10 Bizarre Musical Moments You Won’t Believe Are Real

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen at a concert? A weird outfit? A bad opening act? What if I told you that’s nothing?

You think you know music, but the stories behind the notes are often more shocking, hilarious, or just plain baffling than the music itself. Music history isn’t all polite applause, rock legends striking a pose, and classical masters quietly composing by candlelight. It’s a chaotic, human story filled with unbelievable egos, terrible ideas, and moments so strange they sound like they were made up by a “weird history” podcast.

We’re not just talking about weird outfits. We’re talking about full-blown, high-society riots over a bassoon solo. We’re talking about government-sponsored spy cats, rock music used as a weapon of war, and a band that literally set a million dollars on fire, just because.

Whether you’re a music geek, a history buff, or just looking for your next great “did you know?” story for trivia night, buckle up. We’re diving into the 10 most bizarre musical moments that actually happened.

Table of Contents

10 Bizarre Musical Moments You Won’t Believe Are Real

1. The Riot of Spring: When a Bassoon Solo Started a 40-Man Brawl (1913)

The Setup: Paris on Edge

Picture the scene: It’s May 29, 1913, at the brand-new Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. This isn’t a rowdy punk club; this is the absolute height of high society. The city’s cultural elite are decked out in tuxedos and evening gowns, ready for the premiere of a new show from the Ballets Russes—the most famous and provocative ballet company in the world.

The company’s impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, was known for pushing boundaries. The young, defiant composer, Igor Stravinsky, had created a score so revolutionary it was barely recognizable as music. And the choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, had thrown out the graceful, elegant rulebook of ballet.

The Parisian audience was used to the beautiful, flowing sounds of Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty. They were not ready for what was about to hit them.

The Performance: The Night It All Went Wrong

The curtain rose. The music began. Instead of a sweeping string melody, the first sound the audience heard was a single bassoon, playing in a register so high and “strained” that it sounded like a “sick animal.” People tittered, then laughed, then “shushed” each other.

Then the dancers came out.

Instead of graceful leaps, Nijinsky’s choreography was “primitive.” The dancers were pigeon-toed, stomping, and hunched over, dressed in heavy folk costumes. The audience felt it wasn’t just new—it was an insult to the very idea of ballet.

All at once, the theater exploded.

The “pro-Stravinsky” modernists and the “anti-Stravinsky” traditionalists started shouting at each other. The shouting turned to hissing, which turned to fistfights in the aisles. One society woman allegedly slapped another. People threw vegetables, programs, and anything else they could get their hands on at the orchestra.

Through it all, the conductor, Pierre Monteux, bravely kept the orchestra playing, even as he dodged projectiles. Stravinsky himself, horrified, fled backstage. The chaos was so loud that the dancers couldn’t even hear the music and had to have Nijinsky shout the rhythm at them from the wings.

The Aftermath & Legacy: From Riot to Masterpiece

By the end of the night, over 40 people had been arrested. The reviews were, unsurprisingly, brutal, calling the performance a “massacre.”

But a strange thing happened. Stravinsky had intentionally written the music to be jarring, to evoke a “primitive” pagan ritual. Nijinsky’s dancing was meant to be heavy and earthy, not light and airy. They had succeeded… maybe a little too well.

That “failed” piece, The Rite of Spring, is now considered one of the single most important and influential pieces of music of the 20th century. Its complex rhythms and dissonant harmonies changed the rules of classical music forever. Today, it’s a standard in concert halls worldwide, but it’s worth remembering that one of music’s greatest masterpieces was born from a full-blown, top-hat-and-tails riot.

2. The Diva of Delusion: Selling Out Carnegie Hall… By Being Awful (1944)

The Setup: Who Was Florence Foster Jenkins?

Florence Foster Jenkins was a wealthy, eccentric, and unbelievably confident New York socialite in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. She adored opera. She founded her own social club, the “Verdi Club,” and staged lavish tableaus. And, more than anything, she loved to sing.

There was just one tiny problem.

She was, by all objective standards, a horrifyingly bad singer.

We’re not talking “a little flat.” We’re talking a complete, screeching, sublime lack of pitch, rhythm, or recognizable pronunciation. She would hit notes that didn’t exist, change keys mid-song, and mangle her way through complex arias with the blissful confidence of a true master.

