Meet the Residents LP

The Residents self-released their 1974 debut, Meet the Residents, on their own label, Ralph Records. The cover parodies the Beatles' Meet the Beatles, with the Fab Four cartoonishly defaced and Ringo's head swapped out for a starfish, a joke that drew a legal threat from Capitol Records. Built from tape overdubs instead of rehearsed songs, the album jams blues, jazz, and classical together in a deliberately amateurish style that set the tone for a band that has spent decades performing and recording anonymously.