Duck Stab / Buster & Glen

This is one of the bottom 3 albums by global rating. It is now officially the lowest rated album I have had so far. I can understand why, as it sounds like music that aliens would call pop. To us, it's utterly weird and mad, but it's not entirely horrible because of it. A lot of the soundscapes are goofy, and the vocals especially so(when they show up). There is no serious attempt at pop melodies here or song structure, but it's still somewhat hooky(yes, there are hooks beneath all those weird electronic sounds). Obviously, the average listener would hate it for sounding like random noises, and it is random noises to some extent, but I can tell that these guys can write songs. They just want to make their songs sound as unique, strange, and just plain crazy as possible. This getting slammed to the bottom 3 while far worse albums by the likes of U2 stay above a 3-star average is the real travesty, not that this exists and is considered influential like most reviewers seem to think.

Ah, les Résidents... On y est, on plonge enfin dans le vortex de l’absurde, dans cette zone grise où la musique pop décide de se faire hara-kiri avec une petite cuillère en plastique. Quand Robert Dimery a compilé sa liste des 1001 albums, il a dû se dire qu’un peu de terreur ophtalmique ferait du bien au milieu des classiques ronflants. Et mon dieu, qu'il a eu raison.

Je me suis donc coltiné Duck Stab/Buster & Glen, sorti en cette année charnière de 1978. Pour situer, c’est l’époque où le punk commence déjà à sentir le rance et où la new wave commence à se poudrer le nez. Et au milieu de tout ça, t’as quatre types planqués derrière des masques de globes oculaires géants qui décident de sortir les comptines les plus flippantes de l’histoire de l’enregistrement magnétique.

Au départ, c’étaient deux EPs séparés, mais Ralph Records – leur propre label, l’usine à cauchemars de San Francisco – a décidé de fusionner le tout pour nous offrir ce format long. Je ne vais pas vous faire le coup de l’analyse musicologique chiante, parce qu’analyser les Residents, c’est un peu comme essayer d’expliquer une blague de clown triste à un enterrement : c’est gênant et ça ne mène nulle part.

Ce que je ressens en écoutant ce disque, c’est cette sensation étrange d’être coincé dans un ascenseur en panne avec un enfant possédé qui vous chante des refrains obsédants. C’est déstructuré, c’est grinçant, c’est parfois franchement désagréable, et pourtant, je n'arrive pas à décrocher. J’ai mis une note de 4 sur 5, et je vais vous dire pourquoi : parce que c’est l'un des rares disques de cette liste qui réussit encore à me surprendre, à me bousculer dans mon confort d'auditeur blasé.

Prenons le son de cet album. C’est de la pop, mais une pop passée à la moulinette, décapitée, puis recousue avec des fils électriques apparents. C'est fascinant d'ailleurs de voir comment ils traitent la mélodie, ils prennent une structure simple, un truc presque enfantin, et ils la saturent de synthétiseurs cheap et de voix déformées qui semblent provenir d'un placard mal éclairé. Ça chante de façon nasillarde, ça murmure des trucs inaudibles, ça explose en rires hystériques. C’est génial.

Certains disent que c’est l’album le plus « accessible » des Residents. Enfin accessible si on veut, on reste tout de meme dans une œuvre qui défie toute logique commerciale et c’est justement ce qui me plaît.

Ce que j'aime aussi, c’est l’anonymat total. À une époque où le culte de la personnalité explosait, ces mecs restaient cachés. Pas d'ego, juste l'œuvre. Enfin, l'œuvre... cette accumulation de bruits savamment orchestrés. C’est un pied de nez monumental à toute l’industrie du disque. Ils font ce qu'ils veulent, comme ils veulent, et ils s'en tamponnent le globe oculaire de savoir si ça va passer en radio. Et devinez quoi ? Ça ne passe pas en radio. Et c’est tant mieux.

Alors oui, 4/5. Pourquoi pas 5 ? Parce qu'il faut bien garder une marge de manœuvre pour le jour où je perdrai totalement la tête et que j'écouterai Laughing Song en boucle en mangeant des piles mais Duck Staub reste une pièce essentielle car c'est le chaînon manquant entre le post-punk le plus pointu et la folie pure.

Il y a une urgence dans ces petits morceaux courts. Ils vont droit au but, ils te balancent leur dose de venin et ils passent au suivant avant que tu aies eu le temps de comprendre ce qui t'arrive. C’est nerveux, c’est saccadé, c’est brillant.

C’est le genre d'album qui te fait réaliser que 90 % de ce qu’on nous sert comme de l'« avant-garde » n'est que de la pose. Ici, pas de pose car c’est viscéralement tordu. On est dans la sincérité du cauchemar et je ne me lasse pas de cette esthétique de la laideur transcendée. C'est moche, c’est beau, c'est indispensable.

Je finirai par dire que ce genre d'album justifie à lui seul l’existence de ce projet des « 1001 albums ». Sans ça, on oublierait que la musique peut être autre chose qu’un simple produit de consommation. Ici, c’est une expérience, une épreuve de force et je suis ravi d’avoir relevé le défi une fois de plus.