How did this happen? Florence was so rich and so insulated that her “golden circle” of friends, and her dedicated partner St. Clair Bayfield, just… went along with it. They shielded her from all criticism. They only invited “true music lovers” (i.e., friends who wouldn’t laugh) to her private recitals, and they explained away any giggles as “professional jealousy.”

The Performance: The “Disasterpiece” at Carnegie Hall

For decades, this was her system. But at age 76, she decided to fulfill her ultimate dream: a public performance at the legendary Carnegie Hall.

The date was set: October 25, 1944. When tickets went on sale, they sold out weeks in advance—faster than any other show, even for the biggest stars in the world.

Why? Because everyone in New York high society knew the secret. The “Diva of Delusion” was finally going public, and nobody wanted to miss the train wreck. The list of attendees was a “who’s who” of the era, including celebrity composer Cole Porter.

The night arrived. Carnegie Hall was packed. And Florence… performed. She appeared in a series of absurd, self-designed costumes (including a pair of “angel wings”). She sang. She screeched. She murdered Mozart.

The audience, to their credit, tried to be polite. But they couldn’t hold it in. The hall was filled with the sound of muffled explosions as attendees stuffed handkerchiefs and ties into their mouths to keep from bursting into laughter.

The Aftermath & Legacy: “No One Can Say I Didn’t Sing”

The reviews the next day were a masterclass in polite savagery, with critics calling her “happily unbothered by her accompaniment” and “floundering in a sea of errors.”

Florence, however, was undeterred. She brushed off the few bad reviews she saw, famously declaring, “People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.”

She died just one month after her Carnegie Hall debut, but her legacy was cemented. She is now the patron saint of “outsider music”—a testament to the pure, unadulterated joy of performing, talent be damned. As the 2016 Meryl Streep film about her life showed, there was something genuinely pure in her delusion, a lesson in loving what you do, no matter how badly you do it.

3. Operation “Noriega-Be-Gone”: How Van Halen Became a Weapon of War (1989)

The Setup: The Standoff in Panama

In December 1989, the United States invaded Panama in “Operation Just Cause.” The primary target was the country’s military dictator, Manuel Noriega. As the invasion unfolded, Noriega fled and was eventually tracked to a specific location: the Apostolic Nunciature in Panama City, better known as the Vatican’s embassy.

This was a major problem. The U.S. military couldn’t just storm a neutral embassy, especially one owned by the Vatican. It would be a diplomatic disaster.

So, Noriega holed up inside, and the U.S. forces waited outside. It was a tense, high-stakes standoff. They needed a way to get Noriega out without going in. The solution came from the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group (PSYOPs).

The Performance: Weaponized Rock & Roll

If you can’t use bombs, what can you use? Psychological warfare. The plan was simple, absurd, and brilliant: they were going to annoy Noriega into surrender.

The military surrounded the compound with Humvees, but instead of pointing guns, they pointed massive loudspeakers. Then, they turned the volume up to 11 and blasted the compound 24 hours a day with a “playlist of pain.“

The playlist was a masterpiece of psychological torment, specifically designed to grate on Noriega, who was a known opera lover. The “rock and roll siege” included:

“I Fought the Law” by The Clash
“These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” by Nancy Sinatra
“Nowhere to Run” by Martha and the Vandellas
A whole lot of AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and, yes… Van Halen.

(Ironically, despite the event being famously associated with the band, their hit song “Panama” was reportedly not on the playlist).

The goal wasn’t just to be loud; it was to cause sleep deprivation, shatter his “macho” image, and make it impossible for him to communicate, think, or rest.

The Aftermath & Legacy: He Surrendered

It worked.

After 10 days of the relentless, 24/7 musical assault, a sleep-deprived, disoriented, and thoroughly humiliated Manuel Noriega walked out of the embassy and surrendered to U.S. forces.

The story instantly became a cultural footnote, forever linking “weaponized music” in the public consciousness. It was a strange, almost comical end to a military operation, proving that sometimes, the most powerful weapon isn’t a missile—it’s a 10-day loop of “Welcome to the Jungle.”

4. The $20 Million Spy Cat That Never Meowed (1960s)

The Setup: The Cold War’s Weirdest Idea

During the height of the Cold War, the CIA was in a high-stakes, paranoid arms race with the Soviet Union. They were willing to try anything to get an edge in espionage. This led to some… creative projects. And none was more creative, or more doomed, than “Operation Acoustic Kitty.”

The goal: Create a cyborg spy cat.

