The Albums That Don't Matter: Trout Mask Replica

Trout Mask Replica

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band

1969

There are albums out there that are worse than Trout Mask Replica. Plenty of them. But no other terrible album is history has duped more people into thinking that it's actually good. Trout Mask Replica is a bad album, and you are either a phony or you are mentally deranged if you claim that you like it.

Let the record show that this is NOT one of those times where I listen to an album once and make snap judgments. For a great example of that bullshit, check out the "scathing review" I gave a country album that I listened to once and then called it a day. That's not fair.

But I will put my hand on a copy of Infinite Jest and swear to you this: I know Trout Mask Replica. I've listened to this album at least 100 times in my life. I'm not a spring fucking chicken when it comes to this shit. You can trust me when I say that this album is garbage, because I know this garbage well. I've been smelling this garbage for over a decade.

I guess I should explain Trout Mask Replica for the newbies here, before going off on some more hate-filled tangents. Every defense of Trout Mask Replica I've read (and trust me, there are plenty out there) has told the myth of the album's creation, so it's really not that hard to type it all out from memory alone.

Basically, in 1969, some asshole who called himself "Captain Beefheart" locked a bunch of nineteen-year-olds in a house for six months and forced them to perform carefully calculated "freeform" jazz for sixteen hours a day, every day. Like, the drummer, for example, would play this cacophonous mess for every waking moment, and then literally sleep on his bass drum, before waking up and doing it all again. It was a cult. A cult in service of creating some mad "genius" and his alleged musical opus.

Then Frank Zappa got behind the controls, pushed play, and the band banged out almost 30 songs (or, noise experiments, basically), while Captain Beefheart is in the other room, which is soundproof, like he can't even hear the fucking band, and he lays down the vocal tracks, which are only tangentially connected to the music.

Please, at this juncture, stop reading and just go on YouTube. Search "trout mask replica." The whole album is on there, in full. Just press play and see how long you make it.

Look, I don't want to overstate my hand here. I told you at the beginning that there are worse albums out there, and I stand by it. This isn't like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, to name one example. That album is literally just screeching noise. There's actual music here on Trout Mask Replica. If I were a Julliard-trained musician, I'm sure I could dissect these songs and tell you the musical theory behind each tune.

But I take music at face value. I don't give a fuck if something that, to my ears, sounds like jarring racket, is *ahem* achtually 15/8 time signature. 15/8 time doesn't sound like music to me. It's just fucking doesn't.

And I'm not even that guy, but Trout Mask Replica makes me that guy whenever I hear it. Remember, I defended the Voids' Tyranny, an album that Pitchfork described as the sounds of a landlord using a flashlight to find the circuit breaker in a dark basement. I'm not necessarily adverse to the idea of a challenging record, one that makes you work for the enjoyment. I mean, clearly I'm not adverse to it, I did say that I've listened to Trout Mask Replica at least 100 times. That means I worked to enjoy this record.

But honestly, the more I listened to it, the more I tried to be COOL in listening to it, the more of a phony I realized I was. I didn't like this album, no matter how many times I listened to it. Not only that, but the more I listened to, the more I started to hate it. There's no value here. Captain Beefheart is just edgy for the sake of being edgy. Trout Mask Replica is the teenager drawing swastikas on his desk in the back of the classroom. There's no purpose, except to say: "Look at what I did." It's empty rebellion.

And what pisses me off the most, the impetus for this very blog post, is just how many people are suckered into thinking they have to like this to be cool. Just this morning, Pitchfork reviewed Trout Mask Replica (because it's being rereleased on vinyl soon, you see). It received a 10/10 score. It make me roll my eyes so hard that my eyes pulled my feet through my brain.

The review is the usual spiel: wow, Captain Beefheart sounds like a genius and an asshole; if you don't like it's because you don't understand it, probably; etc.

The lyrics, which could've been written by a sixth grader, are described as "literary surrealism, yet oddly resonant." The songs that are just Beefheart reading some nonsensical poem are described as "outsider folk a cappella."  Snippets of some asshole just walking through the woods (seriously) are described as "postmodern collage of diverse sounds."

