Southern Culture on the Skids. Yeah they’re a real group with a real web site.
Marc
I’ve got to much pork for just one fork.
“Mordern Day Symphony” on LP, by the Swedish ungerground rappers Loop Troop. Their most famous work includes “Jag Sköt Palme!”, “The Poor Lonesome Homeboy” and “Spraycan Stories”.
They don’t release CDs because they don’t believe in what they stand for, kinda gives you an idea about their politics.
— G. Raven
Not only do I own this, but I also converted my SO, and he bought a copy as well! 
[sup]I wanna walk…like a camel…[/sup]
BTW…has anyone here heard of a band called Renaissance? They had an album in 1975 called Scheherezade And Other Stories that had a single on it called Trip To The Fair. It is, by far, one of the creepiest songs I’ve ever heard…and the woman’s voice is just amazing. The lyrics can be found here. I’m getting chills just thinking about it. I actually found the mp3 of this track on Napster, and I discovered last night that the album has been re-released on CD. I think I need to order a copy. Good stuff. 
“A Meeting by the River”, Ry Cooder & Indian musician V.M. Bhatt. Unusual but beautiful mix of Cooder’s delta blues slide guitarmanship and Bhatt’s traditional Indian sound. I can’t remember what instrument Bhatt plays on this album, but it’s NOT a sitar though it kind of sounds like one. Recorded in a chapel at a Santa Barbara seminary. Despite this recording winning the 1994 Grammy for “World Music Album,” surprisingly few people know of it.
I still hear a lot of “How come I never heard of this” comments on my copy of “Stay Awake,” a collection of various contemporary artists from Sun Ra to the Replacements doing their takes on classic Disney film songs.
The Last House on the Left soundtrack, composed and performed by the actor who played the lead psycho.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by mainstream'. Is it mainstream’ now if it was popular fifty years ago, like Jerry Lee Lewis? Is it mainstream' if its accessible enough for a mass audience, but has just never garnered one, like Lillian Leach and the Mellows? Is it mainstream’ if it was hard core fifty years ago, but now seems tame and quaint, like Ruth Brown? Is it `mainstream’ if its a collection of folk songs that were once widely sung, such as you’d find on one of the Smithsonian collections?
Sweet Honey in the Rock, a D.C. acappella troupe headed by Dr. Bernice Reagan. They started with Flying Fish records (who unleashed the the Slickee Boys)and now record with Earthbeat Records. Numerous personnel rotations over the years, they are always a joy live.
The Bonzo Dog Band
I have several of their albums on CD. From the sixties, they are like a combination of the modern Squirrel Nut Zippers with Monty Python.
That’s not mainstream? Sure it is!..Hell, I’VE got a copy of it. Good album.
Lessee…within various genres, my collection boasts…
Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers, old-time songs recorded from 1925-1930.
Dock Bogg’s album for Folkways…Harry Smith included the Kentucky singer/banjoist Boggs’ work on his seminal ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC in the 1950s, and Folkways re-discovered him and had him do a whole buncha recordings between 1963 and 1968.
Boozoo Chavis’ THE LAKE CHARLES ATOMIC BOMB. Includes the 1954 hit “Paper in My Shoe,” considered to be one of the first Zydeco records ever made.
Kokomo Arnold: Bottleneck Guitar Trendsetter of the 1930s.
BEAUTY BASED ON SCIENCE by the Microscopic Septet. A New York-based SATB quartet of saxophonists backed by a piano/drums/bass (doubling on tuba) rhythm section, from the late 1980s. A retro/avant garde jazz act, a little like the Lounge Lizards (one of their tunes includes an extended riff based on the GET SMART theme), but better musicians.
How about some good old mountain music, played by a real hillbilly band?
Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers - A Corn Likker Still in Georgia
(Late 1920’s to early 1930’s pre-bluegrass hillbilly stuff.)
Disciples of Annihiliation - NYC Speedcore
Omar Santana/Various Artists - Hardcorps
I have not one, but two, Djam Karet discs.
I have three Toyah Wilcox albums. One or two of you might know her as Robert Fripp’s wife. Hopefully more of you will know him as the leader of King Crimson.