The plan, which is 100% real and was declassified in 2001, was to surgically implant a microphone in a cat’s ear canal, a small radio transmitter in its skull, and a battery somewhere in its torso. The cat’s tail would be used as the antenna.

This “Acoustic Kitty” would then be trained to sit near Soviet officials in parks or embassies, where it would look like a harmless stray while secretly transmitting their conversations to a nearby CIA van.

The Performance: The “Purr-fect” Failure

This wasn’t just a weekend project. According to reports, the CIA spent five years (from 1961 to 1967) and a rumored $20 million ($160 million in today’s money) developing this high-tech feline.

After countless surgeries and “training” sessions, the team ran into a very predictable problem: cats are cats.

They discovered, far too late, that cats are not trainable in the same way as dogs. They don’t take direction. They don’t care about national security. The cyborg cat would get hungry and wander off to find food, or get bored and go to sleep, or just sit there and groom itself, completely ignoring the “mission.”

Finally, after years of R&D, the team was ready for its first official field test. They drove the (very expensive) cat in a van to a park where two suspected Soviet officials were sitting on a bench. They gave the cat its mission.

They opened the van door and released it.

The cat, now free, took about four steps into the street… and was immediately run over and killed by a taxi.

The Aftermath & Legacy: The Project Was Shelved

The declassified documents on the project are a masterclass in bureaucratic understatement. One memo from 1967 reads:

“Our final report… concludes that the program is not practical.”

With their $20 million asset now a pancake, “Operation Acoustic Kitty” was immediately and quietly shut down. It remains one of the most bizarre, hilarious, and colossally expensive failures in the history of espionage, proving that even the CIA, with all its resources, cannot herd cats.

5. Disco Demolition Night: The Baseball “Promotion” That Ended in a Riot (1979)

The Setup: The “Disco Sucks” Movement

In the late 1970s, America was in the middle of a vicious culture war: Rock vs. Disco.

To rock fans, disco was everything wrong with music: it was slick, overproduced, “inauthentic,” and fashionable. The “Disco Sucks” movement became a rallying cry for rock-and-roll purists.

Nowhere was this sentiment stronger than with Steve Dahl, a young, shock-jock DJ in Chicago. Dahl had been fired from his last gig when the station switched to an all-disco format, and he made “Disco Sucks” his personal, on-air crusade.

Enter the Chicago White Sox. The team was terrible in 1979, and their new promotions man, Mike Veeck (son of the legendary owner Bill Veeck), needed a stunt to put butts in seats. He and Dahl came up with a “promotion”: Disco Demolition Night.

The plan: On July 12, 1979, for a doubleheader game, anyone who brought a disco record to Comiskey Park would get in for just 98 cents. Between the games, Dahl would blow up all the collected records in center field.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Performance: The Night the Music Exploded

The White Sox expected a slightly larger crowd, maybe 20,000.

They got over 50,000. Some reports say 70,000.

The stadium was packed, and thousands more were outside, climbing the walls and gates to get in. The stands were filled with long-haired rock fans, not baseball fans. The first game was tense, with fans already throwing records like Frisbees from the upper decks.

Between games, the real show began. Dahl, dressed in military fatigues, drove a Jeep onto the field. A giant crate filled with thousands of disco records was placed in center field, wired with explosives. Dahl led the crowd in a “Disco Sucks!” chant and then… KABOOM.

He blew up the records, leaving a smoldering crater in the outfield.

For the thousands of fans who were drunk, high, and completely amped up, this was the signal. They stormed the field.

It was pure chaos. Thousands of people swarmed the diamond, tearing up the bases, pulling down the foul poles, and lighting bonfires with the vinyl shrapnel. The stadium’s batting cage was torn to shreds. The few police on duty were completely overwhelmed, and riot police on horseback had to be called in.

The Aftermath & Legacy: The Death of Disco?

The second game, of course, was canceled. The White Sox were forced to forfeit the game to the visiting Detroit Tigers. It was a national embarrassment.

The event is often cited as “the night disco died,” and while its popularity was already waning, this public “execution” was a nail in the coffin.

In the decades since, however, “Disco Demolition” has been re-examined. Critics and historians have pointed out the ugly undertones of the movement—that a stadium full of mostly white rock fans destroying music pioneered by Black, gay, and Latino communities wasn’t just a “fun promotion gone wrong.” It was one of music’s darkest and most violent culture clashes, all starting with a 98-cent ticket.

