https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6XBZ86tOE

Someone made thread about this in the past but always cool to reexplore WEIRD!!!!

I made a list on Rate Your Music of the 70 weirdest albums i could think of at the time.

I think i've discovered weirder since then. Might be time to update and add more!

Oh, that Area album is definitely there!

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/crazy-dog-magazines-70-weirdest-albums/" rel="nofollow - https://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/crazy-dog-magazines-70-weirdest-albums/

I'm not sure that some things are as weird as we think. In most cases, the stuff is so different and exploratory that to consider it weird, is rather peculiar. 

I don't think, for example, that AD2's material, or Can's for that matter in those days is "weird" ... both those albums listed are prime examples of what IMPROVISATION can help create and a lot of it is really far out and stretches the idea that the Anglo-American music is the only one that can create good things. It might also be noticed that it was thought that those bands did not want to do things with the Anglo-American ideas or concepts ... so it is no surprise that "we" think they are weird.

THEY ARE NOT WEIRD, and I think these lists are way off the top, when (specially) so much of it is played and enjoyed in so many places. Some of the material, played at the right time, in the right place, is NEVER weird next to good material ... what might make it weird is you or I playing something that belongs in the top ten next to it, at which effort I would say that the person playing those things has no taste in music, and is making a bad point about the arts. 

The arts are really about experiments and change and have been for a long time, so us considering things weird simply because they do not conform to something that we think is the right way to do things, is not a very progressive thought whatsoever!

I can not say, that I have EVER, really found a weird album, and I pretty much got "all of them" since the early 70's. I did think that the early material from The Third Ear Band was weird until I realized its context ... it's not weird at all and much more intelligent than we are capable of listening! And the same could be said for many of the early "Harvest" cereal box ingredient bands. The Edgar Broughton Band was not weird. It was one of the most intelligent bands around. Lol Coxhill was not weird. He was experimental. 

Context is every thing ... so someone playing Einsturzende Neubauten right next to a top ten song, would make it seem weird, but that stuff has not been weird for a long time. It's different, but not weird.

I don't seek out obscure and weird albums, but this one is impossible not to be aware of.

Thanks, that was fun to read through!  I need to explore some of that! 

I have listened to so much experimental music through the years that there's not much that seems really weird to me these days. I remember the first BIG music "WTF??" moment in my life was when my grandfather played Stockhausen's Gesang der Juenglinge to me. I think I was 15 or so and I didn't get it at all, but these days I do. (My grandfather was big into classical music and after finding out that I got into rock that was more progressive than what he'd pick up on the radio, and failing to get enthusiasm rather than just respect out of me for Bach and Mozart, he thought he could try Stockhausen  - in the next attempt he scored a proper success with Stravinsky and Bartok.)

Maybe as a consequence of that I wasn't that surprised anymore when I heard, not much later, sides 3 and 4 of Tago Mago, and Kollaps bei Einstuerzende Neubauten (meaning that I accepted that such stuff was around and had a certain fun factor, but it took some more time to seriously appreciate it), and from then on pretty much anything went.

Still I didn't miss the weirdness of Trout Mask Replica and Caution Radiation Area (which means quite something), even though they came to me much later. To many people probably all of Art Zoyd is weird, but I always felt quite at home with them, however they did catch me be surprise doing an album called  "Pure Noise" that sounds just as what it says on the tin.

I concur ^

This is an obvious go to for weirdness.

I also offer - Förträngt Hushållsarbete - Offret om att Älska...

Which of course features two of the members of Henry Cow, the wonderful Lindsay Cooper & Georgie Born.

The solo album by Demetrio Stratos (the vocalist from the Italian AREA) "Cantare La Voce" was a WTF moment for me!!

"Beauborg" by Vangelis was another odd one. In the late 70's I bought his "Albedo 0.39" and "Spiral" albums and loved them. Then he released "Beauborg" I rushed out to buy it expecting something similar but was in for a shock. At the time I hated it but maybe now I would love it if I still had the album.

I had the same reaction to Beauborg, I still don't love it.

This one is extremely weird:

Speaking of Henry Cow, all their albums qualify but what's even weirder is Chris Cutler's CASSIBER.

This debut album is quite out there

Indeed. I've concluded that The Residents is the weirdest band ever. They pretty much nailed the weird vibe on every level. Can you imagine playing live in these freaking giant eyeball costumes? LOL

Christopher Lee - My Way

Here's another couple RYM lists you may find interesting.

The artists presented on this list are weird but mainly for image not necessarily music but there is some of that too.

Weird and a waste of my time: that's how I've always felt about Trout Mask Replica.

What I used to think of weird, seems more normal to my ears these days. 

