From the Vaults Friday The Shaggs Philosophy of the World 1969

The Year: 1969
The Album: The Shaggs, Philosophy of the World
Who it Influenced: Beat Happening, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Danielson Famile, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Deerhoof, Cibo Matto

Have The Shaggs becoming, somehow, part of the indie-rock canon? The alternative establishment? Have the outsider art marvels —whose sole LP, 1969's Philosophy of the World, is regarded as either one of the worst or 'best-worst' albums of all— become not just a cult act, but an accepted one?

There have been multiple tribute albums, proud pledges of fandom from figures ranging from Kurt Cobain to Sufjan Stevens, and, finally, a stage musical of the band's life and times.

The staging of The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World treated the band and its bizarre back-story —monomaniacal stage-father foists dreams of pop stardom upon ill-equipped teenage sister— as a curio both comic and tragic, but the fact that The Shaggs' had reared a Broadway musical into life, over four decades after their locally-pressed, self-released album disappeared into complete obscurity, will, this was sure sign that The Shaggs had, finally, made it.

• Full review: The Shaggs, Philosophy of the World