6. A Pointed Reminder: The Composer Who Died from a Workplace Accident (1687)

The Setup: Conducting Before the Baton

Meet Jean-Baptiste Lully. In the 17th-century French Baroque court, he was the guy. He was the personal, favorite composer of King Louis XIV (The Sun King). He was powerful, wildly talented, notoriously arrogant, and had a virtual monopoly on all opera in France.

Now, you have to understand how “conducting” worked back then. The small, lightweight baton we know today hadn’t been invented. Instead, conductors (or “time-beaters”) kept the orchestra together by pounding a bâton de direction—a large, heavy, often ornate staff—on the floor.

It was a loud, physical, and, as it turns_ out, hazardous job.

The Performance: The Passionate (and Final) Recital

In January 1687, Lully was conducting a Te Deum (a hymn of praise) to celebrate the King’s recent recovery from an illness.

Lully was known for his passionate conducting style. He was really into the performance, pounding his large wooden staff on the floor to keep the rhythm for his musicians. In a fit of musical ecstasy, he was pounding the staff so hard that he missed the floor… and stabbed himself directly in the foot.

He hit his own toe with all the force of his passionate, rhythm-keeping arm.

The Aftermath & Legacy: A Stubborn, Fatal Decision

Lully, being famously tough and proud, probably winced, swore a very French oath, and kept the performance going. But the wound, made by a dirty stick on a dirty 17th-century floor, quickly became infected.

An abscess formed. The wound turned black. Gangrene set in.

The King’s surgeon was called and gave him the diagnosis: the only way to save his life was to amputate the leg.

Lully refused.

He was a dancer (in his youth) and famously vain. He couldn’t bear the thought of being a one-legged man at court. He refused the amputation. The gangrene spread from his toe, to his foot, up his leg.

On March 22, 1687, Jean-Baptiste Lully died a slow, agonizing death… all because he stabbed himself in the foot with his own conducting stick. It remains, without a doubt, the most bizarre and painfully avoidable workplace accident in music history.

7. Up in Smoke: The KLF and the £1 Million Bonfire (1994)

The Setup: Who Were The KLF?

In the early 1990s, The KLF (consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) was one of the biggest and weirdest pop bands in the UK. They had massive global hits like “3 a.m. Eternal” and “Justified & Ancient” (featuring Tammy Wynette).

But they weren’t just pop stars; they were “art terrorists.” They were pranksters who hated the music industry they were succeeding in. Their most famous stunt was at the 1992 BRIT Awards, where they “performed” by firing machine gun blanks at the audience and then dumped a dead sheep at the after-party.

Then, they “retired.” And they had a problem. They had made a lot of money. Specifically, they had £1 million in cash (about $1.7 million at the time) left over.

What to do with it? Give it to charity? Invest it?

The Performance: The Bonfire of the Vanities

They chose, as they put it, “the most radical and meaningful” option.

On August 23, 1994, Drummond and Cauty flew to the remote Scottish island of Jura. They brought with them a suitcase, a video camera, and £1 million in £50 notes. In a cold, disused boathouse, with a single journalist as a witness, they built a pile of money… and set it on fire.

They filmed the entire thing. The footage, titled Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid, is not a “rock star” fantasy. It’s awkward, grim, and boring. It’s just two guys in coats, grimly feeding stacks of cash into a fireplace for over an hour. At one point, Drummond’s hand catches fire, and he has to put it out.

The Aftermath & Legacy: “Why Did We Do It?”

When the world found out, people were furious. How dare two rich men burn a fortune when so many were in need? It was seen as the ultimate “f-you” to… well, everyone.

When asked why they did it, they didn’t really have an answer. They claimed it was “art,” a protest against the art world’s valuation of money, but even they seemed unsure.

They signed a “moratorium” on discussing the event for 23 years. Years later, they both admitted they deeply regretted it. Not because it was morally wrong, but, in their own words, because it was just a “boring” and “pointless” act.

It remains the most expensive and confounding stunt in rock history. Was it the ultimate artistic statement or the stupidest thing two musicians have ever done? Almost 30 years later, the answer is still… probably both.

8. The Sound of Silence: John Cage and the “Silent” Song That Infuriated Audiences (1952)

The Setup: Who Was John Cage?

John Cage wasn’t just a composer; he was a musical philosopher. He was the godfather of 20th-century avant-garde music, obsessed with “chance,” randomness, and questioning the very purpose of sound.

