Electriclarryland by Butthole Surfers

Electriclarryland, the seventh album from the Butthole Surfers, came out on Capitol on May 6, 1996, and it's the moment these weirdos snuck into the mainstream without sanding off any of the strangeness. Paul Leary produced it, with the basic tracks cut at his house in Austin, at Arlyn Studios in the same city and at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York, before mixing and mastering at Ocean Way in Los Angeles.

The title is a gag on Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, their second parody title after Hairway to Steven. They'd wanted to call it Oklahoma!, but Capitol, nervous about lawsuits, made them change it. A clean version also went out with an alternate cover and the band credited as "B*H* Surfers".

The music is a twisted, lurching carnival of fuzzed-out guitars and loopy psych-rock swirl. "Pepper" is the slow, drawling hit, a deadpan groove that became their first top-40 success, while "TV Star" rattles along with a demented grin. "The Lord Is a Monkey" wound up on two soundtracks that year, Beavis and Butt-head Do America and Black Sheep, and the band played "Ulcer Breakout" on The Larry Sanders Show. The album itself went gold that August.

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