The Shaggs: Philosophy Of The World (yellow smoke vinyl) [LIGHT IN THE ATTIC]

Why you'll love it

This Light In The Attic edition comes on yellow smoke vinyl. The album went on to win fans including Frank Zappa, Kurt Cobain and NRBQ, and has been called a work of "accidental genius."

This edition

• Yellow smoke vinyl
• Stereo mix

About the album

Few bands owe their existence to a palm reading. When Austin Wiggin was young, his mother read his palm and predicted, among other things, that his daughters would form a popular band. Austin took that seriously, and in 1965 sisters Dorothy, Betty and Helen Wiggin of Fremont, New Hampshire became The Shaggs.

In 1969 he took them to a studio in Revere, Massachusetts, saying he wanted "to get them while they're hot." Dot wrote the songs, and they sound like nothing else: guitars in their own tuning, drums on their own schedule, melodies that wander wherever they please. "My Pal Foot Foot" is a song about a lost cat, "Who Are Parents" and "Things I Wonder" ponder family life, and the title track lays out a whole worldview in a couple of minutes.

Copies circulated among musicians through the 1970s, Rounder reissued it in 1980 to enthusiastic notices in Rolling Stone and The Village Voice, and the cult has grown ever since. Several of us have tried to play along with "My Pal Foot Foot." Nobody has yet kept up.

Also at Kops: more The Shaggs on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Light In The Attic (cat# LITA 151), a reissue of the 1969 album.