Worst Records Ever Made - The Turtles

[AlisionIsUnreal]

I'm pretty sure that this was on their "Battle of the Bands" Where they were spoofing a lot of different Genres. This is their psychedelic song. If you listened to early era pink floyd before they moved to progressive rock... they had stuff that was pretty close. This is actually pretty hillarious.

[thetman102771]

i think i've heard this on the dr. demento show once.....ONCE!

[HotBroodish]

lol this is oddly offensive.

[unklewink]

Change Umbassa to Obama, and you might get something really funny.

[999manman]

Not nearly the worst...I had this on Rhino's World's Worst Records....

[denniswilsonfan]

typical Flo and Eddie (Mark and Howard) work right on!

[WhineWomanandSong]

hahaha!! - if this really was recorded by the turtles, it was probably created by that goofy member of the group with the glasses. he always looks like he's ready to burst out laughing even during the most serious lyrics.

[PrankZabba]

no wonder Zappa got Mark & Howard for The Mothers Of Invention

[FoothillsofWyoming]

yeah it's pretty bad.

[hd4ms]

yep, a waste of good vinyl.

[horarwgt]

This -- the flip side of the Turtles' 1968 hit "Sound Asleep" -- was intended as a joke.

[thecuckookid]

Why would any band release this garbage?

[Jellogel]

@thecuckookid drugs

[gmrios]

@Jellogel WHERE?!



[gmrios]

@thecuckookid What garbage? 

[betabloca]

@gmrios They did it for the royalties. Better to get paid for your own song rather than someone else's. As for this track it has hidden depths when you listen to it. All the different sounds etc -only the Turtles would do something like this- quite zany. The drug culture of the day may have something to do with it as well.

[MichaelHansenFUN]

there is a rhino records comp album with this one or something like that

[fromthesidelines]

This is the Turtles' equivalent of the Beatles' Fan Club "Christmas" recordings [and "You Know My Name, Look Up the Number"]....don't take it seriously, either!

[SaturnTrack]

Well, every group has that one song that's so bad, that it's good.

[ilikeamazon]

This is nothing like "Happy Together"!

[ncyankee101]

I do think this is a competitor to "Whodunnit" by Genesis as the worst song of all time.

[ncyankee101]

This is awesome - I used to listen to this on my sister's 45's when I was a kid 35 years ago.

[mergezero]

This reminds me of The Residents... spooky!

[WytZox1]

I'm guessing this is prob'ly the flip side of 1 of their hit records recorded just 4 laughs.

[LZNDRDNZL]

From 1:00 on, the backing track is the last minute or so of "Sound Asleep", sans vocals, being played at half-speed!!! Also, this stereo mix fades early. On the mono single mix, someone yells "FAGGOT!" at the tail end.

[dalekenjarvis]

Had the 45. A couple hits of Mr. Natural and I was set for the evening LOL

[imkluu]

is this the B-side of one of their better songs? It must be, I can't imagine they released this for air play.

[tamspeci]

@imkluu It was B side of "Sound Asleep" according to my old record collecting book. Sounds like they couldn't come up with a better song to fill the flipside.

[imkluu]

@tamspeci I don't even remember Sound Asleep.

[tamspeci]

@imkluu Sound Asleep is on a Turtles Greatest Hits LP I have though I admit I never heard it on the radio.

[chilirich]

@musicaldun1 You forgot about the tune Warren Zevon wrote, "Outside Chance"

That was good, too. They should have been bigger.

[TheBlueCream]

the Turtles were responsible for some of the best pop songs in pop history..don't diss them

[Z1cky]

'even lennon/mccartney flopped on some songs' actually a LOT of songs they have some really awful shit out there if you look hard enough especially mccartney (thats a give though) Lennon has a lot of stuff that contradicts his strong views too, he was a bit of a hypocrite not that im not a fan.

[musicaldun1]

Yep. This is pure crap. However, besides the ones rikfingers mentioned, there's You Showed Me, You Baby, She's My Girl, Let Me Be, Guide For The Married Man...and still more. Besides the hits, they had a miriad of cool non-hits that few people know because of their crappy White Whale label. They should have been bigger...

[oneballbunk]

This has to be the greatest fucking thing I have ever heard! This sounds a lot like Taco the Wonder Dog.

[cheezer57]

This is not a "flop"...They were obviously screwing around, and decided to put it out there for their fans...If you knew anything about the Turtles original founders of the group, Howard Kaylan, and Mark Volman, (A.K.A. - Flo and Eddie) they don't necessarily take life so seriously....Make no mistake though, two of the most talented guys in the industry...Their back up vocals have been requested on over 100 albums, of some of the biggest names out there...Plus they can write music.

[79goldmaster1]

this may have been a flop, but even lennon/mccartney flopped on some songs....this song could probably be released today and make it big ,considering the quality of todays noise/music!

[geoabe302]

They're goofing, having fun....a lot of bands did this type of thing in the 60's. Now you can see why they loved Frank Zappa.

[phillydisco]

This isn't bad. It doesn't follow the pop formula, but it's interesting listening. It's like something Dr Demento would play.

[1980pacecar]

He has gone to slay the dragon.......

[beatlespaz]

WOW,where did you get this in stereo?

