most "unlistenable"/"unlikely" albums released on a major

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i occasionally encounter a quote about some record (eg, boredoms - chocolate synthesizer) being compared to metal machine music in terms of the most unlistenable or most unlikely album released on a major label.

what are some of the fringiest, noisiest, unlikely major label releases?

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:53 (twenty-two years ago)

What label was No New York first released on?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:54 (twenty-two years ago)

damn, boredoms was first thing that came to mind

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm completely blanking on the name of this 2xLP by this guy and his band, early 70s, kinda beefheart-ish, his dad was a label exec. (?), it was reissued in 1993 or 94 on 2xCD... i keep wanting to say the name is similar to "barclay james harvest" but i may be way off... it's on the tip of my tongue.... ugh...

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

did def american count as a major when that first geto boys came out?

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:57 (twenty-two years ago)

are you thinking of col. bruce hampton?

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:57 (twenty-two years ago)

if you are, music to eat's a great album

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:59 (twenty-two years ago)

hampton grease band is it, thxxx jb.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 01:59 (twenty-two years ago)

was zappa's bizarre label major affiliated?

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:01 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, if you're thinking of Trout Mask Replica.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm actually thinking of Wild Man Fischer

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:03 (twenty-two years ago)

AMG had No New York on Antilles, which I've never heard of....

It's not noisy, but I always thought that Trans by Neil Young is a pretty bizarre. I mean, if some young (Non-Neil Young) kid came up with a half-baked little synth pop/Vocoder folk record an A&R would have laughed him out of his office....yet I think it was on Geffen

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:04 (twenty-two years ago)

moondog was kinda unlikely.but not unlistenable. hapsash and the coloured coat?

oh yeah, wutta bout arc/weld for neil. wasn't that the name of it? i only heard it once.

― scott seward, Friday, 26 September 2003 02:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Trans was on Geffen (weirdly it wasn't that record that prompted the lawsuit)

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:08 (twenty-two years ago)

God, I forgot about Arc (or was it Weld)....the one disc was just all feedback punched into a computer and reedited for like 40 minutes....I remember liking it kind of. That's definitely up there.

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:10 (twenty-two years ago)

In the NNY review on AMG it mentions Antilles was a sublabel of Island (were they a major in 1978?)

Arc by Neil Young is an excellent example. Thank you.

more unlikely than unlistenable, whoever was responsible for approving Zaireeka probably is no longer in the industry.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:10 (twenty-two years ago)

A friend of mine had a Zaireeka party once, where him and his roomate got 4 stereos together and invited people over....it was actually freaking amazing....they do these huge pans that zoom between stereos and it blew my mind (um....I was also a bit drunk, which probably helped).....It's actually got some good songs on it though, if you like the Lips.

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:13 (twenty-two years ago)

there is tons of 60's stuff that fits the bill. cuz labels didn't have a clue what would sell so they ended up putting tons of bad acid trax out and hoped for the best.from sonny bono's acid album to yma sumac's to william shatner's. you get the idea. tons of unlistenable side long "trip" tracks out there.

― scott seward, Friday, 26 September 2003 02:14 (twenty-two years ago)

joe byrd and the field hippys. white noise. tons of stuff.

― scott seward, Friday, 26 September 2003 02:16 (twenty-two years ago)

i agree scott, i think it would be more interesting to focus on the more extreme releases of the "safe" era, mounting pressures from the boardroom, rising costs, profitability, etc.

what year would be a good dividing line...?

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:17 (twenty-two years ago)

what year did the first Coven album come out? and who at Mercury thought it was a good idea to release an album that featured an entire satanic black mass on one side?

― scott seward, Friday, 26 September 2003 02:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I have David Axelrod's Earth Rot, which was released on Capitol in 1970, it's bizarro goth jazz concept album with female choirs singing these incredibly convoluted lyrics about the ecology, pollution etc....

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:29 (twenty-two years ago)

skip spence - oar

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

The first Faust album (released on Polydor).

