by Joe Wallace
If you’ve read this site for any length of time you’re no doubt familiar with our obsession for WTF album covers. There is something wonderful about horrible, misguided, even offensive album covers. Trying to get inside the minds of the people responsible for the atrocities that grace album covers is half the fun of looking that them.
Naturally, the other half of the fun is exposing other, unsuspecting people to this stuff and watching them hurt themselves laughing.
But at some point, the album covers are not enough, and hence Turntabling has expanded its search for the bizarre, the unusual and seemingly from-outer-space records, too. I call them WTF records because that is basically your first reaction.
A WTF record doesn’t have to be BAD to qualify. There are plenty of good, quality WTF albums out there in the same way as there are enjoyable WTF movies, artwork, any consumer production you can think of.
Sometimes a WTF record is truly awful, and that’s how it earns the label. For example, who would want to listen to an entire record of Slim Goodbody nutrition sing-a-long music? But as a WTF album, Slim Goodbody’s “Health Is Wealth” is a real find–where else are you going to hear tracks like “Large, Lovely Liver” or “You Don’t Need a Brain”?
Sometimes the WTF factor is connected to who recorded the album. A record of Beatles covers is nothing new, but when Shatner does it, you’ve GOT to hear it at least once. The WTF value is at an all-time high when someone famous for things other than their relative merits as a songwriter is at the helm.
Isn’t that why the Grasshopper album by David Carradine is so collectible? Or Leonard Nimoy doing scary versions of old folkie tunes?
Then there are the weird records that provide a shock of recognition–maybe you didn’t know that before Dinousaur Jr. took off, they were just called Dinosaur.
When you spot the Homestead Records compilation The Wailing Ultimate featuring the track “Repulsion” by Dinosaur, you’ll get that WTF look on your face when you hear J. Mascis open his mouth and start in on his trademark wail.
Or perhaps you weren’t expecting to see a vinyl record featuring none other than Aleister Crowley? Discovering “Blue Sunshine” by The Glove is actually a side project by The Cure is a WTF moment for some.
And some of the most fun WTF albums are by far the weird ones–Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium Is The Massage, Moog reworkings of 70s butt rock classics, Sun Ra, TV preachers on vinyl, you name it. But whatever your WTF vinyl record poison, these albums are often neglected, unheard, or so obscure as to not get their proper due.
Turntabling aims to change that, one record at a time. So in addition to WTF album covers, we’ll be including a lot more coverage of WTF records here, too. Stay tuned, folks. It only gets weirder from here.