Lots of hard work is done to defend this album, is basically what I'm saying. Oh! And my favorite part of every Trout Mask Replica defense is that they all—every single one of them—mentioned fucking Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons. Seriously, google around for "explanations" as to why TMR is "great," and they all mention this asshole, who alleges that it's his favorite album. People have to work so, so hard to convince themselves that Trout Mask Replica is legit that they cling to the one cartoon animator who said it was his favorite, as if this is supposed to legitimize that Trout Mask Replica as an actual good album or even an actual listenable album.

I know how these people operate, because I was once one of them. Again, I've listened to Trout Mask Replica 100 times. I thought I was cool as shit for listening to this album. Like I was above everyone, like I was cultured. Like I had some secret from all the preppy kids on my school bus. But it was all bullshit. I can't make heads or tails of this any more than the football kicker or the basic bitch could. It was just something I did to seem cool.

This album caught me during a period in my life when I actually cared about trying to understand these types of albums. These days, if I had put on Trout Mask Replica for the first time, my thought would immediately be: I don't have time for this shit. There's plenty of music out there that I'll actually like and actually appreciate, why waste my fucking time listening to an out-of-tune trumpet make the sound of a cat in heat? It's stupid.

I got on the school bus one day, and I somehow ended up sitting next to an old guy who looked like a thin Mandy Pantinkin, I guess he was like training to be a bus driver or something? But anyways, this dude asks me what I'm listening to, and I tell him Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. I remember, quite vividly, that his response was: "Kids still listen to that shit?!" My interpretation at the time was that he was validating my place in the music listeners' canon. That he was acknowledging that I am carrying the torch for the "cool" music, that kids in the '70s liked this album and in the '00s I did too and that impressed people.

But honestly, looking back, I think I interpret his response differently. I see it now as him being genuinely shocked that people are still listening to this terrible music for reasons that have nothing to do with the music itself. Like, he was surprised that people are STILL wasting their time with a truly terrible album. I'm carrying the torch, sure, but the torch is of the people who care more about how they APPEAR when they listen to certain music, more so than the actual fucking music.

The day I deleted Trout Mask Replica from my iPod was a great fucking day for me. I felt like I had broken free of the shackles of Captain Beefheart, I was free from having to pretend any longer. It's not cool to listen to this album. It never was. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Bad music is bad music. Simple as that.

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If this album sounds interesting, try these song to convince yourself otherwise: "Sugar 'N Spikes" and "Orange Claw Hammer" and "Hair Pie: Bake 1"

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Stray Observations

• "The Albums That Don't Matter" is not going to be an ongoing series. I just really fucking hate this album, and I wanted to write about it. Felt good to just dump on an album for once instead of endlessly trying to justify why an album is worthy of your attention.
• The other day, I mentioned that I used to have a blog, whose name I was too embarrassed to say. I'll admit now the name of the blog. "Neon Meate Dream of a Octofish." I was really embarrassed to say it because I didn't want to seem like a poser, having a blog named after a song on an album I really don't like now. But I've explained my reasoning enough above, and so you deserve to know. I even wrote a little Captain Beefheart lyric at the end of every post. It was bad, you guys.
• The story about the guy asking me what I'm listening to on the bus is a true story. It's weird what type of shit your brain holds onto. Like, I barely remember my first sexual experience, but I'm forced to remember a thirty-second conversation I had with a bus driver about fucking Trout Mask Replica?!
• The only other time I was ever asked what I was listening to on the school bus is another memory I recall quite clearly. A very cute girl from the Mount (our sister school) asked me what I was listening to. It was "Green Typewriters" by the Olivia Tremor Control. This particular song is less embarrassing than Captain Beefheart, but still, I cringe all the same. Some chick was trying to make a connection with me, and I blew it by naming some obscure indie band. I should've just said "The Rolling Stones" or something. We probably would've been making out in the back of the bus after that. Instead, she never said a word to me for the rest of my life.
• FRONT COVER: It's a man wearing a trout mask.

NEXT TIME: We go back to "The Albums That Matter" with Animals, promise!