― Damian (Damian), Friday, 26 September 2003 03:07 (twenty-two years ago)

In thinking about the contextual nature of this question, I like wondering what standard/state of the art major-label albums in the past couple years, specifically in hip-hop and r'n'b, would have been flat out mindboggling in context thirty years back. Or would they have been?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 26 September 2003 03:17 (twenty-two years ago)

keeping prevailing trends in mind, recordings that have stood out in a pretty extreme nature from the status quo of releases from the era.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 03:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Aphrodite's Child released the 666 album in 70 or 72 (depending on which web site you believe) on Mercury, and it was even a double-disk affair. I remember hearing one cut from it around then that was pretty weird.

On Ned's point, I used to wonder about that kind of thing too, one example being The Three O'Clock (LA pop-psych revival band from late 79 or early 80s), who I thought were great and assumed they would blow away the crowds in '67-'68 San Francisco. But I also wonder if maybe they would be just enough "off" from what was prevalent then that they would be seen as fakes or a band that "just didn't get it." Likewise for the Blasters or the Cramps in a mid-60s southern roadhouse.

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 26 September 2003 06:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Mr Bungle - Disco Volante

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Friday, 26 September 2003 06:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Early Mercury Rev. OK, given the post-grunge-goldrush climate it makes sense, but still. BOCES. WTF?

― kate (kate), Friday, 26 September 2003 11:05 (twenty-two years ago)

King Kobra stole my pick - that Warner Brothers was in the position of having to hype Mr Bungle (their debut got reviewed in People!) is pretty funny.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

i love boces. that was a weird time of nirvana hope.

united states of america "s/t" (columbia)
ministry "land of rape and honey" (sire)
laurie anderson "big science" (warner)
tiny tim "god bless tiny tim" (reprise)
devo "are we not men? we are devo!" (warner)

eh, those are unlikely maybe, but are those very unlistenable? probably not.
m.

― msp, Friday, 26 September 2003 12:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Royal Trux - "Sweet Sixteen" is probably their least accessible/listenable record (tho I like it), and it must have the most "unlikely" cover art ever on a major. I can't for the life of me imagine how they got out of their contract after this record, ho ho ho.

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Organisation - "Tone Float" RCA

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Warner Bros used to view the 60s albums by Grateful Dead "unsellable"

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

.. and on the other hand, Prince's "Black Album" which was supressed by Warner Brothers, is pretty damn tame.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

metal machione music, i guess.

ammmusic was on elektra first. karyobin and tony oxley's '4 compositions' was on columbia.

braxton's mid-70s work on arista.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

karyobin was on chronoscope which was a part of a major, methinks.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Anthony Braxton was on Arista f'chrissakes! Oops, Julio beat me to it - dammit! Of course, pre-punk and the rise of the "independent record scene", 90% of all weird music was on major labels.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, plenty of labels in the late 60s, not knowing what to do post-psychedelia: release and see what sticks.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:57 (twenty-two years ago)

also on the zaireeka front, i believe that it was completely funded by the lips, they paid for it themselves to make it and eventually it actually made money

― todd swiss (eliti), Friday, 26 September 2003 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Just got the new Outkast this AM, and I'd have to say that Andre 3000's half of that might be the wierdest thing on a major I've heard in awhile, AND it's probably going to debut at no. 1.

Also, what about Kid A and Amnesiac....they aren't terribly wierd or unlistenable, but I think they both debuted at or around no. 1 in the U.S., which is a lot higher than most electro-glitch krautrock albums usually do.

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 26 September 2003 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

(matt, please provide a list of radiohead songs that are the best examples of "electro-glitch krautrock"... i've only heard a couple of their songs.)

