If you've spent any significant time listening to music, you'll likely find that occasionally someone will tell you about an album that's so bad they can't even listen to it. You might even agree; but it's even odds that you're just as likely to express amazement at how anyone could be so far off in their judgment of what you think is a piece of musical brilliance.
Sometimes there's just no accounting for taste; but sometimes, an album comes along that garners near consensus when it comes to being defined as "unlistenable." And I don't mean necessarily that it's bad: sometimes it's so harmonically advanced or ahead of it's time that to actually sit and listen to it is simply very hard.
The following is a selection of ten albums I think the vast majority of regular people and casual music fans would hear and simply say, "What is this crap?" And they might even be right - maybe some of these really are crap, and some are maybe just so brilliant that they're above most people's ability to fathom them. In either case, I hope I'm not seen as trashing these albums - I actually like most of them. I simply figure these platters don't get spun often, if much at all, hence the term "unlistenable." I'll let the readers decide which are which, and you're all welcome to add to the list - but, of course, I won't blame anyone for not going out and tracking any of these down except as a curiosity.
In no particular order:
1) The Shaggs - Philosophy of the World - back in the 60s, a trio of sisters began to learn how to play drums and guitars. Their father decided after a few weeks they were ready for the studio, when in reality the were probably due for more music lessons. The resulting album is out of tune and out of sync, yet it possessed a peculiar charm and redefines the word "amateur."
2) Jimi Hendrix (with Jim Morrison) - Woke Up This Morning and Found Myself Dead (boot) - Jimi attempts an after hours jam while Jimbo yells profanities at the audience. Remember, Jim - when the music's over, turn out the light. I think Johnny Winter is onstage too somewhere.
3) Neil Young -Arc - for those who thought guitar feedback was the best part of Neil's electric set, Neil simply got rid of the set & kept the guitar squelch.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mark Saleski
heh! you fricken' trouble maker!
ok, i haven't heard the Hendrix, VU, or monkees entries.
other than those, i like everything else on the list. i guess i'm just wired funny.
2 - The Schine
Heard and have them all -- but while "Changes", "Arc", "Metal Machine" and "Trout Mask" are difficult, they're tame compared to Wildman Fischer, Mrs. Miller, Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and John and Yoko's "scream therapy" stuff.
Really other than the Shaggs, most of this stuff is garden variety bad, step up to the plate and enjoy true terror in it's purist form - Evel Knievel singing "Why?" or an Yma Sumac album? Or the classic "Muhammad Ali vs. Tooth decay" - there's an album.
3 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Ah Precious Moments: As a record store employee at the time, unwittingly subjecting a store full of customers to sizeable shards o' 'Metal Machine Music'.
But where's 'The Ethel Merman Disco Album', Bing Crosby's 'Hey Bing/Hey Jude', and the Del Rubio Triplets, 'Three Gals, Three Guitars'?
4 - Mark Saleski
Ethel Merman Disco Album? yow.
5 - JC Mosquito
Urk. Some of these additions sound practically unimaginable much less unlistenable.
I assume Ali beat Tooth Decay by a knockout(!).
6 - Glen Boyd
Wheres "My Name is Larry" by Wild Man Fischer?
-Glen
7 - JANK
Ahhh I disagree on the Eno and Capt Beefheart. Edge music, yes but that doesn't make them unlistenable. Ascension I did try however and I will grant you that call. I tried but I couldn't latch on to it at all.
8 - Mark Saleski
Philip Glass - Music With Changing Parts
that'll challenge yer attention span.
9 - Tom Johnson
I guess I'm nuts. I dig Ascension as well as the Shaggs.
I played Arc one day not too long ago to see how my wife would react. It took her 3 minutes and 30 seconds before she said, clearly a bit frustrated, "Okay, what are we listening to?!" I don't know that most people would make it even that far.
10 - Mark Saleski
"Okay, what are we listening to?!"
i'll be damned, our wives say the exact same thing!
;-)
11 - Catey
Ok, so I went to amazon and listened to the Shaggs, on their nifty song sampler there, and it gave me vertigo.Thats indeed very hard to listen to, but I couldnt resist it.
12 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
I'm gonna say anything from The Grateful Dead & The cd that Billy Bob Thorton just released....
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you meant Avant/Noise. I personally could handle pretty much any of the stuff you listed because it is like art & they are just trying to explore but most of the sh!t that people value,usually, is the stuff I can't stand.
(The list would be way too long for an article, but maybe I will have a crack at a new series...lol)
13 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
*BTW* Adult Themes for Voice by Mike Patton is a pretty good album to piss people off with.
14 - JC Mosquito
I guess there's a fine line between unlistenable good and unlistenable bad. Neil Young's Arc is a hard listen, but good - I've been through it a few times. But his Journey Through the Past Soundtrack remains one of only two of his albums not available on CD - it's unlistenable bad - once is enough.
Don't know why Time Fades Away isn't available tho' - it's a a pretty decent album, somewhere in the top quarter of his work, I've always felt, and certainly listenable on all levels.
Interesing story about Coltrane's Ascension: they did two takes, and Coltrane chose one of them for release. When the album came out, he said it was the wrong take, so subsequent album pressings used the alternate instead. However, no one, including the players, really knew which was take one or take two, despite there being significant differences in the order of the soloists. Nowadays, both version are available on CD, labelled Ascension I and II, but most people can't tell the difference anyway.
15 - JC Mosquito
Catey - If you listen to the Shaggs long enough, it makes perfectly good sense - but it's a work of art that references only itself.
16 - Mark Saleski
Adult Themes for Voice by Mike Patton is a pretty good album to piss people off with.
Pranzo Oltranzista is good for that too.
now if you'll excuse me, i've gotta go listen to Workingman's Dead.
17 - john
my wife would probably nominate any recording by Anthony Braxton
18 - Catey
I would have to chew some Bonine first.:P
19 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Hey Mark, you just go ahead and do that...
Of course, I won't excuse you. I won't even give you a stay of execution...Bastard. *Smirk*
20 - Mark Saleski
dang guppus...and i was about to finish my Terrapin Station/Killers mashup disc. ;-)
21 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Yea.. But would you really hear a difference when you did that!? It's all the same crap anyways...lol;)
22 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
*oops* - Unless you're referring to Maiden's Killers.
23 - Mark Saleski
shoot, i guess i should have said Terrapin Station/The Number of the Beast.
;-)
24 - Glen Boyd
I've actually got a promo copy of "Arc - The Single". It's a three minute edit. All ya need right there.
-Glen
25 - Chris Beaumont
Primitive Enema by The Butt Trumpets. If you can sit through that, you can sit through anything. Plus any album by The Locust, though I have only seen them live, I cannot imagine a CD being better.