Bad Band: The Shaggs
To start off this website, I’ll be talking about a classic bad band, The Shaggs. It consisted of three sisters: Betty Wiggin, Helen Wiggin, and Rachel Wiggin. They are notorious for releasing what is considered one of the worst albums of all time, The Philosophy of the World.
What makes this band special is the combination of a lack of talent, lack of passion, and grandiose delusions. The sisters were under no illusion that they had any talent at all; it was their father who pushed them to become “musicians.” It’s rare to come across a case like this, as a band is either lacking passion and will give up, or they have enough self-awareness to see they lack talent and skill, or they will be delusional and push through despite a lack of talent.
Looking further into the origin story of their band was quite heartbreaking. It’s an all-too-common story of a parent forcing their dreams on their kids and being way too controlling over their lives. There might even be enough material to start a Shaggs Cinematic Universe.
Being forced to create music while having no passion for it is a recipe for disaster, and a disaster is exactly what escaped from the studio in 1968. One of the fundamentals of music is rhythm. This band lacks rhythm. Another fundamental is harmony. This band lacks harmony.
The drums will often slow down suddenly, then rise back up to the “correct” tempo. It’s not like they do it in a cool way, like Car Bomb does; it’s just them fuckin up. Polyrhythmic music is common nowadays, especially in progressive metal and rock, with Meshuggah being a popular example. The problem is, Meshuggah writes music based around this and understands music theory. The Shaggs understand nothing. The guitar and vocals are at least mostly in tempo with each other, but that’s most likely due to the lack of hand independence. Their brains cannot separate the rhythm of their singing from their strumming. Funny how a lack of skill in this instance helps them.
Top: Normal 6-string guitar tuning
Bottom: Whatever the fuck The Shaggs had
Photo by Markus Spiske: https://www.pexels.com/photo/music-rock-guitar-instrument-92069/
Each song sounds almost the same. They’re all in the same “key,” and the vocals follow the same flow and melody—the so-called melody being a sine wave. It just goes up and then back down until the song finishes. The guitar follows the vocal pattern, except that they forgot to tune the fuckin guitar, so it’s just jarring. There’s no bass, but maybe this is a good thing. It saves our ears from being sonically molested at all frequencies. As far as production goes, it’s about what you’d expect from a band with a low budget at the time—nothing exceptionally bad about it. The vocals are put at the forefront of the mix, which is common for ’60s rock music, but the vocals suck. There are no dynamics, they don’t use any vocal techniques; they just sound bored. Given the circumstances, it doesn’t surprise me. Why put in any effort when you’re just being forced to do it because a palm reader told your dad that his daughters would become a famous band? Funnily enough, they have achieved a certain level of fame, kind of like Neil Breen. In both cases, it was because the creative products they gave to the world were so bad, they became interesting to watch and listen to.
The highlights of the album are the songs “The Philosophy of the World” and “My Pal Foot Foot,” not because they’re any different musically from the other songs, but because the lyrics are complete nonsense. The song reminds me of Jaden Smith’s “philosophical” quotes, except The Shaggs are funnier. One of my favorites is “The skinny people want what the fat people’s got”, like what? More all-cause mortality? The lyrics are absolutely full of cope. “My Pal Foot Foot” is just vague as hell. We never find out who or what Foot Foot is. Is it a dog? A cat? A ghostly apparition? The only information we’re given is that Foot Foot likes to roam. If you think about it too much it becomes a bit creepy. Why is he roaming? Where does he go? We don’t even know what this Foot Foot thing is so we can’t even guess as to what its goals are. Can someone write a Foot Foot creepypasta?
Overall, it’s pretty bad but far from the worst thing I’ve heard. I’d rather sit through one of their songs than most modern pop that plays on the radio. It’s short at only 31 minutes, and most songs barely go past the two-minute mark.
A compilation album titled “Shaggs’ Own Thing” was released in 1982. It is exponentially better than their previous work, but it’s still shit. The band is actually playing in time and the instruments are in tune so it actually sounds like music. The singing has more range and dynamics but they still do the stupid thing where they play the same notes they’re singing.
Ironically, they’re called The Shaggs, but I wouldn’t shag any of them.
Check out The Shaggs on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ixdD9E7P9r51AOcSInQbl?si=oX4hXt3cQXi64E94LvSpJQ