One of the things I’m learning from this project is that art rock can be pretty unwieldy—and then there’s The Residents, who are just plain bad. I mean, it’s possible the instruments weren’t tuned properly on purpose, and that the production was designed to make the whole thing sound completely out of balance. Maybe that, combined with the lyrics, has some deeper meaning. But—I don’t care!
Here’s my hypothesis: “Duck Stab” was meant to sound really shitty, and The Residents pulled it off. That earns them a well-deserved star.

Brain says five stars, ears say four

It was interesting to say the least. When I first clicked on their artist profile the top image was an AI-generated image of guys in suits with eyeballs for heads. I understand the latter is a part of their image, but the AI slope was kind of distasteful. Their newest album also has an AI-generated cover. Greaaaaat. As for the music... It was certainly something. There were a couple songs I actually liked. I appreciate them for being so odd and really locking into being odd. I liked "Sinister exaggerator" because the vocals sounded alien-ish and I liked "Blue rosebuds". I also kindddddd of liked "Constantinople" even though they just repeated the same line over and over. Anyways, that's really all I have to say. I don't think I will return to this album, but I do appreciate it in its own way.

No thank you.

I don't know what this is but I PROMISE you a young Les Claypool ate this shit up.

I don't know what I'm supposed to rate this thing. On one hand, it wasn't good and I don't really ever want to listen to it again. On the other hand...I didn't mind it. 2.5 stars

Not really my favorite Residents album so far. This album consists of two different albums and the latter side is easily superior imo. That one has some nice grooves and better audio quality, more of what I'd expect from the Residents. I don't really like it all that much, but I guess it's somewhat of an underdog on this site and its a trailblazer for sure.

Experi-mental pop . Pushing boundaries with train of consciousness dressed up with melodies .

More listenable than metal machine music, not as poppy as the Cardiacs . All in all quite good.

Obviously not everyone’s cup of tea . Even as an Englishman I need to be in the mood for tea - unlike tea that mood will be less frequent for avant garde music.

Must have caught me in a good (or not) mood.

Occasionally up its own arse to be deliberately musically obtuse but never quite gets overly annoying or pretentious.

I have to go with 3 ⭐️: to match my internal ranking system where I would add it to my vinyl collection if it is 3 +

Hahahaha this one was a ride.
I really could have done without the din of Birthday Boy, but the rest of it was a fine mix of weirdness, creative musicality and general mindfuckery. It would not shock me to find out these people have had encounters with extraterrestrials.

Weird and experimental. Found myself smirking at points because it's so ridiculous. Genuinely found Constantinople catchy. I could see how this could be nails on a chalkboard to most and depends on your mindset at the time.
Give me this over anymore bang average brit bands from the 80s/90s. 2.5/5. Raising to 3.

I swear I'm not being a contrarian. This was really funny and downright super entertaining.

1.89

Anyone else discovering that music can always get worse

Pretty bizarre album, but there were some interesting moments. I know Primus covers a couple of these songs.

Just.....
..why? This makes me feel bad for the other 1's I gave. I've found a new rock bottom. Bach is dead you say? Lucky for him. He didn't have to hear this trash. I'm just... I dont even have words, like I doubt I'll hear something worse on this godforsaken list. Robert Dimery why? Why make this list? Why add this trash? I wanna curse him so bad, but English isn't hitting hard enough for me so lemme switch up to my native language real quick: robert CINE DRECU TE-O PUS SĂ FACI LISTA ASTA, BĂGA-O-AȘ ÎN CHIZDA MĂ-TII CĂ O MÂNCAT-O AȘA RĂU SĂ TE FACĂ, FUTU-ȚI GUSTURILE MUZICALE, BĂGA-MI-AȘ PULA-N ĂIA DE ȚI-O PUBLICAT JEGU ĂSTA, 'TU-ȚI COPACU' DIN CARE O FOST FĂCUT SERTARU-N CARE ERA PREZERVATIVU' DE NU ȘI L-O PUS TACTU'. Tame enough I think, I gotta rethink my life after this.

This is a legendary find.

You know when Wikipedia describes a group as an “art collective” rather than an actual band that you are in for an interesting time. It’s weird. It’s meant to be weird. It succeeds on that front. The album did kind of win me over at some point. I don’t think this is music I would ever regularly listen to, but I kind of enjoyed the experience. It is more an art piece than like regular songs or anything

That album was real weird. It cooked for a brief minute or two, but it wasn't good overall. I could have easily been convinced that it was made by Primus, so it was original and likely influenced an artist that I do like. I don't recommend this, despite it almost making me curious enough to look into their other albums. Okay, so after looking it up, this was selected because it's considered their most accessible album. That seals the door on my interest in looking further into this band. It was better than the other 1 star albums, so maybe it's generously a 2 star album. Oh okay, I see that it was released in 1978, the linked album on Spotify said 2016. So it was ahead of its time, but its time isn't coming, hahaha.

If anxiety had a sound this would be it. I only liked The Booker Tease.