The Shaggs’ Cult Classic Philosophy of the World is Getting a Reissue

Is it the best album ever made? Is it the worst album ever made? No one knows.

In rural New Hampshire 1968, three teenage sisters, Dot, Betty and Helen Wiggin, became The Shaggs and began writing possibly the most confounding music in pop history. It was all for their father, who just wanted his mother’s prophecy that his daughters would be rockstars to come true. The girls were homeschooled and practiced their instruments nonstop. They wrote songs with sweet titles like “My Pal Foot Foot” and titles like “Why Do I Feel?” that would worry any child psychologist. They played their innocent, offbeat, wonky songs every weekend in the local community center, to a usually very unappreciative audience.

The band lasted seven years, until the death of their father. They made a single record— Philosophy of The World, which was largely ignored by the music world at the time of its release. It was rediscovered in 1980 and re-released, and it would be an understatement to say it received mixed reviews. Rolling Stone called it “stunningly awful,” while Frank Zappa seriously referred to the band as “better than the Beatles” and Kurt Cobain named the album his fifth favorite of all time. The album instantly became an outsider hit, and hipsters everywhere still, erm, enjoy, The Shaggs’ honest attempt as musicianship (or the biggest troll album ever).