I never really thought sticking a bunch of silly words together made a song weird, especially when it’s over pleasant pop music.
I’m going Gwen Stefani’s new single, “Wind It Up.” It tries to turn The Sound of Music into a club track. The chorus is yodelling. That outweirds a good 90% of the music in this thread.
Olias of Sunhillow by Jon Anderson.
For me it sounds like Tolkien’s High elves, high on mirovor (or something), and sucking on helium at times while they sing.
Very compelling. For me anyway.
The sheer lucky coincidence of a random hit in iTunes brought this one to mind: Squonk Opera.
I picked up what was, so far as I know, their very first CD back when I was going to school at Pitt, and it’s definitely a touch peculiar. It’s interesting to see what they’ve gone on to; hopefully I’ll make it back sometime to see them.
I love that, Qadgaop!
Reminded me, just a little, of Comus from First Utterance. (Though Comus is all acoustic and, IMO, even stranger).
Oops, didn’t realize you can’t link directly to the song. If you want to hear it, you have to go to the record company website, type “Comus” into the search engine and then click the MPEG stream “Song to Comus.”
Not entirely sure you’ll be glad you did. They’re kind of an acquired taste. [cubed]
Here are a few bands that I think tend to be kinda weird. I’m omitting other-cultural stuff that may not be weird if you were more familiar with it. (I haven’t read most of the thread, so I’m sure there will be some duplicates.) This list is in no particular order.
Also, you might want to Google for “outsider music”.
Also check out the stock at Wall of Sound.
Pauline Oliveros: Heavily-distorted electronic accordion. I’m not especially fond of this, but it’s interesting.
Johnny Dowd: Tortured country noir.
Hawkwind: The definitive spacerock band. I suspect other people would think them weirder than I do, but any band that put out a live double album about Elric probably deserves a spot on the list.
Robert Calvert: The mad poet of Hawkwind. Had a thing for concept albums.
Throbbing Gristle: They invented industrial music.
Chrome: More early industrial. Get into an altered state of consciousness and play it loud. The aural equivalent of an ice pick slowly driven into your skull…in a good way. See also Helios Creed.
Coil: An offshoot of Throbbing Gristle (along with Psychic TV). See also Black Sun Productions.
The Damo Suzuki Network: The vocalist from Can channelling the spirit of the universe. With the boys from Pressurehed and Farflung serving as backing musicians.
The Residents: Too much variety and weirdness to describe in a single bullet point.
The Trachtenberg Family Slide Show Players: They’d buy boxes of old slides at yard sales, then make up songs about them. Managers’ meetings at the McDonalds Corporation never sounded so good before.
The Blood Brothers: Post-hardcore.
Modest Mouse: The early stuff, anyway.
Im Silo: This was a one-off binaural recording of mellow-ish music done in a big silo. Even at low volume, the reverberations make you queasy.
A Midnite Choir: I don’t think this band was weird, but other folks might. Imagine the unholy offspring of Tom Waits and Spike Jones. See also Circus Contraption.
Is ambient dark electronica considered weird? There are a whoooole lot of bands doing that.
Wall of Sound? A friend of mine has been single-handedly keeping that place in business for about 12 years.
No love yet for Harry Partch? Not my taste, but I’m just awed by the creativity. If being an artist means knowing when to break the rules of your art, this guy certainly qualifies. 8-note scale? Bah, 43-notes, that’s the ticket. Which meant building all his own instruments.
And one of his riffs should be instantly recognizable to any Dr. Demento fan.
I love the Miami Vice soundtrack by Jan Hammer.
Has anyone mentioned The Shaggs yet? They’re Philosophy of The World is amazing. And funny. Also is Wendy Carlos’ music considered weird?
Oh what a fun thread. I see a lot of familiar stuff here! I am looking forward to checking out the stuff that isn’t familiar.
I know Charlie Lester is a contemporary thereminist - his website has a lot of info. He’s done recitals in the L.A. area.
May I add Crispin Hellion Glover’s album to the pile of weird? His cover of These Boots Are Made For Walkin is not to be missed. Yeah it’s the same Crispin Glover from Back to the Future.
I can’t say I keep him in heavy rotation, but I retain affection for Wesley Willis.
Combustible Edison is fun, reminds me of the 1000000 Ultra-Lounge compilations that Husbandguy has accumulated, which are worthy of note in their own right.
Colors by Ken Nordine is a sort of spoken word-jazz poem stuff. Did you hear that Olive? didja?
How about:
Area - Crac! – Massively entertaining and amusing Italian group, its vocalist, Demetrio Stratos, is an incomparable virtuoso, and this truly unique progressive/fusion/avant garde group/album is not to be missed – “Demetrio took the human voice into realms that were hitherto unexplored. He sang of course - and he yodeled and shrieked and cooed and performed vocal gymnastics that were absolutely mind-blowing.” – Reviews: Area - Crac! – Quasi-English translation of lyrics: here
Missus Beastly - second eponymously titled album (1974) – Great hard German fusion with not one, but two flutes, including titles such as “Vacuum Cleaner Dance” and “Paranoidl”
Secret Oyster - Straight To The Krankenhaus – Great Danish jazz fusion group. The escalating speed and energy of the sax on the cut “Traffic & Elephants” is amazing. “Yes, these guys are that good!!”
Das Ich - saw them play live at a tiny festival in Belgium a few years ago. Hadn’t got a clue what they were on about, and I still haven’t. I even bought one of their CDs because they were such a bizarre band. I’m sure the lyrics of one of their songs was “chocolate beer will make you fear”.
I like The Gothsicles–a goth/industrial band that does parody songs about 8-bit video games, the inability of German industrial bands to write good English lyrics, and other strange subjects.
I don’t know how weird this is, but I also like C. W. McCall (of '70s “Convoy” fame)–he’s got a lot of other songs that not too many people have heard.
In the vein of Comus, there is also Circulus. Here’s a link to their video, available on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2OavLPpPVw
(Note: I love their stuff, and still couldn’t suppress my giggles watching the video.)
I actually saw them in concert several years ago and own their first CD. They were a lot of fun. If I recall, they got their name from the Genesis album Trick of the Tail but Genesis got the word from elsewhere so maybe not.
No Sqonk Opera here, but this was my podcast of pretty weird music. It’s almost all pop-influenced weirdness though, so nothing there may be weird enough for this thread.
There are tons of theremin bands/solo artists on MySpace.
Incidentally, the video’s been released on the 'net, and is mentioned on their official homepage, although the actual link there is not to youtube, but to another site, which is broken. The possible copyright concerns slipped my mind with the thrill of posting. 
I love Polyphonic Spree. If Everything Starts At The Seam doesn’t put you in a good mood, you seriously need some Prozac.
Bjork has done some neat stuff, and her videos are also insane.
I have a special fondness deep in my heart for jpop that I know is bad. Shut up. I have every Inuyasha opening theme on my iPod, and I stand proud!
I really like swing music, but that isn’t weird, more like my enjoyment of it is unusual for my age and environment.
Gah, should’ve been ‘their’.
I have a few Mrs. Miller tracks. Funny as hell. A friend sent me some tracks by some Florence someone singing opera tunes horribly. She supposedly came out with real records - not sure when - in the '50s maybe? Can’t remember her full name though.
That doesn’t make it weird music, it is just considered old fashioned by a lot of people. I think that when a composer’s name is known to millions and millions of people and they are universally considered one of the geniuses of their genre, and their music is taught to every music major to matriculate through college, and is played by millions of musicians around the world… that that kind of puts them (extremely) out of the running for being considered “weird music”.