Alas, no tracks on YouTube, but if you have access to Spotify...

https://open.spotify.com/album/50WMITuWXncgRaYBg8bd8i" rel="nofollow - https://open.spotify.com/album/50WMITuWXncgRaYBg8bd8i

I normally don't toot my own horn, but I have my own little project that occasionally dives into this territory. I offer you A Thousand Civilities:

https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/track/a-thousand-civilities" rel="nofollow - https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/track/a-thousand-civilities

Hi,

I think that this is the same for me, and the main difference. I was already a well versed 18 year old on classical music and had already heard Stockhausen, Heinemann (sp.), and seen some of it on the TV in a couple of movies to the point where it did not seem strange or weird. Heck, for that matter some Bernard Herrmann soundtracks were a bit weirder (the Sci-Fi ones) than the average music, mostly because of his odd selection of instruments and their use!!!! A very different kind of "weird" if we use the term correctly.

My take, still is, and I say it all the time, that the bigger issue for folks here on PA, is their lack of ability to listen and appreciate classical music and see its experimental periods ... all they are talking about is the 5 albums that did not sound like the ones they like, which makes it NOT A MUSIC STORY OR THREAD!

I might have thought this or that was weird, but already I was into theater and film, and pop music (specially) was to me sort of like High School Theater ... compared to the better stuff one level up, College, and then another level up, Professional!

It's just scary to have folks that do not listen to music regularly, create these things ... it is down right sad, and to me, most of those folks are not PROGRESSIVE MUSIC listeners whatsoever.

Hi,

His reading of many books and stories are really fine and worth having! Only thing missing is Peter Cushing doing the singing!!!

and Annemarie Roelofs!

There is a topic here that you may like to peruse if you've got nothing better to do.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/series/101-weirdest-records-on-spotify" rel="nofollow - https://www.theguardian.com/music/series/101-weirdest-records-on-spotify

Here a track from the CroMagnon album:

That would've been even weirder. 

can you explain what is weird here? 

WEEN's Pure Guava is a must for those seeking out the weirdest of weird!

Hi,

My understanding was that he made this as an obligation to fulfil some record company, and it was his finger to that company! As such, it was excellent, and weird, would not even apply. It was a matter of doing the worst possible.

Slapp Happy/Henry Cow - 'Desperate Straights' (creepy)

Faust - The Faust Tapes (creepy/out there/ etc.)

Pink Floyd - a 71 European bootleg I bought on a school trip (far out)

I'm the same. Nothing sounds weird to me now, just different.

Mike Oldfield's wonderfully weird but fully listenable Amarok was made for the same reason.

I think his attitude to the work wasn't entirely straightforward, and he also gave different views on it at different times, sometimes dismissive but other times not. Based on some later interviews I've read he was genuinely absorbed in the experimentation that gave rise to the album, and considered it a piece that had its own value and integrity. Of course given the nature of the thing, it could both be that and a raised finger to the record company at the same time.

In more recent times, I was weirded out when I tried Trout Mask Replica. 

Metal Machine Music (Lou Reed)

A lotta stuff from (Magma)

Wafer of Darkness (Three Day Stubble)

Music, Martinis and Misanthropy (Boyd Rice & Friends)

Philosophy of the World (The Shaggs)

Hi,

Tago Mago, according to Holger in CAN's website a few years ago, was culled from at least 20 hours of IMPROVISATIONS, and according to him, a lot of it was taken without any look at the music and then just glued together.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind, that the two long cuts are improvisations, specially the kind of improvisations that most musicians are afraid of ... because it is obvious that there is no rhyme, or meter, to go by and everyone is on their own. 

The question is ... is an improvisation weird ... well to me it isn't and it is a factor of each person's ability to do something that normally would not be done, but in the case of CAN, it shows how well they were AWARE, and knew WHAT an "improvisation" was all about and had seen  enough samples on the street (Damo was picked up from busking on the streets!!!) and everywhere else, with many folks doing different things, and only Archie Patterson's EUROCK book is capable of giving us a really personal view of those days in his book, a collection of all the magazines he had put together from his first days. It is amazing that so many folks did this, and we completely IGNORE IT, and are even more afraid to say anything, since it means that what you might want to say has no relation whatsoever to the whole thing. 

In the Krock special, one of the bits that are crazy, but valid, is one of the members of FAUST going around with various sticks hitting some cement drums and machinery ... and calling it music. In the PA sandlotkidgrounds, we are not ready, and likely NEVER will be, to accept that as music and then help define it.

