Incredibly Strange Recordings (And A Few <em>Really</em> Freaky Ones)

jharv | August 28, 2007 4:31 am

This list of bizarre recordings (you can’t really call them “novelty records” per se) from the great List Universe site is full of freakish singers (worst-singer-ever Florence Foster Jenkins and a take-that-Mariah high note from Mado Robin), musical and recording firsts (the birth of the human voice on record), treasonous men and numbers stations, nurses and exorcisims. A lot of fun, especially on a lazy summer late afternoon. After the jump, however, I have one caveat before you click, one warning to preserve a little of your sanity. Consider this the “not safe for work your sleep habits for the next week or so” notification:

Most of this list is kitschy or amusing or agreeably weird, but the recording of the the last moments of Jonestown, as Jim Jones’ cult slowly poisons itself and its children (“I don’t care how many screams you hear, I don’t care how many anguished cries, death is a million times more preferable”), is easily one of the most agonizingly uncomfortable things I have ever subjected myself to. (Weirdly, and I wonder if I’m the first person to make the connection, the mix of Jones’ slimy huckster’s voice, the distant wobble of strange religious music, and the scratchy fidelity of the tape reminds me of the eerie spoken word interludes on Swans’ Soundtracks For The Blind, except about a million times more disturbing.) I can’t really “recommend” it as an experience, but I certainly won’t forget it. Unfortunately.

Top 10 Incredible Recordings [The List Universe via USA Today, plus a hat tip to resident Idolator list-man Michaelangelo Matos]