For years, Cage had been fascinated by the idea of total silence. To experience it, he visited an anechoic chamber at Harvard—a room so sound-proofed that it absorbs all noise.

But when he was inside, he was shocked to hear two distinct sounds: a high-pitched ringing and a low-pitched thumping. The engineer explained: the high sound was his own nervous system, and the low sound was his blood circulating.

This was a revelation for Cage. His conclusion: There is no such thing as silence. There is only sound—either intentional (music) or unintentional (ambient).

The Performance: 4’33” (Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds)

He decided to write a piece to prove his point. The premiere of 4’33” took place on August 29, 1952, in Woodstock, New York. The pianist was David Tudor.

Tudor walked on stage, sat at the piano, and started a stopwatch. Then… he did nothing.

The piece was in three “movements.“

Movement I: Tudor closed the piano lid to signal the start. He sat in silence for 33 seconds.
Movement II: He opened and re-closed the lid. He sat in silence for 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
Movement III: He opened and re-closed the lid again. He sat in silence for 1 minute and 20 seconds.

He never played a single note. At the end of the 4 minutes and 33 seconds, he stood up, bowed, and walked off stage.

The Aftermath & Legacy: What Is Music?

The audience’s reaction went through stages:

Confusion: “Is this a joke?”
Restlessness: People began coughing, whispering, and shifting in their seats.
Anger: By the third movement, people were “storming out,” calling it a “scam” and a “rip-off.”

But Cage had made his point perfectly.

The “music” wasn’t the silence. The “music” was all the unintentional sounds the audience made during that time: the “coughing and whispering.” It was the sound of the wind in the trees outside. It was the sound of the rain starting to patter on the roof.

4’33” forced the entire world to ask a new, profound question: “What is music?” It’s now one of the most famous (and infamous) compositions ever written, a landmark piece that proved that music isn’t just about the notes you play—it’s also about the sounds you don’t.

9. The Hoax That Convinced the World a Beatle Was Dead (1969)

The Setup: The World’s Biggest Band

In 1969, The Beatles were the biggest, most-scrutinized band on Earth. But they were also fracturing. They had stopped touring, and Paul McCartney had (briefly) withdrawn from public life to spend time with his new wife, Linda, in Scotland.

The public, used to seeing The Beatles everywhere, felt his absence.

On October 12, 1969, a radio station in Detroit (WKNR-FM) received a call from a listener. He told the DJ, Russ Gibb, to play the end of “Revolution 9” from the White Album. Gibb played it, and heard what sounded like “Turn me on, dead man.”

This, combined with an article from a college newspaper, launched one of the biggest conspiracy theories of all time: Paul is Dead.

The Performance: The Hunt for “Clues”

The theory went like this: Paul McCartney had died in a car crash in 1966. The “grief-stricken” Beatles, forced by their label, had covered it up and replaced him with a lookalike named “William Campbell.” But the “real” Beatles were leaving “clues” in their music and album art to tell the truth.

This is where the “performance” of the fans began. The world went insane trying to prove it. Everyone became a detective.

The Abbey Road Cover: This was the “proof.” John (in white) is the “priest.” Ringo (in black) is the “undertaker.” George (in denim) is the “gravedigger.” And Paul… Paul is barefoot (like a corpse), out of step with the others, and smoking with his right hand (the real Paul was left-handed!). The VW Beetle’s license plate? “LMW 28IF” — “Linda McCartney Weeps,” and Paul would have been 28 if he had lived.
The Sgt. Pepper Cover: The flowers at the bottom of the drum look like a grave, and if you hold a mirror to the drum, the “LONELY HEARTS” text reads “I ONE I X HE DIE.“
Backmasking: This was the real obsession. Fans played records backward and “found” messages.
- “I’m So Tired” played backward supposedly said, “Paul is dead, man. Miss him.“
- The end of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” where John mumbles “Cranberry sauce,” was clearly “I buried Paul.“

The Aftermath & Legacy: The Birth of the Modern Conspiracy

The rumor exploded into a full-blown media panic. DJs discussed it on air, and newspapers ran stories.

The Beatles’ press office was completely overwhelmed, repeatedly issuing denials: “This is a load of old rubbish.” The rumor only died when LIFE Magazine finally tracked Paul down to his farm in Scotland and put him on the cover of their November 1969 issue with the headline: “Paul Is Still With Us.”

