Oooooh, you have the card of Donald Duck. Let's get dangerous, then. Here's my move, deal with it!..

My three choices are:

1. “Weird Al” Yankovic – White & Nerdy

2. Lena d'Água & Atlântida – vígaro cá vígaro lá

3. CCCP & Amanda Lear – TOMORROW

In spite of the large number of votes for The Shaggs – Philosophy of the World, I see this as indistinguishable from terrible music. Perhaps that is the point, but I chose not to vote for it.

 

While The Shaggs is famous for the ineptitude, they were young girls and beginners who were able to compose,play on, and record an album. Frank Zappa popularised them more by calling The Shaggs better than the Beatles (there's a larger story there), the third best band in history, and played some of the Shaggs songs in a Dr. Demento show in the 70s amongst his favourites. Kurt Kobain of Nirvana cited the Shaggs as an influence. I genuinely like the album, some call it primitivist, I find it charming, and I'm interested in its impact and reception (even if Zapppa was being tongue-in-cheek -- he did seem to genuinely appreciate it in its way, but then some would call, say Beefheart music just terrible). I love Ed Wood films (so bad they're good to me), and part of that mystique is how bad they are while being sincere.

It might depend somewhat on each person's sense of humour. I definitely have an appreciation for the absurd, but if it was three girls who intended to make a bad album (both in musicianship, form, and the lyrics) it likely wouldn't have the same appeal to me. I don't think it's bad considering the girls experience, actually. For me it is charming in its way. I find it delightful and charmingly naive. To others it's terrible and nothing more, or just an interesting curio as a novelty item.

Edited by Logan - July 06 2020 at 06:12

I've put the Shaggs on three. It wasn't quite the first time I heard some of their stuff, and when I saw their nomination I wasn't very optimistic for them getting into the top 3. But then there wasn't that much that appealed to me (the Madonna, Bregovic and Kershaw and maybe others from the out of competition list would have easily beaten all three that I chose). And also, although this is kind of difficult to enjoy, it is truly unique and bold, and ultimately I even thought, yeah, I may like to listen a few more times to it just to appreciate its raw charme.

Logan wrote: Frank Zappa popularised them more by calling The Shaggs better than the Beatles (there's a larger story there), the third best band in history, and played some of the Shaggs songs in a Dr. Demento show in the 70s amongst his favourites.

I enjoy a lot of Frank's music but the music he enjoyed was not for me. I voted for The Shaggs because it made me guilty listening to it. It was bad.

Here is a song by The GTO's an all girl band that Zappa produced. It's awful. Frank did help Alice Cooper, so that's a plus in my book.