Abstract

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s Trout Mask Replica (1969) surely is one of the strangest rock albums ever released. The off-putting combination of harmonic dissonance, out-of-synch counterpoint, abrupt changes of texture, surreal lyrics, and an obstinate avoidance of many of rock’s standard style markers, coupled with the album’s sheer length (twenty-eight songs originally on two LPs), ensures that few people listen past the first few minutes. ¹