the sound: Not a single song on “Son of Schmilsson” is similar to another. Nilsson had a most impressive set of vocal chops, which he used to wail one minute and purr the next, and the album utilized almost every instrument in existence, plus a few that were improvised. The album opens with “Take 54,” a jazzy, sax-laden number that starts with Nilsson bemoaning the loss of a girl he was trying to impress (“I sang my balls off for you, baby”) and ends with a bizarre bit involving a creepy voice spooking a snoozing sound technician. Following that is the lovely tune “Remember (Christmas),” in which Nilsson waxes poetic about the past to the tune of violins and piano. Later on in the album, he spoofs the saccharine sweetness of “Remember” by again playing the intro and then belching loudly as he bursts into “At My Front Door,” a guitar-riddled rock song. “Joy” is a hilarious take on sappy country tunes. (“Joy, to the world, was a beautiful girl / but to me Joy meant only sorrow.”) “Spaceman,” the highest charting single of “Son of Schmilsson,” is a jangly tune about the problems of being an astronaut, driven by the occasional shotgun beat. “I’d Rather Be Dead” is a Joplin-sounding number about aging (“I’d rather be dead / than wet my bed / I’d rather keep my health / and dress myself”). The album’s last song, “The Most Beautiful World in the World,” is a tongue-in-cheek love song to the planet (“I love the way you wear your trees”), which brilliantly incorporates the use of bongos and ... gargling.

the background: Harry Nilsson was John Lennon in a Graham Chapman suit, an amazingly talented musician with a pissed-off streak and a hella sense of humor. In the first few seconds of “You’re Breaking My Heart,” Nilsson sings “You’re breaking my heart / you’re tearing it apart / so fuck you,” but by the third refrain he has changed the lyrics to, “You’re breaking my heart / you’re tearing it apart / but I love you.” This song could be seen as a commentary on Nilsson’s relationship with the music industry. After the success of Nilsson’s 1971 album “Nilsson Schmilsson” (which includes a cover of “Without You” that puts Mariah Carey’s 1993 version to shame), RCA pressured Nilsson to make a quick follow-up along a similar vein. Instead, Nilsson stayed true to his nature (i.e., doing whatever the hell he wanted), and came up with “Son of Schmilsson,” a bawdy and schizophrenic offering. With bits of lewdness, cursing and all-out strange happenings, “Son of Schmilsson,” while obviously a product of a musical genius, certainly has the sound of someone sticking it to the record company. Unfortunately, it cost Nilsson many of the fans he had gained with his previous release. Not that he cared.

the significance: You know more Nilsson songs than you realize. “Everybody’s Talkin’” was the theme to the Oscar-winning movie “Midnight Cowboy.” “The Point,” the bizarre 1970s animated musical, was entirely a Nilsson creation. He sang the theme to the television show “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.” “One,” a lament about how one is the loneliest number, was covered by Three Dog Night and, later, Aimee Mann. And “Coconut” (“Put de lime in de coconut, and drink ’em both up’) has frequently appeared on television and in films, most famously during the closing credits of “Reservoir Dogs.” After “Son of Schmillson,” Nilsson went on to record several more albums in the ’70s, none of them great commercial successes, but brilliant and respected by hardcore fans and peers, alike. From the wear and tear his vocal cords suffered during that decade, as well as the death of his close friend John Lennon, Nilsson all but retired from the music biz by the early ’80s—but not before penning the songs for Robert Altman’s phenomenal commercial flop “Popeye.” Instead of making music, Nilsson devoted his time to promoting gun control, in memory of Lennon. Harry Nilsson died of heart failure in 1994 at the age of 52.