albums that changed my life: sludgefest

yeah, i listen to sludge metal.

okay. this is gonna be a weird one. i'd be more concerned about my music taste if i found that i enjoy listening to anything by the shaggs, but i'd say i was somewhat concerned at first when i listened to this album and liked it. i couldn't take some of it seriously, but for the most part i'd say i actually consider it a bit of a masterpiece. is this a guilty pleasure album of mine? probably. it feels really weird saying i enjoy an album that's just alvin & the chipmunks covers slowed down to 16 revolutions per minute (that's where "chipmunks on 16 speed" comes from), but...hear me out, okay?

i've seen this album mentioned before and thought it seemed interesting, but i never got around to giving it a listen until recently. my music taste consists of almost everything (keyword: "almost"), so it was like "why not?" when this album popped up in my spotify recommendations one day. i listened to the entire thing in one go, and i don't know why it made me feel this way, but it felt like a religious experience. i mean... the album is just various 80s music chipmunk covers slowed down so heavily to the point the vocals sound normal, so why do i like it so much? it sounds like sludge metal with more pop-ish vocals. sludge-pop? i doubt that's a thing, but i guess you can say it exists now thanks to this strange album. come to think of it, sludge-pop does sound like an interesting genre, doesn't it?

i guess the main reason why this album "awakened" something in me is because of how hypnotic it is. the sludgy, slowed-down sound makes this entire thing sound like something you could either fall asleep to or get stoned to. i would say that this album sounds like mud. i'm aware mud doesn't have a sound, but if it did, i'd imagine it would sound like whatever the hell this is. some of the songs that are on sludgefest sound a bit amusing (particularly "heaven is a place on earth") because of how slowed-down they are to the point it's comical, but most of the songs sound strangely beautiful. my personal favorite is the sludgy version of "my sharona". it's like what would've happened if the knack dropped a ton of acid. it's got a very psychedelic quality to it. it's no longer the upbeat, catchy, and danceable song we all know and love that makes us want to yell "MY SHARONA!", but instead something that sounds like a genuine acid trip. some songs sound like a dream to me, and i would say the sludgefest version of "my sharona" is one of those songs. "heaven is a place on earth", on the other hand, made me giggle while listening to it. something about the turtle-speed "ooooohhhh heaaaavennn isss a place on eeaarth" made me lose it for some reason, but i'm already familiar with the fact that my sense of humor is quite broken. it doesn't take much to make me laugh.

sludgefest isn't the only chipmunks on 16 speed creation, either. that's right... there's more. i'm not going to go deep into the second album considering that this blog post wasn't written to talk about it, but i will say that it's pretty decent too. "whip it" by devo got the "sludge treatment", and i honestly dig it quite a bit.

to summarize my thoughts, sludgefest is one of the grimiest pieces of music i've listened to. it quite literally sounds like sludge (referring to the disgusting, brown-ish, mushy half-melted snow), but at the same time, it's strangely beautiful. i'm almost angry at the guy who made this crap because it sounds so good, and i didn't think i would like it that much. now, someone needs to do something like this to various weird al songs. imagine a slowed-down, sludgy version of "dare to be stupid". wouldn't that be hilarious?

anyways, if you'd like to take a listen, i've included the sludgefest version of "my sharona" if you want to get an idea of what this unique album sounds like.