The Shaggs ~ Philosophy of the World (full album 1969)

The Shaggs ~ Philosophy of the World (full album 1969)

The band is primarily notable today for their perceived ineptitude at playing conventional rock music; the band was described in one Rolling Stone article as "sounding like lobotomized Trapp Family singers."

In an early-1970s Dr. Demento show, Frank Zappa was a guest and was playing some of his favorite songs. He played a couple of Shaggs songs, and professed his love for the album. Original pressings are now quite valuable and highly sought after among rare record collectors.

Kurt Cobain ranked Philosophy of the World No. 5 on his 50 best albums list.

RCA Victor released Philosophy of the World (with the original track sequence) on CD in 1999. (The reissue was co-produced by Terry Adams and Irwin Chusid; the latter also wrote new liner notes.) The Wall Street Journal reviewed the CD on the day it was released. The New Yorker subsequently ran a lengthy profile of the Shaggs by staff writer Susan Orlean, who repeats the common falsehood that Frank Zappa called the Shaggs "better than the Beatles". (The quote originated in the headline of a Lester Bangs review of Philosophy of the World, which ran in The Village Voice, January 28, 1981. The full headline was "The Shaggs: Better Than the Beatles (and DNA, Too).") Orlean alludes to an online review by a writer who describes the album as "hauntingly bad".