Helter Stupid
Helter Stupid is Negativland's fifth studio album, released in 1989. It is a concept album that focuses on a hoax that the band started, which claimed that the Negativland song "Christianity Is Stupid" inspired a teenager to murder his family with an axe. Structure. The first half of the album is composed of the tracks "Prologue" and "Helter Stupid". The two together form an extended piece lasting over 22 minutes. The concept, and some of the sampled material, came from a San Francisco television news program that was duped 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 "Christianity Is Stupid"), an interview with Charles Manson, and what was the band's most brazenly unauthorized sample to date: "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles. Parts of the "Perfect Cut" tracks on Side 2 draw from samples of ""The Winning Score"", a 1977 presentation by TM Century, producers of radio jingles and imaging. In 2000, the band Chumbawamba, in reply to the EP "The ABCs of Anarchism", used this album as one of their main sampling  sources of "WYSIWYG". Critical reception. "Trouser Press" wrote that "as inspired propagandists coming to terms with an ability to manipulate the truth, Negativland shifted their mindfuck campaign to a higher plane with "Helter Stupid". "The Rough Guide to Rock" called "Helter Stupid" "probably [the band's] best and most accessible album."