Worst musicianship on an album ever?

Philly_Q

What a great thread!  Never heard of most of the bands (except The Shaggs) but I'm actually enjoying some of these songs.

steamabacus said:

Maybe not the worst ever but I remember being given a ropey cassette of this to learn by my old bass player - and it left a permanent scar on my memory.

Bruce Baxter Orchestra recording of the Hawaii Five-O theme - I think they must have been down the pub in their lunch break.

"What does this little box do? Ooooh, fuzz guitar - how difficult can that be?"  >:D<

What a fucking awesome guitar solo!  Reminded me of a weird little homemade headphone amp I ordered from a small ad in the back of Melody Maker, around 1982.  It would eat through a 9V battery in a couple of hours, and just before the battery died it would sound exactly like that solo. 

Sporky

Philly_Q said:

What a great thread!  Never heard of most of the bands (except The Shaggs) but I'm actually enjoying some of these songs.

Likewise - I'd rather listen to any of these than a typical pub blues band.

starwarsnosebleed

@tabbycat That was intense stuff, quite enjoyed it. Reminded me of The Fall for some reason.
Actually The Fall should be mentioned as they wrote some shockers.

@Equalsql Yeah, that was pretty bad. Couldnt bare to listen to that twice.

starwarsnosebleed

@ICBM that Talula gosh was horrendus!

Reverend

XWulfhere

John and yoko - the wedding album
Lou reed - metal machine music

ICBM

Sporky said:

Philly_Q said:

What a great thread!  Never heard of most of the bands (except The Shaggs) but I'm actually enjoying some of these songs.

Likewise - I'd rather listen to any of these than a typical pub blues band.

Same here - I don't mean "worst musicianship" as a put-down, I usually enjoy this kind of thing where the songs and the fun of doing it are more important than the technical ability of the players.

The opposite - brilliant technicians playing boring music which appears to be nothing more than a means to show off their abilities - is probably the type of music I dislike the most. Which doesn't mean you can't have great music played by brilliant technicians, either, and I like some of that...

usedtobe

Anybody know if The Shaggs are looking for a guitar player..?

Sporky

ICBM said:

Same here - I don't mean "worst musicianship" as a put-down, I usually enjoy this kind of thing where the songs and the fun of doing it are more important than the technical ability of the players.

Exactly! And at the same time I can see why some people dislike this sort of thing almost by default.

The opposite - brilliant technicians playing boring music which appears to be nothing more than a means to show off their abilities - is probably the type of music I dislike the most.

And again.

Which doesn't mean you can't have great music played by brilliant technicians, either, and I like some of that...

And thricely. I've nothing against those with good technical and theory skills, but with great power comes great responsibility and all that.

steamabacus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvB3VcSeCLk

Actually rather splendid.

8-}

Gassage

Al di Meola, Paca de Lucia and John MacLaughlin - One Night in San Francisco.

Flash in the pan widdle.

Shocking playing.

tabbycat

starwarsnosebleed said:

@tabbycat That was intense stuff, quite enjoyed it. Reminded me of The Fall for some reason.
Actually The Fall should be mentioned as they wrote some shockers.

hey @starwarsnosebleed it's curious (or kurious, as in Oranj) you should mention the fall, as my shortlist for that post was bette davis or spectre vs rector by the fall. i could think of a million good-bad things, but those two seemed to me to be particularly 'good bad' for the purposes of illustration.

re good-bad, was lucky enough to see the fall a few times in the 80s and weirdly, by the second half of that decade (nation' saving grace, etc), they were actually one of the tightest (in their own way) live bands i have even seen. i was almost disappointed that they were so tight as i had grown up with the chaotic early stuff (slates, perverted, hex), but by 'saving grace' they were as solid and strictly regulated and unstoppable as a one of smith's imaginary dark satanic mills.

as peel said on inumerable occasions "always the same, always different... the fall".

Winny_Pooh

I was surprised how crappy this solo is considering it's a classic.



Maybe hippies had never heard of Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, John Mclaughlin or Johnny Smith

EricTheWeary

Winny_Pooh said:

I was surprised how crappy this solo is considering it's a classic.



Maybe hippies had never heard of Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, John Mclaughlin or Johnny Smith

Wasn't the solo supposed to be his take on John Coltrane?

starwarsnosebleed

My most loved band are Melvins.

As much as i love them (not so much the recent stuff) they have had a hand in a few heinous atrocities since thier birth in 1983.

Here is 'Hogleg' from the Eggnog ep, the rest of the is is great, but the vocals on this song are hard to stomach.

Sorry Melvins.

Moss

Can't really decide whether this is intentional as there are moments of genius. Absolutely love them though, I'd always rather listen to well written basic song than an amazingly technical 5 minutes of pointless widdle

Gassage

It's not often an OP just nails it, but in terms of horrendousness, this is world class.

tabbycat

moldy peaches are like a new millennium version of the shaggs. same sort of gleeful ineptitude, same earnest teenage diary lyrics.

Fuzzdog

equalsql said:

The benchmark for bad playing without a doubt 
)

I know I should find that horrifying, but for some reason I can't stop laughing at it.  I've played it twice now.

Octahedron

Do vocalists count as musicians and if so can they ruin an album's musicality? 

If yes, then actually, there's a lot of terrible musicianship out there. 

To name a few:

- Johnny Cash

- Lou Reed x1,000,000 (including that god-awful Metallica collaboration)

And so many, many, many more.