The “Paul is Dead” hoax was one of the first and most widespread media-fueled conspiracy theories. It set the template for decades of “hidden messages” in music and proved that no matter what the truth is, a good story is sometimes more powerful.

10. “Better Than The Beatles”: The Strange, Sad Story of The Shaggs (1969)

The Setup: A Palm-Reading Prophecy

This might be the strangest story of all. It begins in the small, working-class town of Fremont, New Hampshire, with a man named Austin Wiggin.

When Austin was young, his mother read his palm and gave him a prophecy: he would marry a strawberry-blonde woman, he would have two sons after she died, and his daughters would one day “be big music stars.”

The first two prophecies came true. So, Austin became obsessed with making the third one happen.

He had three daughters: Dot, Betty, and Helen. He pulled them out of school, bought them cheap instruments they had no idea how to play, and forced them to practice. He forced them to write songs. He controlled their lives, all in service of this prophecy.

The Performance: ‘Philosophy of the World’

In 1969, Austin took the girls’ life savings and drove them to a recording studio in Massachusetts to record an album.

The recording engineer was… baffled.

The girls, to be blunt, couldn’t play. They had no rhythm. Their guitars were out of tune. Their timing was non-existent. The songs, written by Dot, were simple, strange, and childlike. When the engineer (politely) suggested, “Uh, I think you guys are off,” the sisters confidently replied, “No, this is how we play it.” They were just trying to do what their father wanted.

The result was the 1969 album, Philosophy of the World. It is, without question, one of the most bizarre and unnerving albums ever made. It’s not “bad” in a normal way; it’s… other. It’s the sound of pure, unadulterated “outsider” art, free from any knowledge of a “beat” or a “key.”

The Aftermath & Legacy: The “Outsider” Crown

The album was an immediate and total failure. Austin pressed 1,000 copies; 900 of them were supposedly stolen by the record producer. The band vanished.

Years later, the album was rediscovered. It became a cult classic, championed by musicians like Frank Zappa (who famously said The Shaggs were “better than The Beatles”) and Kurt Cobain (who listed it as one of his top 5 albums).

Today, The Shaggs are celebrated as the ultimate “outsider musicians.” Rolling Stone once called Philosophy of the World the “saddest, most stunningly awful” album ever, while others praise it as the “purest” form of artistic expression, completely uncorrupted by rules or talent.

It’s a strange, sad, and baffling masterpiece, born from one man’s obsession and three girls’ forced obedience.

Conclusion: Music is Beautifully, Bafflingly Human

As we’ve seen, the history of music is more than just notes on a page. It’s a history of human passion (Lully), stubbornness (Jenkins), bizarre ideas (Acoustic Kitty), and sheer chaos (Disco Demolition).

Why do these stories fascinate us? Because they’re human. They show that art isn’t a clean, perfect thing. It’s messy, it’s weird, it’s often a failure, and it sometimes ends with a riot, a forfeited baseball game, or a very expensive, very flat cat.

The next time you listen to a “weird” new song, just remember: it’s probably not half as weird as the story of the people who made it. And it’s definitely not as weird as a $20 million spy cat.

What Bizarre Story Did We Miss?

This list is just the tip of the iceberg. What’s the most bizarre, unbelievable music story you’ve ever heard? Drop it in the comments below!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Bizarre Music History

Q1: What is the weirdest song ever made?

A: While “weird” is subjective, many people point to the entire album Philosophy of the World by The Shaggs for its complete lack of conventional structure. Others would nominate an avant-garde piece like John Cage’s 4’33”.

Q2: Did The KLF ever say why they burned the money?

A: Yes and no. They claimed it was a form of “art” to protest the commercialization of the art world, but later admitted they weren’t entirely sure why they did it. Bill Drummond has since expressed regret, calling the act “boring.”

Q3: Was Florence Foster Jenkins aware she was a bad singer?

A: This is the biggest debate among her historians. The popular belief (and the one shown in the Meryl Streep film) is that she was genuinely, blissfully unaware, protected by her circle of friends. Others believe she may have known on some level, but simply loved the act of performing too much to care.

Q4: Is 4’33” by John Cage really considered music?

A: Yes, in musical and philosophical circles, it is. It’s considered a “conceptual” piece. Its goal was to make the listener aware that the “music” is the collection of all ambient sounds (coughing, wind, rain) that fill the “silence,” not just the notes played by an instrument.