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 26 September 2003 14:46 (twenty-two years ago)

what's the most extreme/unlikely album to actually sell a bunch of albums? like over 100,000 or more. Slipknot? maybe NIN. Or before that, Ministry, i guess. non-metal examples are better though cuz metal fans are crazy and they know exactly what they are getting.

oh yeah, my beloved divine styler was on Giant when he put out Spiral Walls...still on my all-time top ten. it probably sold about a 1000 copies. ten or twelve of them to me(i buy cut-outs on ebay for 5 bucks and give them out as gifts occasionally)

― scott seward, Friday, 26 September 2003 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

f-in hell, I was just about to say Divine Styler, but you beat me to it. A buddy of mine just gave me that record--he does the same thing you do, Scott--and it's utterly amazing. And o-u-t out, for certain...

― M Specktor (M Specktor), Friday, 26 September 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Far from unlistenable, but Shudder to Think's "Pony Express Record" was curious. They made three relatively straightforward and catchy-as-hell records for Dischord, then jumped to a major (Epic) and started going bananas with the time structures and abstract lyrics and phrasings.

― Ben Boyer (Ben Boyer), Friday, 26 September 2003 15:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Hi gygax!

I haven't contributed here before, but I liked this question, and wanted to toss out a couple more:

John and Yoko - Life with the Lions

in some ways this may not fit the spirit of the question, since I presume it didn't involve convincing some exec to put it out (the Beatles being in charge of their own label), but nonetheless, it was on a major and it's an album that I think is far more abrasive than Metal Machine Music.

Briefly, for those who haven't heard it: side A is Yoko screaming for 20 minutes. John contributes feedback, but not the nice kind, more the high pitched, squealing, cover your ears kind. John Tchikai (sax) and John Stevens (percussion) emerge briefly near the end. (btw, is you're into this kind of thing, I think there's some interesting semitones created by the merger of Yoko's voice and John's feedback). The centerpiece of side B is a recording of the sound of the heartbeat of Yoko's unborn (and subsequently miscarried) child recorded through a stethescope.

There are several other Beatle-related possibilities (notably George's Electronic Sounds and the whole rest of Yoko's catalog), but I think the aforementioned would be considered the most unlistenable by the average person.

Also, msp's post about Big Science reminded me of United States Live, which would certainly have to be up there in the unlikely (not necessarily unlistenable) catagory, being a 5 LP set and all.

― the cheshire cat, Friday, 26 September 2003 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

gygax, check the first two songs on "kid a", i forget the titles. they're kind of sub-par mouse on mars meets robert wyatt stuff, but very "out there" for a number one album (in a banal sort of way.) i quite like the second, more "rock" side of kid a.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 26 September 2003 17:21 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, metal machine music isn't really abrasive but I suppose for the 'transformer' type lou reed fan it might be.

I will look out for this record cheshire: good one.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 September 2003 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Some Japanese major released a whole load of Fushitsusha / Keiji Haino albums a few years back, there was about 8 albums in one year as I recall.

― udu wudu (udu wudu), Friday, 26 September 2003 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I like yr name and yes, that was tokuma label.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 September 2003 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, all Boredoms records in Japan are on Warners and I think they're actually more popular here than there.

Julio, you like Magma? (and speaking of, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh, A&M)

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 26 September 2003 18:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I heard one magma track which i liked but haven't got round to checking any stuff. haven't heard of the others.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 September 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

ok, just saying that udu wudu was probably a Magma reference (maybe you already knew that)

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 26 September 2003 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

oh ok I didn't know. thanks.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 September 2003 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

c. cat is definitely OTM bringing up yoko... a lot of her stuff is pretty crazy ...

divine styler... "Spiral Walls"... how does that compare to the more recent release? i loved Directrix...

seems like there's several "unlikely" pop hits... stuff that sold 100,000 or more in singles ... "i'm too sexy"... "don't worry, be happy"... "macarena"... "i gotta man" (or whatever that was called.) etc. of course, i'm sure those all seem unlikely because of what i listen to. in the same realm, how about all the fad novelty stuff by ray stevens or roger miller? (whack a doo, whack a doo... or "ahab the arab"...) i guess those are unlikely, yet again, not unlistenable since the mass public propped them up...

i wonder how many people bought bad albums by bowie like the tin machine stuff?
m.

