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The album was conceived and compiled by Rhino Records co-founder Richard Foos. Boasting some "of the bossest splatter platters ever recorded," the album collects 10 examples of the teenage tragedy song including parodies of the genre. Most are from the late 1950s and early 1960s, with one track from the MTV era. Chart positions for each song, noted next to the track listing on the back cover, list eight of the selections as Top 10 hits (two of which went to No. 1) at the time of their original release.[1] The grisly "I Want My Baby Back" (also included on The Rhino Brothers Present the World's Worst Records in 1983) made the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965.[2] The last song on the album, Julie Brown's "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun," was first independently released as a B-side in late 1983 and never officially charted; the following year, it was included on Goddess in Progress, a Rhino EP (catalog no. RNEP610) that immediately preceded this album (RNEP611) and became one of Rhino's biggest sellers of the mid-'80s.[3]
The compilation was first issued as a vinyl LP, titled "Teenage Tragedies" on the spine and "Teenage Tragedy" in the cover art and on the labels. Following Rhino's distribution deal with Capitol/EMI in 1986, EMI Distribution released a budget-line cassette version in October 1989. The album has not been reissued on compact disc.[1]