I have not heard the VU album in its entirety yet and am reserving judgement, but in my book, nothing that the VU ever did was weird ... it was very NY, and quite candid about its life, loves, and every thing else, including Andy meant nothing! I may have heard it before but did not "register" it in my mind and I will fix that before saying much about it.  However, I will state that VU is not weird, and probably, more than many, is actually very personal to each member's experience at a time when we were not exactly ready to face the raw nature of many of these comments, and even the literary/artistic side of this movement is very scary and strange for many of us. By comparison, Krock was much more open and really about the improvisations, and it did not concern itself with words for a long time. 

(PS: A book that has a lot of this, is Patti Smith's book about her time and specially Mapplethorpe. Highly recommended, and you can read a different book, almost leaving all that behind in Kin Gordon's book, which is more about the art scene, than it is about her band's music, except how her and her boyfriend/husband made the music.)

(PS2: You can see by the choices that many people here are not comfortable with improvisation at all ... FAUST, CAN and most of the Krock folks, do not fit into a weird thing at all ... they all are very well done extensions of the improvisational scene at the time. Might as well consider a recording of the old drum circles in a Grateful Dead concert, weird ... they were not weird ... they were neat events that brought a lot of folks together to enjoy a communal moment. A lot of Krock is about that, and eventually, AD2 rips into it with their first album!)

thank you Paul for never giving a damn for a simple answer. 

Hi,

I was thinking that Christopher Lee's screams when Peter Cushing was about to do him in, were always the best guitar solo EVER ... I'm not sure that Paul has imagined that before!

thank you for the pointless answer 

So maybe it would be better with more tolerating word than "weirdest".

Crist, what's the point? 

Trout Mask Replica is definitely another candidate.

Mr Bungle has crafted some of the weirdest music to be heard.

Just check out this track from the über-weird DISCO VOLANTE album.

I always thought that some of the electronic stuff that was being considered "classical music" and experimental in the 60's was far more weird than just about anything we list here. The hard part of that was that a lot of "classical music" was mired in interpretations that were out of town, and the album covers were ... really out of this planet, and giving us ideas that in my book had nothing to do with the music itself. So someone puts together a requiem, and the album is full of skeletons and little demons and fires and what not, and I'm not sure this is good for any music. Today (TODAY), most bands like to show off that side because it makes them cool with a large segment of the buying public!

In all honesty,, while I did not dislike anything on that era of electronic material, for my tastes much of it was devoid of personality, something that I got to see first hand in the late 70's and early 80's on my days at UCSB, when almost all the music students thought that great composition meant just changing one note here or there so it would not sound conventional ... I don't think they "felt" their music whatsoever, which is usually the main thing that we get attracted to in it!

Some of the albums listed here, are hard to describe and even discuss. The ones I do not care for are the ones that have nothing better to do than turn it all into a song ... that just takes the cake! But there are things that I'm not sure are actually weird, and in a different sort of way it has a "story" that we can sit and follow, and while it may not be preferable or pretty, it is, nevertheless, interesting. I find things like White Noise's great album interesting and very strong, and then hearing Cottonwood Hill later, even more so, and in many ways, Cottonwood Hill is no where near weird, if that state of mind is more common that we give it credit for ... and I think we just think it is weird just because it sounds crazy, but to me, a person's mind is NOT CRAZY ... different maybe, but not crazy. I have played that to two ladies in my time, and they both said that sometimes it was more confused during various times, and even more difficult to express, and one of them said that it was rather far out that someone could actually express some of that, something that even literature has a really hard time to do ... too slow for the events! Sound recordings, are much "faster" and can pick up the events better.

The one thing to remember ... almost 100 years ago, people screamed and left the theater when a gun pointed itself to the camera and shot. A lot of folks did not like it and there were attempts to even shut down some theaters, and the new "this or that" was evil. Guess what we are doing? We're merely saying it is weird, because of this or that ... or maybe we don't understand it, or know about it. But, all in all, for me, the human mind and spirit is not weird, and has been what the ARTS are all about for millennia, thus seeing things like this, regardless of title (some bands love to flatulate themselves in their titles!) is not crazy or stupid ... sometimes it is even silly, and White Noise's album even gives us a few fun songs, and it makes you wonder how this and that go together in the same room ... well, I think we can safely say, it's the same person. Some of them do not compromise, or confuse you, but I wonder about that when the cover of the album has a picture of the band! 

Thank you to all those who are participating. Some have questioned the word "weirdest", as if I were discriminating or minimising the merit of the albums named. I think it is clear that the list that will be put together here will be made with respect for each musician involved and that it is simply about remembering our most curious experience, the one that has taken us completely out of our comfort zone and into lands where even fear appeared in the form of strange and unknown melodies for us. A hug to all of you!

Released on Bandcamp under the name David Cosgrove.

