Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits (Capitol, 1966)

 

Take a good look at the album cover above.  You've probably seen it in your life in your travels.  If you are a connoisseur of awful music, you definitely know about it.  I learned of the existence of Mrs. Miller way back in my Dr. Demento days as a kid.  The whole record only adds up to maybe 26 minutes of content, but what a content it is!

There have been several novelty-record examples of people singing badly over the years, some for different reasons.  Depending on what you read, it's unclear whether Mrs. Miller was in on the joke completely or not.  In one interview she later claimed to have been purposefully conducted to sing off-rhythm, and while that sounds good on paper, I'm not sure how believable that is, in reality.   She was obviously somebody who loved and wanted to sing, and because of this record she was everywhere for a short time, going on all the variety and talk shows you could name...and you can only do that for so long before you go full-on Florence Foster Jenkins and believe that you're good.

Apart from the rather dated examples chosen for this, her first full LP, which was ironically titled "Greatest Hits" as a joke, you'll quickly come to realize her...uniqueness.  If you need an example, I would venture that you could play her "A Hard Day's Night" to just about anyone, and enjoy their face changing as they slowly sink into revulsion as it plays out...but to me the ultimate Mrs. Miller song is the awful "A Lover's Concerto," which is a terrible song in its own rite, anyhow, but taken to new operatic heights under her prowess.  Petula Clark's "Downtown" is a close second, only because she breaks into bird calls and whistling at the end, unbelievably.  There are some moments of complete, sappy dreck, such as "Shadow of Your Smile" or "My Love," which in my opinion was just Capitol Records using tracks which didn't cost them any money.  

And then there are the other moments, the ones you came for.  Somebody thought it would be a hoot to have Mrs. Miller sing the chimney sweep song from MARY POPPINS--straight--and drop her h's while doing so.  Good 'eavens, I thought Dick Van Dyke's version was bad.  Also, don't miss the other timely pop moments for the swingin' youngsters:  if she's bewildered at the Four Season's "Let's Hang On," she sounds completely befuddled in the Motown wanna-be "Gonna Be Like That," as if she'd wandered into a Tamla recording session with dead hearing aids.  But my greatest moments of dread were reserved for, you guessed it..."These Boots Are Made For Walkin'," where some producer coaxed Mrs. Miller to act sultry, in which my skin actually crawled.  It's nothing short of staggering.

I usually say something about enjoying the download.  It's just not the right word, in this case.

LINK:  Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits