10 Strange Music Albums By Mainstream Acts

Deservedly taking the number one spot on this list, it's 1973's The Plan by The Osmonds - although the band's 1972 output, Phase III and Crazy Horses, could almost equally well have qualified.

Today, most people know this group of siblings from Utah for two reasons: Little Jimmy Osmond's Long Haired Lover From Liverpool, which topped the UK charts when the singer was just nine years old, and Crazy Horses, the band's screeching psychedelic love-it-or-hate-it number.

This is highly unfair to the group, who in reality displayed a harder, more rootsy edge on most of their recordings right from the off, albeit it too often mixed in with saccharine pop. The Osmonds reinvented themselves somewhat with that brace of '72 albums, switching to a more rock-orientated sound, but still remained firmly mainstream.

The Plan, then, had no precursor. This is a highly ambitious concept album dedicated to the Mormon faith. It contains, by turns, dramatic and unsettling instrumentals, wigged-out hard rock, power-ballads and freaky cabaret numbers replete with quirky sound-effects. There's plenty of fine material here, but you'll need to put the effort in to engage with it.