Entire album can be heard here...

http://davidcosgrove.bandcamp.com/album/makki1-makkiwhipdies-musical-extravaganza" rel="nofollow - http://https://davidcosgrove.bandcamp.com/album/makki1-makkiwhipdies-musical-extravaganza

Honestly, it sounds like it was highly influenced by The Residents only with a few more prog workouts

…well past the extinction of Homo sapiens sapiens, perhaps into the next version of Earth-based humans!

wow, missed this thread during its first life

how weird!!

Argentinfonico wrote: That's right, here we go. And by "weirdest" I mean a work so outlandish and bizarre that you just couldn't believe what you were hearing at the time. Mine is definitely Area's "Caution Radiation Area". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6XBZ86tOE

I guess you've read my review about this album.

It's fully explained and it will not be weird anymore once you've understood my explanations.

Thanks for the substancial  check to come in the mail

====================

Otherwise, from Zappa, only Gravy is "weird", the rest is bizarre or silly.

.

I think Civilization Phaze III is pretty weird in the vein of Lumpy Gravy.

For a musical album, one dedicated to hogs is pretty weird.

Just a minor nit-pick here - that (excellent) recording of Stockhausen's Kontakte dates from 1960, tho it has been re-issued several times since then.

^Understandable

It was the first avant-garde piece I saw performed live (at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester), and I was struck by how it might have inspired the Ummagumma / space rock era of Floyd.

Here's a good live performance of it.... if you can make it through that is!

Tough one, but maybe Erotica: The Rhythm of Love (1962) ? Definitely a f'd up "album".. 

Ron Geesin - Right Through Frank Zappa - 200 Motels Faust - The Faust Tapes Can - Tago Mago (discussed in an earlier posting on this thread) ...

A couple of notes here ... 

Ron Geesin ... it's hard to think that RG was not thinking about extending the experience of classical music with the aid of sound effects ... his solo albums are great for this idea and concept and it is done with a lot of humor ... to the point that Guy Guden once did a take on "Right Through" about the doors ... and of course, it was the character of Jean-Paul Sartre who could not find an exit! When you listen to his orchestral version of ATOM HEART MOTHER on the tube, you will find that it is really strong, and, probably, better than what the band did ... EVER ... which DG and RW have gone on to disrespect that piece ... probably because they thought that RG did not deserve a percentage is my guess ... everyone wants a piece of the pie any rich man would say!

Frank Zappa - 200 Motels

It is sad that many folks don't like this, and instead are often simply stuck on the guitar and his more rock/jazz material. It is an amazing album of satirical comments about a lot of the adds you saw on television and on the newspapers (and some radio) at the time ... this is the part that doesn't sync well with many of us ... and Donovan ... was the idea that Donovan was too clean to be taken seriously ... meaning that he was the idea for the inevitable "new age" that came later ... although as he got older he got better than just a pop song. The rest of 200 Motels is an incredible travesty of what survived considering the fights between him, one other guy that released it in his own style, and the record company that was upset with it, considering they knew and had heard what Frank had done before! But there are some magnificent things in it, and the choir in the end part is amazing, and you probably not appreciate it until you hear 200 Motels done many years later at UCLA just before Gayle passed away ... she obviously appreciated it like so many of us can't ... and could relate to it! I kinda think of it as a satire on choirs ... so straight and always this and that, and for one night, they could let loose and have some fun ... which you have never seen, unless you have sat at PDQ Bach concerts! 

Faust - The Faust Tapes//Can - Tago Mago

These are not "weird" ... they are pure experimentation, although I often think of Faust as just turning knobs on a synthesizer and saving it for later. Tago Mago was explained by Holger a long time ago ... and this is the part that rock music in the western world has a horrible hard time with ... they are afraid to get off the notes and chords. In an exercise in a class, an experiment works great for actors (for example) but not for musicians ... why? ... easy ... most of them run out of their bits and pieces in the first 15 minutes, and after that don't know what to do ... says a lot more about their ability to listen and work with a few friends, that it does anything else ... ohh ... excuse me ... we gotta make music, not noise ... RIGHT!

I do like them though, especially Eskimo, The Commercial Album and The Mole Trilogy. 

Hi,

Kinda weird to see that ... a lot of her whisperings and sounds would also be done for a baby .... and if you met her in person, she was not exactly a new age woman, but a serious feminist that lived her life the way she wanted, regardless ... and her work on GONG and her solo albums, show her quality ... 

I, personally, do not think folks are "weird" ... for its sake ... unless you are talking about AL ... but even that is more satire than it is anything else.

I had an album with her and John Paul Jones teamed up... Yeah it was weird allright. Cant remember the name of it. Pretty bad weird too.

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/die_todliche_doris

(You can basically try any of their albums.)