The WORST Album Ever Made 

In all fairness, his mother never said the band would be good. She just said they would have a band.

the only truly original album ever made, the girls had absolutely no outside influence.

I like that he never thought giving them lessons was a reasonable step in his plan.

This is the first time that I have ever heard a song played in the key of K.

It sounds like their dad forced them to make music without ever letting them hear music in the first place

We're still talking about them in 2019. The prediction was correct.

Somewhere in parallel universe, this album was the most succesfull album of all time

My broke friend owed me 20$. I told him I would forgive the debt if he listened to The Philosophy of Life in its entirety in one constant sitting. He did it. I forgave the 20$ and gave him a pack of smokes as a bonus.

Why does it sound like they are singing backwards?

“The only band talented enough to play 3 songs at the same time” - Commenter

Band is booed at every live performance. Next step: record an album. Makes sense.

“The drummer isn’t with the Bass player!” “That’s okay, the drummer isn’t even with the drummer!!!”

Their music kinda sounds like a Guitar Store on a Saturday afternoon

This just proves if anyone picks up an instrument and starts playing, someone will like it

Ah, "The Room" of albums

I put this album in my truck and listened to nothing else for a month in the 90s, then went to Trout Mask Replica. I can now hear colors and see time.

"YOKO! ITS YOUR COUSIN MARVIN - MARVIN ONO. I GOT THAT 'NEW SOUND' YOU'RE LOOKING FOR. LISTEN!"

by forcing his daughters into this life he fulfilled the prophecy, super interesting

the drummer consistently sounds like she's playing a completely different song

Just listening to 30 seconds of "My pal Foot Foot" it sounds like a few jazz musicians got really, really, drunk, broke their fingers and THEN recorded an album......OUTSTANDING

1 hotel California 2 stairway to heaven 3 freebird 4 my pal foot foot 5 bohemian rhapsody

Growing up as a punk rocker in the 80's, my friends and I all had copies of their album. It was horribly great

It sounds as though they got off on the wrong "foot foot".

"I have never heard that combination of sounds before...." My EXACT words in 1980, fourteen seconds before my 1958 Buick Roadmaster burst into flames in the middle of US Rt 30. 😜

Trout Mask Replica: Kids Bop Edition.

“I did not hit her... I DID NAHHHTT. Oh hi, Foot-Foot.”

I doubt it’s worse than Total Xanarchy

What surprises me about this is how coherent the whole thing is. Given that they wrote the song themselves without any outside influence or help and without even knowing how to play any of their instruments the fact that they created something that sounds even remotely like music is amazing. I feel like if they had gotten lessons they would have been pretty good

This was really interesting. Never heard about the Shaggs before. Cheers!

The Shaggs is a terrible name for a band of young girls

Didn’t expect Kurt to be involved in this story

The album does have an innocent charm.

Well, I mean, they became popular, so the prophecy is true.

Feel like death grips would sample this

Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa listened to the Shaggs... Tbh that actually explains a lot (they weren’t bad, both were amazing).

One part of the prophecy he ignored, the daughters will form a band. The demise started when he formed the band by pulling them out of school and not teaching them anything. They would have learned about so much, maybe music theory and how to play instruments. Writing songs, you just do or you don’t.

Moral of the story : Songs that are considered "weird" now will be considered "fascinating" and "unique" after some years

Sounds like Phoebe buffay was heavily influenced by them.

when you played snippets of the tracks and i felt like i was having a stroke

Definitely NOT the worst album ever made. These girls invented their own form of music.

Sounds like the earliest form of a shitpost that got trendy

So what your saying is the palm reading was 100% correct?

It’s definitely a interesting part of music history, especially being released in 1967 when rock was really booming with experimentation

- Dad, who's gonna play the bass? _ What's a bass? it doesn't matter now, we got no money left

Did anybody feel some anxiety kick in as soon as the music was played.

The crazy thing is, the prophecy came true and in the end they did end up becoming a popular band Damn

Okay, I'm back, after having listened to Philosophy of the World. The most baffling thing is that the guitar work, drums, and vocals aren't even THAT bad individually, they're just mashed together like a fruit salad made exclusively of meat.

"Worst album ever" still better than cardi b🙃

The guitar just sound like she hit random strings with her foot foot

If the father would've given them more time before throwing them in the fire, they could've had great synergy and potentially make great music.

The snare still sounds better thatn the one from Metallica-St. Anger.

Some years ago when they were gaining their cult status, someone organised a reunion gig for them. One of them (I think the drummer) fell ill, but the other two performed. Because they hadn't played in so long, they had to get the sheet music out to remind them how to play the songs. Sheet music? Yeah, but like no sheet music you've ever seen before. Not only did they have to learn how to play instruments by themselves, and write songs with no training, they also had to invent their own system of music transcription in order to document it. Philosophy of The World is brilliant in its purity and sincerity. All these artists that come from music colleges and trying to figure out a way in which they can be "weird" and never pull it off because it's so contrived, and here were three girls that had to essentially invent music from the ground up. Imagine giving a child a bunch of metal parts and telling them that they're not to come out of their room until they've built a more efficient form of combustion engine, when they've never even held a spanner before.

The craziest thing about this story I find, is that the palm reader's prediction actually came true.

I find this album strangely listenable, except “My Pal Foot Foot,” which honestly sounds like a nightmare.

The recording engineer actually did a good job.

To get to even any level of musical understanding without having any training is really impressive. Not only that kids were writing their own songs, but if you listen to the music it does show a hint of progress. Like if a parent bought their kid an instrument, had no musical knowledge and said "Eh... I guess try to do something with this" and that kid came back a few months later sounding like this, it would be seen as progress

They also had no bassist.

