Trout Mask Replica
by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

From Space-Dementia 07/07/2016 01:46 | #170729 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This is the only music I've listened to all day today. I've listened to it six times in about nine/ten hours:
FIRST LISTEN
holy shit this is bad. i want to like it but it's shit.
SECOND LISTEN
i guess it's cool that they practiced this like essentially hundreds of times to get it down perfect. it's still weird as shit though.
THIRD LISTEN
dude he literally intended everything that happens on this record to happen. this is actually super impressive, as weird as it is.
FOURTH LISTEN
i actually kind of like it. parts of it are catchy.
FIFTH LISTEN
it doesn't even seem that weird anymore. it seems like just rock music that had a lot of thought put into it.
SIXTH LISTEN
THAT'S RIGHT, THE MASCARA SNAKE. FAST AND BULBOUS. ALSO A TINNED TEARDROP. I RUN ON BEANS. THIS IS SO COOL. (Edited)

I refuse to rate and/or rank this album. It's straight up impossible for me to compare its quality to other albums' qualities. I also find it impossible to give it a number between 0 and 10 to represent how good/bad I think it is, 'cause I don't think any rating fits.

It's sure as hell an interesting listen, and I can enjoy and appreciate how crazy, bizarre and absurd it is for ca. an LP side worth of time, but after that it just becomes exhausting and even annoying, and sitting through 80 minutes of this in one sitting is more of an unenjoyable experience.

You may think this is all improvised and just a couple of guys going nuts in the studio and trying to make the weirdest shit they can. But in reality every track on here was planned and practised to death. And you can hear that when you give the album a close listen. Quite allot of skill and talent was put into this.

It does have a bit of a dark story behind though that allot of people overlook or just don't know about. Captain Beefheart had the group live communally in a small house where they had to practice Beefheart's difficult compositions 14 or more hours a day for 8 months. He would, at times, both mentally and physically abuse them. They also had very little food and rarely got to leave the small house. There was also some stuff about Beefheart suffering from paranoia and schizophrenia at the time, causing him to see nonexisting things.

So... Yeah. It's sure an interesting and important album, and I can enjoy and appreciate a little dose of it every now and then, but I don't know if I'll ever bother to listen through the whole thing again, especially not in one sitting. Oh, and it's got a hella cool cover too. (Edited)

From Onater 01/24/2017 23:36 | #184179 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This gets even better (Or worse, they're basically the same thing when talking about Beefheart) when you know about the story behind it. From Wikipedia:

"In preparation the group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in a small rented house in the Woodland Hills suburb of Los Angeles. Van Vliet implemented his vision by asserting complete artistic and emotional domination of his musicians. At various times one or another of the group members was put "in the barrel", with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet.[4] According to John French and Bill Harkleroad these sessions often included physical violence. French described the situation as "cultlike"[5] and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Manson-esque."[6] Their material circumstances also were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the group survived on a bare subsistence diet. French recounted living on no more than a small cup of soybeans a day for a month[7] and at one point band members were arrested for shoplifting food (with Zappa bailing them out).[8] A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health". Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day. Vliet once told drummer John French he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and thus he would see nonexistent conspiracies that explained this behaviour.[9]"

Some more fun facts:

"Van Vliet enrolled at Antelope Valley Junior College as an art major, but decided to leave the following year. He once worked as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, and sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer Aldous Huxley at his home in Llano, pointing to it and declaring, "Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks."[35]"

"In the end, after the album's recording, Beefheart ejected French from the band by throwing him down a set of stairs, telling him to "Take a walk, man" after not responding in a desired manner to a request to "play a strawberry" on the drums."

"Van Vliet claimed to have gone a year and half without sleeping. When asked how this was possible, he claimed to have only eaten fruit.[15]" (Edited)

From telefunker 12/05/2008 01:59 | #2020 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

right, "genius"..

if you examine a turd under a powerful microscope, you will no doubt notice and maybe even appreciate the textural harmonies and subtle overtones of colour..

it's still a turd though. (Edited)

From Anti TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/18/2014 19:03 | #112226 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I understand that everything that was put onto this album was on purpose and that it's filled with asymmetric stuff, but it just doesn't do it for me. I gave it another listen and my opinion still hasn't gotten better. Go ahead, dislike the crap out of my comment just because I don't like it. It just doesn't work for me.

But that doesn't mean I won't give it some praise. This is truly a unique album and probably nobody will make an album like this anytime soon. It does has some cool moments. I may not like this album, but I'm not going to parade around this website degrading its awesomeness. (Unlike some people do with a certain album I enjoy...)