“Depending on whom you ask, the Shaggs were either the best band of


Outsider music (definition): Songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry who write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with formal rules.


all time or the worst. Frank Zappa is said to have proclaimed that the Shaggs were ‘better than the Beatles.’ More recently, though, a music fan who claimed to be in ‘the fetal position, writhing in pain,’ declared on the Internet that the Shaggs were ‘hauntingly bad,’ and added, ‘I would walk across the desert while eating charcoal briquettes soaked in Tobasco for forty days and forty nights not to ever have to listen to anythin diverge


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g Shagg‐related ever again.’ Such a e of opinion co


— Susan Orlean, ‘Meet the Shaggs’ T he New Yorker, 1997.


Original album cover, 1969. Discussion Topic


How is it possible that the Shaggs’ music inspires such strong feelings in listeners, both negative and positive? What or who in our culture defines what is considered ‘good’ or ‘bad’ music or art?


nfuses the mind.”


Philosophy of the World original liner notes, written by Austin Wiggin, 1969.


The Shaggs are real, pure, unaffected by outside influences. Their music is different, it is theirs alone. They believe in it, live it. It is a part of them and they are a part of it. Of all contemporary acts in the world today, erhaps only the Shaggs do what others would like to do, and that is perform only what they believe in, what they feel, not what others think the Shaggs should feel.


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The Shaggs love you, and love to perform for you. You may love their music or you may not, but whatever you feel, at last you know you can listen to artists who are real. They will not change their music or style to m eet the whims of a frustrated world. You should appreciate this because you know they are pure what more can you ask?


Betty, Helen and Dorothy Wiggin are the Shaggs. They are sisters and members of a large family where mutual respect and love for each other is at an unbelievable high. They study and practice together, encouraged and helped by those around them. Betty, Helen and Dorothy live in a small town in New Hampshire, in an atmosphere which has encouraged them to develop their music unaffected by outside influences. They are happy people and love what they are doing. They do it because they love it.


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