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I might as well start this sooner rather than later. It’s what will become the largest Discography Deep Dive page I’ll ever make, assuming that I ever finish it!
Frank Zappa is my favorite artist of all time. Starting at the age of 17 I was ravenously buying as many albums as I could afford as fast as possible. I even have a Zappa tattoo on my arm. Needless to say, I fancy myself as both a crazed Zappa fanatic AND a realistic Zappa historian. That is to say, there’s something I love about each and every studio album, live album, official Beat the Boots bootleg, and posthumous release, but I’m not going to pretend that Zappa could do no wrong. In fact, he often did! I’ll try my absolute best at keeping my biases to the wayside when evaluating his body of work.
Frank Zappa is one of the only rock musicians I can think of whose studio, live, and posthumous output should all be considered with equal value, as it is all integrated into one cohesive whole that he personally dubbed the “conceptual continuity”. As a result, I will honor this idea of conceptual continuity by waiving my “studio albums only” rule and reviewing everything…except compilations, because fuck that noise. That’s over 100 individual releases! So let’s get going!
JUMP TO:
(1966) Freak Out!
(1967) Absolutely Free
(1968) We’re Only in It for the Money
(1968) Lumpy Gravy
(1968) Cruising with Ruben & the Jets
(1969) Uncle Meat
(1969) Hot Rats
(1970) Burnt Weeny Sandwich
(1970) Weasels Ripped My Flesh
(1970) Chunga’s Revenge
(1971) Fillmore East – June 1971
(1971) 200 Motels
(1972) Just Another Band from L.A.
(1972) Waka/Jawaka
(1972) The Grand Wazoo
(1973) Over-Nite Sensation
(1974) Apostrophe (‘)
(1974) Roxy & Elsewhere
(1975) One Size Fits All
(1975) Bongo Fury
Freak Out! (1966) – Rating: 9/10
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Here it is, one of rock music’s earliest double albums, one of rock music’s earliest concept albums, and, arguably, the very first directly snarky comment on rock music in of itself. This is one of the albums that helped shape progressive rock. This is the album that Paul McCartney cited as an influence on the Sgt. Pepper’s album. It’s pretty good.
Freak Out! sees Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in their most focused permutation, dedicating the initial 2/3 of the record to straight-forward pop, rock, and blues tunes, and the final 1/3 to unhinged psychedelic rock and extended sound collages. The straight-forward tunes sneer at music tropes of the time, with anti-love songs, fun-poking at immature high school emotions, and sarcastic nods at hip slang of the mid-late ’60s (“I don’t even care if your dad’s the Heat!“). The crazy psychedelic jamming, containing the actual Freaking Out! of the record, displays the results of a late night session in the recording studio with all the rented percussion equipment that they could afford. “Return of the Son of Monster Magnet” is 12 minutes of oddly melodious percussion improvisation. Zappa wanted it to be the backbone of an actual song, but he liked it this way better.
This is my personal favorite of the original Mothers’ trilogy. Hitting the ground running like this only begins to give us a glimpse into Zappa’s ambitious mind. A lot it won’t be quite so polished as Freak Out! though, and as far as Zappa goes it’s already nearly as perfect as you’re gonna get.
Absolutely Free (1967) – Rating: 8/10
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The Mothers get more silly and less focused, but you can’t argue with the results. Anyone who’s looking for more of the same from Freak Out! is going to be puzzled, but this is the ride Zappa wants you on so either get on and shut up or get off and shut up! Ha!
Absolutely Free is split into two themes: side one covers the life of a vegetable, side two covers the life of an American. One and the same, perhaps? Musically, this album is all over the place: classical music collages cut between freak-folky grooves and extended woodwind jams. Nonsense lyrics entwined with social commentary. Often the members of the band are singing or talking over each other. Sometimes the “singing” is just casual absent-minded doo-wop sing-songy noises. In the case of “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It”, sometimes a “song” is just vignettes from 20 different songs slapped together! And there’s filthy jokes and illusions to daughter-fucking on it too?? This album has everything!
The stupid-on-purpose social commentary coupled with the chaotic musical mixture is unquestionably entertaining, although one would need to be primed for this experience in order to not be put off. Listen to some other Zappa first before coming back to this one. Once you’re ready, though, it’s a real treat.
We’re Only in It for the Money (1968) – Rating: 8/10
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Of the original trilogy of Mothers albums, most people will cling to this one as their favorite, and it’s easy to see why. This one has the most coherent theme–hippie bashing–which is both relatable for multiple generations now and easy to find the humor within as a listener no matter your personal opinions. (specially in America, where the hippie itself has become a punchline with incredible lasting power).
This is a really good record, but I prefer Freak Out!‘s stronger song-oriented melodic sensibilities and more interesting experimental excursions. WOIIFTM‘s songs are more structured than Absolutely Free’s, but, again, we see humor and gimmicks at the expensive of songwriting. BUT THAT’S NOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING. I love all three albums, but my mind’s ear has a fuller realized idea of what Freak Out! actually is compared with this one. And that’s all.