By the worst album ever made, I think you mean “avant- grade masterpiece”

The shaggs are my favourite vegan straight edge hardcore band

Ok - this is the kinda story that scares the SH*T outta me, because it's so disturbing and unsettling. I may have trouble sleeping tonight...

Who thought my pal foot foot was a good name

"Philosophy Of The World" holds a special place in my heart. To me, it is NOT the worst album ever made, even though it's not what most people would call well-written or well-performed. My sister once used it to get rid of guests that wouldn't leave. My best friend laughed for 30 minutes straight when I played him the record. Fond memories! I like trying to lip-sync to "My Pal Foot Foot", it's the hardest thing to do. I love the thudding tom beat on "It's Halloween". "Things I Wonder" just has the greatest opening. I love "That Little Sports Car", the only song on here featuring a bass guitar, with its final climax of repeating "Never Do Wrong"s, going up in one mode and coming down in an entirely other one. The sisters seem to sing flat or sharp on a whim, but they're doing it TOGETHER. This music, my friends, has been PAINSTAKINGLY REHEARSED. At least I think it was. Sometimes it reminds me of some secret language developed by twins. When I first listened to The Shaggs in 1990, I also listened to a lot of jazz, hiphop, cabaret, pop and rock. To me it seemed like they had smashed a whole record shop and then assembled shards of many different vinyls in a primitive, naive and original way. Even though it's not an easy listen for everyone, I like the Shaggs' perspective. And I am a person who likes well-crafted, well-performed songs in general. EDIT: when I first got the internets at home in 1996, guess what my first research on Altavista was about? Yep, that's right. I wanted to know whether I was the only person on the planet to dig The Shaggs. And it turned out I wasn't! Haters gonna hate, but lovers gonna love.

I don't feel like I don't like them Until I realized there's *NO* *BASS*

The fact that the Wikipedia page immediately has the band questioning why this album retroactively became popular as indie music is hilarious.

You have to listen to the notes they AREN’T playing.

Anthony Fantano would probably give it a Strong 10, had it been released today

"Kurt Cobain lists it as his 5th favourite album of all time." That explains so much.

They have an authenticity that is hard to find.

This is like the SpongeBob episode where Patrick’s poem gets recorded at a studio

That’s a weird way to pronounce Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Wow the only one that played acceptable was the drumer

i didn't know the whole backstory to this band. i thought they were just random girls having fun who everyone decided to shit on. the backstory makes this so much sadder actually.

Own this album on vinyl. One of the best purchases I've made.

Dad should have dropped $5 on a chord chart.. Lol!!!

"But daaad i wanna be a lawyer, not a rock star!"

The prophecy actually did come true. It's 2021 and I knew who you were going to talk about without even pressing play. Well played, Shaggs.

and they said a band made of deaf people wouldn’t work

The Shaggs is accidentally an awesome name for a band.

This is Greek tragedy level shit tbh, believing in prophecies and such

I actually really like the drum intro on Foot Foot

They band could have achieved massive success had they tapped into one missing element! Heroin

Containing microtonality and polyrhythms, it's surely ahead of its time

I've played this before and convinced friends that it is Meg White's solo album.

"I've never heard a band sound like that before." I've never heard a guitar player fall down a flight of stairs with his guitar but I'd guess it would sound similar to the Shaggs.

this is the most new hampshire thing i've ever heard

this would probably be a really good soundtrack for some sort of surreal or horror-like experience

I knew them because Cobain used to wear a Shaggs Shirt

"Better than the Beatles." Frank Zappa. The Shaggs were a fantastic band that to this day are incomparable.

That little sports car was low key a bop.

I don't think there is anything worse than NoStockingz by Submarine Man

"It's Halloween" got some play on the Dr. Demento Halloween show.

I think in the early (mid?) 80’s nearly every fanzine and even some mainstream mags like SPIN were talking about The Shaggs. When I worked at an indie record store random people would come in off the streets looking for a copy of the album. College stations were playing the record if they were able to get a copy. Then a few years later I heard Calvin Johnson’s Beat Happening. I was like yeah, I can tell what you’ve been listening to there, guy

Yoko Ono fans be like: Oh yeah that's some progressive intelectual shit

Correction, the drums actually have tons of consistency. She was just always playing at an entirely separate tempo from the guitars. That's the magic ingredient to that Shag-edelic sound. Write a song in a given key but DO NOT tune the guitars, have the drummer play at a totally different speed. Boom. Instant classic.

But what about that corey feldman record

This is one of the greatest albums ever recorded, truly an important fragment in music history. The reason why i truly believe this is because no one has ever done it before, no one ever thought about doing this and that's what makes this album so special and original. They don't follow the rules of music, they don't even know music theory but even without all that knowledge, they managed to create the most pure and new sound people have ever heard before even after 55 years or so. It's pure avant-garde! This is real art and a genuine masterpiece. Thank you, The Shaggs🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

This is what happens when you force someone to do something they don't want to do. You get the Shaggs.

you know what's the worst part of the band? they didn't have a bassist

This was one of kurt cobains favorite albums

It is a formative influence on my own music, especially the drumming. I love the idea that drums can add rhythmic excitement while being completely independent of any other element. The idea that melodies can violate implicit harmonic rules like tonic- dominant and still carry emotional meaning is also compelling. If you love the Shaggs for MUSICAL reasons like I do, check out Charles Ives, especially his Fourth Symphony, and of course Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart.