Customer Reviews

Better Than the Beatles: A Tribute to the Shaggs

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Just got this CD and was looking forward to hearing some of the Shaggs "reinterpreted"....hoping that the music was more listenable. It was more listenable but the irony is ...the new version is not as good.
I'll admit that the original Shaggs CD was perhaps the strangest gut wrenching funny music I've heard....ever. The original alblum was so bad that it demanded your attention, every off note and off beat would get me smiling... until my jaw hurt. But it was music that was difficult to listen to.
This new CD is a bunch easier to listen to, but I'm afraid it has lost the raw edge of the original. It's not that I don't like the "Better than the Beatles...A Tribute to the Shaggs," but the tribute reminds me of the movie and the soundtrack for Grease. I mean, that while Grease "is the word", it is not the real thing. While this tribute to the Shaggs is good, it's also a bit too easy and vanilla.
If you are a Shaggs fanatic this CD is worth getting. If not, you'll wonder about the ridiculous lyrics which don't make as much sense in the more polished versions from "..the Tribute."
In the origianl Shaggs , the media and the message matched...they were both terrible. In "the Tribute," the message is still bad, but the media(sound)is fairly good. A mismatch?

Tribute albums are pretty dodgey ventures normally, but covering the Shaggs? Why? I can only assume it's to get your name listed along with other cool folks. The Shaggs are an original and interesting for their music+performance+naivette. Having Pros "interpret" their work is just silly and the results speak for themselves. Not one track adds anything useful to "The Shaggs, Band and Legend."