For me it's Nitrobenzene by OwataP. This one is... make car horn noises? idk man, the whole benzene series is weird but this was the strangest one i've heard so far
Oh man, that whole post. It is not even that old but so damn good. The commenters who first have written serious responses but then later edited them after hearing that damn song. Just wow.
I think it'll get neglected a little bit just because of how well-known and frankly good it is, but Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen is a very weird song. Probably not the very strangest for me, but it's up there. Definitely the strangest that I actually like and remember well.
Also Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol
Or completely non-strange once you understand the method behind the madness. Either way, a damn cool/funny song IMO.
Anyway for the OP, instead of going with the many, many artists who intentionally made strange music, I'll go instead with The Shaggs, three teenage girls who had utterly no musical training, but who tried their best to make conventional, 'normal music':
Over the decades, the album Philosophy of the World circulated among musicians and found fans such as Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain. Following a 1980 reissue on Rounder Records, it received enthusiastic reviews for its uniqueness in Rolling Stone and The Village Voice. A compilation of unreleased material, Shaggs' Own Thing, was released in 1982. The Shaggs became the subject of fascination in the 1990s, when interest grew in outsider music, and they are credited with influencing twee pop. --WP
instead of going with the many, many artists who intentionally made strange music
That's what I like- organic 'strangeness'. Philip Glass has made some strange sounding music but with intent, that was his style. The Celentano piece is intentional linguistically too but it's a very strange to experience how effectively he's mimicking US 'phonics' or whatever.
The Tim Curry piece is hilariously strange to me because Tim Curry actually can and does rock, but somehow wrote an embarrassingly unrocking song about how rocking he is.
Here's a good one. On the surface, it's not that strange... Until you think you're having a stroke because none of the words make sense. It's all gibberish
An opera singer and avant-garde music composer who made a song out of comic book sound effects.
Less strange, she also did an operatic cover of The Beatles' Ticket to Ride. I'm pretty sure my ironic love of this has crossed over into completely unironic genuine love.
One really shocked me: Ascension by John Coltrane. At first I thought this was some kind of a joke but the power really held me down. It's one of the songs that I can feel pure energy and freedom.
Literally anything by Prince Midnight. He plays black metal on a xylophone and a guitar supposedly made of the skeletal remains of his late uncle (Google it, it's a fascinating rabbit hole lol). He calls his music "black metal" but to me it sounds more like black metal vocals mixed with The Doors, 80s style hardcore punk, and I guess eastern European folk music? A lot of the themes seem to be about Greek mythology. It's a wild ride lol
It was a song I heard from a friend who was in a Music Appreciation class. The song was just counting in kind of a meditative chant and only did it in groups of 2 3 or 4, i can't remember. and they only counted to 12 or something and then started back. so it'd be like "one two three four one two three four five six seven eight one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve one two three four"
Shit, I'm not even sure you can classify it as a song, really. There's music and words, but the words are just spoken and it's just a guy giving mad props to Jesus Christ. But it's like a surfer, grunge kinda dude so it sounds sarcastic AF.
But also Ween. So much Ween. They have maybe 2 or 3 albums of somewhat regular music, and then 5 times more just the most bizarre, drug induced aural hallucinations imaginable. I love 'em.
Oh and I can't forget Daniel Johnston; a song writer with schizophrenia that afaik only released his work as bespoke, custom cassettes for people so there are like thousands of different versions of the same songs because he just played them from memory. The songs themselves are pretty gnarly, too.
Basically Merzbow's entire discograpgy. Here's the album Pulse Demon, and no, its neither a bad upload nor did your speakers (which you should turn down beforehand) take a shit on you.
Never get ahead by Bobby Conn. In this video he's performing at a youth show, so he isn't allowed to sing 'you'll never get ahead by giving head to the man' instead singing 'saying yes to the man'. But he slips up once, saying sorry after.