I own 1100 CDs, not all of them are mainstream…
I love Southern Culture on the Skids! I almost saw them live not too long ago.
I own a few CDs from groups no one’s ever heard of, such as Big Back 40 and Naked.
Big Back 40 is alt-country, but somehow better than the average alt-country band. They’ve long since broken up.
Naked is Creed mashed with Collective Soul mashed with industrial music mashed with country. It’s odd, but it could be mainstream, if advertised well enough. However, I doubt that’ll happen.
I’ve been wanting to pick up a CD just because I like the band name–the Katies.
ah yes, a music thread. Let’s see…i listen to very very different sorts of music for the most part, so in responding to the OP’s question, things are going to get a bit relative. For instance, I have a cd by Congo Norvell called Abnormals Anonymous. Simply amazing, and considering how this group was around for hardly any time at all, im sure no one’s heard of it. In comparison to my Nick Cave CDs, id say it’s far from mainstream, but then again, so’s nick cave in the grand scheme of things. So, here we go.
-any cd of mine by The Residents
-any CD of mine by Foetus
-all my Einsturzende Neubauten CDs
-all of my Virgin Prunes records (these are damn rare; CD releases of their stuff is almost unheard of)
-Gavin Friday, formerly of Virgin Prunes (though he was-and is-best friends with Bono since they were kids, so i guess that’s a claim to fame).
-The Swans.
-Ween, though they seem to be slowly becoming more well-known.
-Metal Machine Music, by Lou Reed. Released at the height of his fame, it’s two LPs of beautiful, mind-clearing, audiogasmic noise that is simultaneously atonal and yet beautifully, beautifully melodic. The sound of driving a VW Beetle at a hundred miles per hour into the sun. Lou Reed is by no means an unknown name, but this record certainly is.
-the Achtung Baby Outtakes, by U2. A four-CD-set of the working tapes from the Achtung Baby album. Most of it is shit, but what a collector’s item.
-H.P.E.
Well, this question kinda sucks because I pawned nearly all of my CDs years ago and haven’t even begun to rebuild my collection. Currently I have Slayer’s Seasons in the Abyss, Metallica’s …And Justice for All, Squirrel Nut Zippers’ Hot, Black Sabbath’s We Sold Our Souls to Rock and Roll, and the Meat Puppets’ Too High to Die. Oh, and some Black Sabbath tribute album by various Gothic groups, forgot the name. In my current collection, I would say that Seasons in the Abyss is the least mainstream, though the Meat Puppets might be a bit more obscure.
Quilombo, by Steroid Maximus.
Steroid Maximus is actually Jim Thirlwell, of Foetus fame. I don’t know how to describe it other than “Industrial Big Band”. It really must be heard. I think it’s out of print, but if you see it used anywhere, do yourself a favor and pick it up.
Chotto Matte A Moment! by IQU
Another hard-to-describe band. 3 members – a woman on electronic percussion, a guy playing an acoustic stand-up bass, and another guy alternating between mixing on two turntables, playing keyboards, playing the electric guitar, and playing a therimin with and without the guitar. Great beats, odd sounds, yet still very tuneful.
If by “least mainstream”, you mean unlikely to be in any average joe’s collection, that would have to be Monty Python Sings. It’s got all the great songs fom the series and movies: Sit On My Face, The Lumberjack Song, Never Be Rude to an Arab, Every Sperm is Sacred, Drunken Philosophers, etc.
How about Matando Gueros by Brujeria. Mexican death metal. I don’t even think they’d let this chart if fifty million people buy it in a single week. The cover is censored because it shows a dismembered and half-burnt human head. Lovely.
Mr Bungle is also petty obscure, but they have a big following - strictly away from the mainstream though.
Also anything on the wonderful English label Warp Records. Radiohead have totally changed their style based purely on the back catalogue of this label (and they openly admit it)… Check out: Boards of Canada, Plaid, LFO, Aphex Twin, Two Lone Swordsmen and Nightmares On Wax. Bloody marvelous. All of it.
The least mainstream CD I have is We Punk Einheit by the Nintendo Teenage Robots. It’s essentially music made using only a gameboy.