― msp, Friday, 26 September 2003 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

some of bruce haack's stuff came out on columbia, which at the time was probably pretty oddly unlistenable.
m.

― msp, Friday, 26 September 2003 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Julio mentioned mine, which was gonna be those Oxley records on Columbia. That was pretty daring stuff for that time period. Then again, Ned's point about context makes a lot of sense ... I'm sure the earlier free form stuff by guys like Tristano and Guiffre sounded pretty wild at the time. The Braxton on Arista is a good example, I hadn't thought of that. There's actually a whole book that is largely dedicated to exploring how Braxton presents himself, how Arista tried to market his music during his time on the label and how he intersects with African-American musical tradition.

More recently, hey nobody mentioned that Pat Metheny Zero Tolerance for Silence cd! That thing is a pretty unlikely object. It's gotta be one of the worst sellers Geffen's had.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Friday, 26 September 2003 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

focus - hocus pocus
hmmm, what our record label really needs is some dutch prog rock with yodelling........

― joni, Friday, 26 September 2003 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Was listening to Soundgarden's "Jesus Christ Pose" today and thinking, "Fuck, this was actually on heavy rotation once!" And some people thought we needed the 'new rock'!!

― dave q, Friday, 26 September 2003 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Anthony Braxton being on Arista doesn't seem so far-fetched if you remember Arista's sub-label, Arista Freedom, re-issued lots of "obscure" free jazz gems.

― hstencil, Friday, 26 September 2003 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Primus "Pork Soda" is pretty strange for an album that, IIRC, debuted in the top ten. There have probably been #1 Korn albums since that have been much weirder and more unlistenable than that.

― Kris (aqueduct), Friday, 26 September 2003 20:56 (twenty-two years ago)

divine styler... "Spiral Walls"... how does that compare to the more recent release?

It's fairly strange in its own right. *glances at watch to see how long it takes Trife to complain*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 26 September 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Wordpower 2:Directrix was the first review i ever wrote for the Voice! First review i ever wrote, actually. It was a combo Beat Junkies/Divine review. The first Word Power album is probably harder to find now than Spiral Walls. and it's great too. and completely bizarre. almost as bizarre as the sight of Divine and his crew in the first Everlast video.

― scott seward, Friday, 26 September 2003 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Black Mass by Lucifer (Mort Garson). MCA issued it in 1971.
It's (duh) a Satanic celebration played on Moog synths.
Under the right circumstances (quality hallucinogens), it'll scare the hell out of you.

― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Friday, 26 September 2003 22:39 (twenty-two years ago)

i never thought that the lucifer album was that scary. but then i've never listened to it on quality hallucinogens. which depending on your mood i suppose could make anything sound scary. i do think that it was ahead of its time and i wonder how many techno people own a copy. great cover too.

― scott seward, Friday, 26 September 2003 22:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd like to add the Melvins releases on Atlantic.

― John Bullabaugh (John Bullabaugh), Saturday, 27 September 2003 01:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Around '96 I remember Skinny Puppy's last proper album "The Process" actually on the mainstream top 10 albums list in my daily paper, that was very strange.

― sucka (sucka), Saturday, 27 September 2003 02:22 (twenty-two years ago)

sixteen years pass...

Arista's sub-label, Arista Freedom, re-issued lots of "obscure" free jazz gems

1. bless you for making so many of these obscure grails available to my ears at a relatively inexpensive price

2. fuck you for tossing out so much inventive and amazing album cover art and replacing it with your own very unpleasant designs

― budo jeru, Saturday, 15 August 2020 02:42 (five years ago)

there was a time when i bought any arista freedom record i came across. this andrew hill is probably my favorite.

sorry to derail.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Saturday, 15 August 2020 04:17 (five years ago)

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