154. The Residents - Meet the Residents (1974)
The Residents are a secretive group of weird motherfuc
kers who put a stamp on the avant-garde world with their debut album, Meet the Residents. There's such a wide array of influences like classical, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and musique concrete meshed in with the out-there ideas of The Residents. The vocals are incredibly unique as well, few bands really took such a strange approach to vocals before The Residents but now their influence has been made clear with bands like Primus copycating them. It's hard to tell if somebody is going to like this album or not, because there's no real group out there to compare them to, unless you've heard...
155. Renaldo and the Loaf - Songs for Swinging Larvae (1981)
Really the only band that comes to mind with such a striking similarity to The Residents, but here's the thing: Songs for Swinging Larvae is better than anything that The Residents released. Quit shouting and flipping off your computer screen and calm down, it was hard for me to accept at first too. This album is just so goddamned fun. Two professional weirdos come together and construct strange and complex songs using mainly acoustic instruments and tape. It's a glimpse into the mind of weird guy mumbling to himself at the bus station. The melodies are relatively simple, almost as if they were written by a 5-year-old, but the way that they're presented is bizarre and other-worldly (a world I would love to live on). Lyrically the album touches on the hilarious, bizarre, disturbing, and apocalyptic (Spratt's Medium is made up entirely of quotes from Samuel Beckett's Endgame). This album is highly recommended to everyone, even you Trollheart.