Today's entry in the Jukebox from Hell is a lesson in prophecy. As the story goes, Austin Wiggin received a series of prophecies from his mother as a child, one of them being that his daughters would become famous musicians. When her other prophecies started coming true, Wiggin, who had sheltered his family from the sins of rock-and-roll music, decided to basically force his four daughters, Dorothy, Helen, Betty and Rachel, to form a band and record an album.
The result was a band known as The Shaggs and their album, Philosophy of the World. Derided as some of the worst music ever recorded, the Shaggs naturally didn't get taken very seriously. Austin Wiggin's dreams were crushed-- or so it seemed. Over the years, they slowly got better and in 1975 Wiggin decided to try again and brought his daughters back in the studio for their next album, Shaggs' Own Thing. Wiggin died during the recording sessions and the daughters, who always resented the whole thing, never released the album and disbanded the group forevermore. (Shaggs' Own Thing would get released in 1982; they'd reunite once in 1999.)
It was only in 1980 that Philosophy of the World was discovered by record executives, who believed it was so bad it was good and gave the album a wide release. They became infamous among "outsider music" aficionados and the album received wide praise, if only for its cathartic value.
The moral of the story: prophecies almost never turn out the way you expect them to turn out.
Here's a track from Philosophy of the World, which is kind of creepy knowing the story. "Who Are Parents?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cs1BIlglzI