[piratedjradio]

What a great song, its like hitting yourself on the head with a brick. Sooner or later you start to get oblivious to it.  I think they call it being in a deep coma.CONE ON UNCONSIOUSNESS DONT LET ME DOWN NOW

[freqazoidiac]

It sounds more like a theatrical sketch than a pop song. I give it higher points than a devalue. It is on the level of some Zappa oatmeal if you digg..??

I guess that's why Flo and Eddie came to be? Great talent the Turtles were.

[DistantSon1]

Clearly you haven't listened to Animal Collective, or you would find this tame.

[freqazoidiac]

@DistantSon1 Tame, or Lame? hehe..Or Both? It's fab !

[QuantumWrench]

I dunno, they had studio time left over and have been playing around with something goofy. Sometimes the B side had weird things. In a different light, recording time and marketing positions are not like they are now.

[LVilla74]

are they really the worst records? this is far better than most of the new music out today, which i think are the worst records ever made!

[freqazoidiac]

@LVilla74 Hooray! :D

[pyenapple]

Four of the members of the Turtles went on to play with Zappa after they disbanded. Not to surprising.

[hellonyhello]

they are great. My fave is something that flopped as a single. You dont have to walk in the rain. great tune..

[betabloca]

The Turtles may have had the most 45's in the Billboard top 100 during the 1960's. 29 single releases if you include the Dedications "Teardrops" ,The Crossfires and "Christmes is my time of year". Also they were known for their Zany "B" sides. This one is the most crazy IMO.

[snoopyum]

acids

[giatia13]

Sounds alot like Pink Floyd's album "Ummaguma"

[MikeStone05]

I would 've never thought that The Turtles did such a song like this. Maybe they were smoking too much marijuana, or something...

[lunchbox2085]

I would have hit the favorite button for this upload, but I just can't support that you feel this belongs on any sort of "worst" list.

[angie4josh]

i like it.

[doglips1958]

They had 8 top 20 hits and 17 top 100 hits.1 1/2 hit wonders??????uh huh...yeah right

[DorisDayFanatic]

Oh my. There is nothing more to say.

[Sleepingsun4]

...hmmm...all righty then... :)

[Toracube]

My jaw just hit the floor.

[slant40]

Sounds like the torchlight parade in "200 Motels"! And - isn't that supposed to be Umbassa's mother yelling at the end? I'm not so sure she'd want to call her own son that - although it sure sounds like that's what's said on the record - I thought it was "Quick! Dragon!!" at the end.

[pilesovinyl]

As a B side, many of these were an afterthought or a chance to goof off. (i.e. Beatles "You Know My Name"). Its not crap, as others have stated it was definitely influenced by Zappa. Very in keeping with the experimental records of the day, doesn`t play all that well today. And the Turtles had many hits,"Happy Together", "She`d Rather Be With Me", "Elenore","It Ain`t Me Babe", "You Showed Me", "You Baby", "Sound Asleep", etc. Don`t sound off if you don`t know your stuff......

[joealanouf]

that was cool/ yeah tota l zappa imspired. sounds like the tertales to me

[VIDJACK]

if this had Zappa's name on it instead of the Turtles, it would be considered as genius. This ain't any worse than the second disc of Freak Out. It's perhaps not so surprising that Zappa and Flo and Eddie found each other.

[joeo78501]

Self indulgent crap. this is why they were 1 !/2 hit wonders.

[rikfingers]

The Turtles had many hits, my friend.....

Happy Together, She'd Rather Be With Me, Eleanor,It Ain't Me Babe,and a few others I can't think of at the moment.

[neoaffiliate]

The "backround track" for this thing was part of the "Sound Asleep" track played at a slow speed. Their hit "Elenore" was the group's attempt to write the "worst" song they possibly cound, to spite their record company.

[cbak12sg]

@neoaffiliate I didn't know that about Elenore, although I recognised the joke in using "et cetera" in the lyrics.

In the UK, the group is really known as a straight pop act, although I think it's easy to spot the naughtiness in She'd Rather Be With Me ("Some girls ... like to handle everything they see"), the banality in Happy Together ("How is the weather") and the above joke in Elenore. I know about the album Battle of the Bands, but I've never heard it.

[radioman66]

The Turtles were notorious for doing goofy album cuts and zany flip sides. Reminds me of the Bare Naked Ladies stuff. They were doing heavy amounts of drugs by this time too if you know your Turtles history. "Rugs Of Woods & Flowers" is another weird flip side of their single "You Know What I Mean" 1967 Also noticed you faded out before he yells, "Umbassa you faggot" probably a wise thing to do.

[fumetti]

This was a b side, the a side was a fantastic song.

[alzy52]

I laughed my ass off this was fantastic. Thanks for posting this. I think I like them even more now.

[subhumanmaster]

they should use this music for psychological torture playing it in a loop

[monkeymanNr1]

this music will give me nightmares

[DIOTD2008]

If I remember hearing correctly this was one of the singles produced by Frank Zappa under another name.

[tamspeci]

This was the B side of "Sound Asleep".Sounds like they recorded it just to fill the flipside.

[coralprincess25]

I would have to agree with the title. I had to shut it off after one minute through. Yuck.