool Scene – The Amazing Adventures of the Liverpool Scene. A group of poets (good enough to be anthologized in the Oxford Book of Contemporary Poetry) that also performed music.

Scaffold – Lily the Pink – featuring Paul McCartney’s brother, the group had a hit in the UK with this old British drinking song. Note that in the video, they deliberately mess up the lyrics.

I love Spinal Tap’s Break Like the Wind. Not because I find it humorous but because I really think there are some damned good songs on there.

Or, more appropriately, their Dad.

Sparks: A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing

Gentle Giant: Acquiring the Taste

The early 70’s had some of the best music ever made.

How long have you got? I eat weird on toast :slight_smile:

My favourite weird band at the moment are Volcano!, seen here performing Africa Just Wants to Have Fun, which doesn’t auto-play but please note that it’s a little bit Sparks, a little bit Deerhoof, and a lot of theatrical moustache pirouetting half-nude in dad pants and lampooning Bono with wild exuberance (“Where’d ya get those shades, Robo-Cop?”). The lyrics fill me with absolute glee.

I do! Honestly. It’s like pre no-wave (Pardon me, taxi for music bore). Real music doesn’t sound right for some time after a listen, though; it’s a bit of a brain-reconfigurer.

Death By Chocolate are pretty odd concept (“confectionery pseudonym of one Angie Tillett, purportedly a teenage chambermaid from the kitschy English tourist town of Clacton-on-Sea”), but Death by Chocolate is so relaxing if you’ve a high tolerance for twee.

The Mae Shi’s Terrorbird might be considered odd if you’re not into thirty-second bouts of glitched-up screaming, but it is a perfect album.

You are rad! Their God Only Knows is beautiful.

I have heard a bunch off of these - really great.

Yeah, I was also going to mention this one. I think THAT may be the all time most psychedelic record ever. My favorite part is definitely the transition from Dogfight Giggle to You Don’t Have To Camp Around - smoothly flows right from a totally fucked-up, whacked out noise track into a classic bouncy Rundgren pop gem.