Review Summary: There aren’t well thought out, complicated rhythms on this album, the girls just didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. They would randomly bang on the drums or randomly strum their guitars.
Recently I was chilling with my cousin and we ended up bored out of our minds. That’s when I thought it would be a good idea show him the worst song in the world. So I went to YouTube and typed in the oh so infamous song
My Pal, Foot Foot and to my great dismay he said he had already heard it…and he thought it was one of the better songs he’s heard in recent memory. Suffice to say I immediately stood up and punched him square in his square Horn-Rimmed glasses. The propensity of Hispters these days… I swear.
The Shaggs are a band compromised of the three Wiggin sisters, all three of whom were forced by their bat-shit crazy father to make music. You see their father, Austin Wiggin, went to a palm reader when he was a young man and the palm reader explained to the man that he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after she had died, and that his daughters would form a popular music group. Well these first two things eventually came to fruition, Austin focused his daughters to form what is now known around the world as The Shaggs.
Now the musical styling of The Shaggs (if it could be called that) is, in it’s own right, a unique, one of a kind listen. In most cases I will gush over a band if they do something that is new, something that is refreshing and breaks new ground, so to speak. But in the case of The Shaggs there uniqueness is not a good quality. What makes them unique is the fact that they are probably the only band in existence who recorded an album without knowing how to play their instruments or let alone sing. Take for instance the standout track, if you will. My Pal, Foot Foot begins with a drum beat that you swear a three year old with two sticks and a set of pots and pans could have written. There is no beat, no flow whatsoever and when the incessant guitar strumming comes the song somehow manages to get worse. But don’t be fooled. The song does manage to get worse, notably when the singing begins. My God, I am all for interesting ways of delivering lyrics but, this is just plain horrible. Unfortunately the lyrics are not the saving grace that some seem to make them out to be. I’ve heard that The Shaggs have been praised for their “lyrical honesty”. No. They are just three teenage girls who have no idea how to construct a song, let alone right deep meaningful lyrics. Take for example the passage from the title track
Philosophy of the World
Quote:
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Oh, the rich people want what the poor people's got and the poor people want what the rich people's got and the skinny people want what the fat people's got and the fat people want what the skinny people's got
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And it doesn’t get any better… at all.
I have also heard that this album has been praised for the well thought out and complicated poly-rhythms that are present throughout the album. This irritates me the most out of any of the praise that I hear for this album. There aren’t well thought out, complicated rhythms on this album, the girls just didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. They would randomly bang on the drums or randomly strum their guitars. There is not one single redeeming grace to be found on this album.
But knowing that Austin Wiggins is culpable, in every sense of the word, for the atrocity known as The Shaggs, I can’t help but feel a tad bit sorry for the girls who were forced into making “music” without the slightest idea one how to do it. But The Shaggs are without a doubt the worst band I have ever heard.
Ever
