We Are the Shaggs Review: Genius or Garbage?

We Are the Shaggs from Ken Kwapis is a detailed look at the music of the worst band ever, and asks us to reconsider that assessment.

Whether you come away from this documentary believing that The Shaggs were the worst band ever or that they were misunderstood geniuses will be entirely your call, but it will be difficult not to have an opinion at the end of this film.

The Shaggs was formed at the behest of the Wiggin family patriarch, Austin Wiggin. His mother had a vision of them becoming a world-famous band, and he set out to make that a reality. The Shaggs was made up of sisters Dot, Betty, and Helen. Helen, the band’s drummer, passed away in 2006, so the film includes a number of interviews with Dot and Betty. Dot was the songwriter and lead guitarist, while Betty also played guitar. When you listen to their music, you will hear multiple rhythms happening at the same time, wildly out-of-tune guitars, unison voices, and unpredictable chord structure. Whatever rules of music exist, they did not exist for The Shaggs.

We Are the Shaggs explains how Austin would force the girls to practice, but had no musical knowledge and offered them none. While they did have some musical lessons, in an interview, a producer at the record studio where they recorded “Philosophy of the World” explained that when he tried to tune the girls’ guitars, Austin told them that the guitars were never supposed to go out of tune. When someone actually tuned the guitars and gave them to the girls, they were unable to play because it sounded so different to them. 

Because he wanted to ensure their success, Austin made the girls practice all the time. He pulled them out of school and homeschooled them so they had more time to become the band that his mother had foretold. This left the girls feeling isolated from their peers. One of the only ways that the girls were able to meet any peers was through their weekly concerts at a local town hall. Dot and Betty never call their father abusive in the film, but it is clear that he had an iron grip on their lives, and that they weren’t happy about that. Multiple times through We Are the Shaggs, Betty expresses her lack of enthusiasm for her band.

The documentary highlights the different ways that The Shaggs have been perceived over the years. When The Rolling Stone found “Philosophy of the World,” they declared the Shaggs the worst band ever. Many music critics savaged them, which was particularly hard for young women to accept. But when both Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa championed the band as something special, they began to amass a cult following. The film includes a cover band that performs their songs exactly as they were recorded. It also has some interesting covers from a violin duo that is able to convey the rhythmic and melodic elements to near perfection. 

In the years since the girls stopped playing, their music has become incredibly famous. We Are the Shaggs details the ways that this has happened. There was a stage musical written about “Philosophy of the World.” Dot and Betty performed a reunion show in 2017, highlighting their original music with a band. Dot has performed with the Dot Wiggin Band, writing new music for that and also playing old music from the Shaggs. And, of course, this documentary exists, bringing them to an entirely new audience. 

While We Are the Shaggs isn’t a particularly long film, it does start to feel a bit tedious toward the end. I appreciate the loud supporters of the band, but I wish some of that had been trimmed to make more time for interviews with Dot and Betty about what being in the band meant to them long-term. Helen suffered some significant depression, and Betty indicates that her death may have been at her own hand. There are aspects of their lives that I wish had been examined as thoroughly as their music. 

The question about whether or not the Shaggs are unintentionally brilliant or horrifically awful doesn’t really have an answer. From a strictly traditional music perspective, they are bad. But the girls also practiced a lot and learned what their music sounded like, so they were intentional about what they were doing, even if it was something beyond what music “should” do. Toward the end of the film, musicologist Susan Rogers asks if, if the Shaggs were boys, if they would have been torn apart as much as these girls were. Would there have been some recognition of what they did rather than a dismissal of what they didn’t do?

I’m not sure what the answer to that question is either. There is certainly music that sounds “wrong” to my American ears that is simply music that I’m unfamiliar with because it has its own rules. The Shaggs may simply have had their own rules they established and followed. It’s bad pop music, but that doesn’t automatically mean that it’s bad music. We Are the Shaggs doesn’t try to answer any of the questions about the Shaggs, but it’s hard to come away from the film without some feelings, even if it’s still impossible to hum along with their songs.

We Are the Shaggs had its World Premiere at SXSW on March 13-17, 2025. Read our SXSW reviews!

Header credits: Jeremy Seifert