For me it’s Benzene by OwataP. This one is… rice cakes, sea anemones, benzene? idk man, the whole benzene series is weird but this was the strangest one i’ve heard so far
Sid berret is the musical version of Salvador Dali.
It is not super strange to me, but everyone I share it with looks at me like I’m a nutter.
Polysics is fucking weeeeird and I love them.
TEI! TEI! TEI!
Literally anything by Prince Midnight. He plays black metal on a xylophone and a guitar supposedly made of the skeletal remains of his late uncle (Google it, it’s a fascinating rabbit hole lol). He calls his music “black metal” but to me it sounds more like black metal vocals mixed with The Doors, 80s style hardcore punk, and I guess eastern European folk music? A lot of the themes seem to be about Greek mythology. It’s a wild ride lol
Here’s a track to sample: Sword of Dardanos
Maybe not the strangest, but definitely up there. Twiggy Twiggy by Pizzicato Five.
An opera singer and avant-garde music composer who made a song out of comic book sound effects.
Less strange, she also did an operatic cover of The Beatles’ Ticket to Ride. I’m pretty sure my ironic love of this has crossed over into completely unironic genuine love.
Cut the Mullet. A classic. And good advice in general. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roxMH07qHmc
For some general Milwaukee style weird, there will always be Wooden Robot. I really liked Wooden Robot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOmtl8Lmeps
Steve Reich has a lot of interesting stuff. I have heard Clapping Music performed several times. https://youtube.com/watch?v=liYkRarIDfo
One really shocked me: Ascension by John Coltrane. At first I thought this was some kind of a joke but the power really held me down. It’s one of the songs that I can feel pure energy and freedom.
It was a song I heard from a friend who was in a Music Appreciation class. The song was just counting in kind of a meditative chant and only did it in groups of 2 3 or 4, i can’t remember. and they only counted to 12 or something and then started back. so it’d be like “one two three four one two three four five six seven eight one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve one two three four”
Anything by Clown Core or Macabre is always sure to delight.
Whatever the hell this song is supposed to be. The more you watch, the weirder it gets.
Wrap it up boys. We found the winner! WTF?
Well, they asked and you answered.
Forty-plus years ago, when I was in high school, the teacher doing chorus was crazy. Mostly for things not involving music, but there was this one time he pulled out new sheet music, told us we were going to learn it for some recital, and it was pictures of someone’s impressions of sound waves; literally, line drawings of what someone’s idea of that sound would be.
Not actual sine waves, artistic impressions of . . . something. Like, ten pages of little illustrations like nested circles or interlocking triangles that we were supposed to look at, understand by sight, and then reproduce vocally.
He then played a recording of this . . . work, and that left us all even more horrified than we were by the sheet music. I would not care to hear it again. An orchestra tuning would have had more structure and melody; this was like someone playing a busted theramin.
He tried and tried to get everyone excited and onboard with it, and honestly, we just didn’t get it. Mercifully, he gave up after a few days.
I actually saw a reference to it several years later, back in the 90s, so it wasn’t just something he pulled out of his ass (did I mention he was crazy?) but I couldn’t tell you the name of it, or what it was supposed to be; a musicologist could. It was like vocal exercises without any reference to musical notation.
Sounds like a John Cage piece, but I have no clue.
Your guess is as good as mine. Closest I’ve been able to come is sonorism, and a similarity to composers like György Ligeti, but this work was entirely vocal: no instruments, no band, not even SATB, just people making strange mouth noises, lol.
Baby shark backwards.
When you realize Hamsterdance:
Is the Whistle Stop song from Robin Hood sped up:
As certainly not a furry, I recognized that immediately when I booted up dial-up for the first time hahaha