Helter Stupid

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Helter Stupid

Studio album by Negativland
Released	1989
Recorded	???
Genre	Experimental
Length	47:26
Label	SST
Producer(s)	Negativland?
All Music Guide link
Negativland chronology
Escape From Noise (1987)	Helter Stupid (1989)	Free (1993)

Helter Stupid, Negativland's second album on SST Records, was released in 1989 (see 1989 in music). It was Negativland's first attempt at a concept album.

The first half is composed of the tracks "Prologue" and "Helter Stupid". The two together form an extended piece lasting over 22 minutes. The concept, and much of the material, came from a San Francisco television news program that was taken in by a media hoax perpetrated by Negativland while promoting its previous album, Escape From Noise. Other samples used included those from Rev. Estus Pirkle (further samples from the same sermon used in the band's signature song, "Christianity Is Stupid"); an interview with [[ ]]; samples from a Death Wish II commercial; a skit made by Mark Hosler and Don Joyce about the theory of backmasking; the television broadcast of the press release covered by a television station; and what was the band's most brazenly unauthorized sample to date: "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles.

The skit about backmasking is now immortalized as a Flash on Newgrounds with the user saying that it was from The National Lampoon Radio Hour. As you can hear in the song, the people in the skit are played by Don Joyce and Mark Hosler and it incorporated David Brom's name into the skit, something that the National Lampoon Radio Hour did not think about as David Brom didn't kill his parents yet and backwards messages were thought of as .

Much of the "Perfect Cut" tracks on Side 2 draws from samples of "The Winning Score", a 1977 presentation by TM Century, producers of radio jingles and imaging. The source material can be heard here.