The Rhino Brothers Present The World’s Worst Records! (Various Artists) 1983; Vinyl LP (with sick bag)

Comedy, Cult, Terrible, Outsider, Rhino Records, Various Artists,1983; Vinyl LP with sick bag!! – Ex Used condition

There is perverse pleasure to be had in sampling the tasteless, inept, and bizarre, and it was with this fact in mind that Rhino Records unleashed The World’s Worst Records, a compilation of abrasive novelty songs, demented outsider artists, and clumsy comedy. With liner notes by Dr. Demento and Rhino mainstays Barnes & Barnes and Wild Man Fischer on board, there’s not much doubt as to the tone of the collection. The set list is skewed strongly toward silly, self-consciously dumb parody tunes that range from amusing (Ogden Edsl’s wacky child-abuse singalong “Kinko the Clown”) to obvious and unfunny (“I Wanna Be Your Dog” sung by some bad Three Stooges imitators). Should the “World’s Worst Records” include songs like these that were specifically designed for such a list? For those who think not, there’s the psychobilly classic “Paralyzed,” a formless, atonal jumble of guitar, drum, and bugle from The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, a genuine eccentric who actually turned this wild, incredibly alive record into a hit for a short while in 1968. Blame it on the age of irony, or a desperate attempt to find unique sounds in an increasingly homogenous world, but there are those who find pleasure in the accidental, the broken, and the incorrect. ‘The Rhino Brothers Presents The World’s Worst Records’ anticipated this trend several years in advance, proposing that “bad” was infinitely better than “boring,” though their overdependence on prefab wackiness lessens the importance of the package.