Oh, where to start with The Shaggs? I feel so fortunate to have found out about what is claimed by many to be the ‘best worst band of all time’. If outsider music had a Velvet Underground or Stooges, it is undoubtedly this peerless unit made up of three rather unattractive teenage sisters - Dot, Betty and Helen Wiggin.The Shaggs’ intriguing, and even sad story is one of popular music folklore. Brought up sheltered and underprivileged in the woods of New Hampshire, the Wiggin sisters had no musical aspirations as children. That was until their father-cum-svengali Austin, convinced by a prediction made by his mother, pulled them all out of school and got them started onto the road of musical fame and fortune. He blew the family’s life savings on two guitars and a drum kit, and sent the girls to music lessons. By 1968, when Austin felt his daughters had got their act together after a couple of years, he organised them shows at the local town hall. They performed under the name ‘The Shaggs’, naming themselves after a popular hairdo.The next step of course would be to record a debut album. By now Dot Wiggin had written plenty of original material, so in 1969 a day in a local studio was booked. The resulting album “Philosophy of the World” had an initial pressing of 1,000 copies. Unfortunately, almost none of them made it to stores. To distribute the albums, Austin put his trust into a man who would eventually flee with 900 of them, never to be traced. The other 100 copies were sent to radio stations across the New England district, but none took any notice of them. So much for trying to make your daughters the next rock n roll success story!But years later, The Shaggs became a cult rock n roll success story. Like Infinite Second, The Shaggs throw each and every concept of musical convention out the window. “Philosophy of the World” is notorious in underground music circles for its extreme dissonance and utter badness – considering that this was intended to be a serious pop/rock record. First impressions make the listener assume that the Wiggin sisters didn’t so much spend years working out how to play their instruments as at least the week before they hit the studio, while the songs were entirely made up on the spot as the tape rolled.“Philosophy of the World” was an album I couldn’t get enough of as soon as I’d purchased it (for the record, existing copies and even the original master tapes were eventually discovered, and the album has been re-issued in various forms ever since). It’s alienating, wrong, questionably sincere, and yet as original as contemporary music gets. That this album even exists is remarkable in itself, because it’s hard to imagine a professional studio engineer approving these approximations of popular music for public consumption - and possibly with a straight face, too. If there’s anything that goes beyond traditional hipster credentials (I’m looking at you, “Pitchfork Media” readers and contributors), this is your one-stop curiosity.In my opinion, The Shaggs are at their ramshackle best in “My Pal Foot Foot”, an ode to a lost pet, and “My Companion”, which leads the listener through many scenarios into thinking it’s about a significant other, but by the end the companion is revealed to be “my radio”. As Betty and Dot sing in unison and hack away at their detuned budget guitars, Helen flails about on her drumkit like a child banging on pots and pans, always a beat or two behind her sisters. It’s characteristic of all of “Philosophy of the World”, but on those two songs their approach is much looser and less barely controlled than the other ten tracks. That’s not to say I think any lesser of the remainder of the album. “It’s Halloween” in particular is an eccentrically sweet tribute to the spooky season loved by children across North America.One thing that stands out in the Shaggs’ songs, apart from the highly idiosyncratic music, is the directness of the lyrics. After the first few stumbling seconds of the opening title track, you hear the girls deliver in thick New England accents as follows:All the rich people want what the poor people’s gotAnd the poor people want what the rich people’s gotAll the skinny people want what the fat people’s gotAnd the fat people want what the skinny people’s gotYou can never pleaseA-ny-bo-o-dyIn this worldAnd it goes on. While they can demonstrate emotion and their own feelings, The Shaggs’ lyrics are more concerned with personal yet basic observations, morals and philosophies. They have the charm of a poem written by a primary school student, and about as much depth as well. But in the Shaggs’ case, this is forgivable and understandable.A quick scan of amazon.com reviews reveal “Philosophy of the World” to be a love-or-hate affair among those who get wind of it. Many champion the album for its chaos and disregard of musical standards, while others condemn it for its supposed exploitation of these three poor sisters who were allegedly bullied by their father into becoming a decent musical group. Some are angered by it because they can’t understand how anyone in their right mind could appreciate something so technically undeveloped and discordant, and that its shortcomings make it a ‘cult classic’. Regardless of public opinion, “Philosophy of the World” has enough support from important musical figureheads to give it validity as a true artefact. The king of all things esoteric, Frank Zappa, once named it one of his favourite albums of all time, going as far to say The Shaggs are “better than The Beatles”. Legendary critic Lester Bangs gave a loving review of “Philosophy” when it was re-issued in 1980. And of course, Kurt Cobain admitted in his “Journals” that it was a personal favourite.If you think you have what it takes, I dare you to give “Philosophy of the World” a spin, and share it with other people. It will either change your life and how you look at music, or you’ll wish you had the ability to ‘unhear’ it.