Don’t ignore the songwriting strength of some of these tracks, though. Songs like “Who Needs the Peace Corps?”, “Absolutely Free”, “Mother People” display Frank’s ability to write an honest-to-God pop song when he really wanted to. The snarky words are just the icing on the cake. Skip over “The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny”, it’s impossible to listen to this without thinking that the extended avantgarde closer was already done way better on Freak Out!. I don’t think anyone would ever dispute that with sincerity.
Lumpy Gravy (1968) – Rating: 5/10
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Here’s Zappa very first truly experimental release. Lumpy Gravy boasts 32 minutes of legitimate orchestral suites, snippets of rock music, dialogue from his “piano people” project, and a hodge-podge of many other ideas that would see greater light on future releases way down the line.
Zappa fancied himself a classical composer. He handwrote musical manuscripts of most, if not all, of his songs (at least the structured sections). Lumpy Gravy contains recordings of his first hired full orchestra, which Zappa conducted himself, a practice he’d repeat throughout his career. He wasn’t too shabby either.
Consider this on a whole other level than even Absolutely Free. It’s an even bigger mess, one that I don’t listen to that often at all. In fact, the last time I listened to Lumpy Gravy was during writing up my full album review of it four years ago, and I didn’t even revisit it for this little blurb. It’s very much an experience and less of a leisure listening album, one that you can’t be too compelled to reach for that often, but you enjoy it while you’re in it. Groundbreaking for 1968, dated by 2021 standards. Reportedly this was Zappa’s favorite project, and he must have been happy with the outcome because he never had the itch to do something quite like this again.
Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968) – Rating: 5/10
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Ehh. This is an entire album of straightly-played doo-wop music. The story behind this one is that Zappa and his gross horde of degenerates that he called his fellow musicians were all sitting around one day sharing stories of high school and all the ’50s doo-wop groups that they were all into at the time, and Zappa thought it would be a good idea to record a faithful stylistic recreation of these nostalgic tunes.
I know nothing about doo-wop music, so I have no frame of reference for how truly faithful this is, but apparently radio stations were playing a lot of these tracks at the time thinking that some long lost ’50s artifact by a real band called Ruben & the Jets had been discovered in 1968. So it must have been pretty damn faithful. Zappa and crew even created an elaborate backstory about a real guy named Ruben who formed the band, and they all slowly morphed into talking dogs over time. Hence the album cover. It was supposed to be fleshed out further and tied into the Uncle Meat movie but it never became fully realized. I think we all dodged a bullet there.
I barely get anything out of this kind of music, and nothing here makes me want to check out other doo-wop artists. Once in a great while I’m in the mood, but only about half these songs are enjoyable to me. Mostly, these songs are schmaltzy and simple, and some are irritatingly catchy the way a commercial jingle is catchy (“Jelly roll gum drop/Got my eyes on you!“). A few songs from Freak Out! were reworked into this style for this album and, in my opinion, all the original versions are better. Of all the original Mothers’ albums, this one is the least essential. Don’t bother with this one unless you become a dirty, dirty completist like me.
Uncle Meat (1969) – Rating: 10/10
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MAJOR DISCLAIMER: This album is a solid 10/10 only if you pretend the CD-version Uncle Meat movie excerpt tracks don’t exist. And I don’t. So I’m done talking about them!
Uncle Meat, the album and not the movie, is a blissful hodge-podge of rock, jazz, orchestral, and blues, combined together in a more satisfying way than the Lumpy Gravy album. Here, the songs are more fully BROUGHT INTO FRUITION, with Zappa going a step further by experimenting more with tape manipulation and percussion soundscapes. You get cuts like “Nine Types of Industrial Pollution”, a sped-up pretty acoustic jam, “Ian Underwood Whips It Out”, the Ian Underwood origin story plus a live excerpt of him freaking out on his saxophone, “Sleeping in a Jar”, a baffling and short soft-rock lullaby, “A Pound for a Brown (on the Bus)”, a melodious and polyrhythmic instrumental, and many, many, many more! The first 22 tracks were designed to be sequenced in any order and still sound like one unit, and I agree. Put it on shuffle ya dingus!
The final 20-ish minutes of this double album make up the “King Kong” suite, a continuous jazz-fusion extravaganza! “King Kong” was a major Mothers concert staple that allowed the band to flex their improvisational skills, and it wasn’t uncommon for the song to go on for 30+ minutes. It was never the same twice. Now that we’re getting posthumous releases of older material, many of these recordings are finally becoming available and you can color me a grateful dude.
Uncle Meat is Zappa at his most quintessential. Everything about the man’s 30-year body of work is represented here, so if you’re going to pick any one album to give a cursory listen and shelve forever then let it be this one. Skip the fucking movie excerpts.
Hot Rats (1969) – Rating: 8/10
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Some may consider it blasphemy that a self-respecting Zappa disciple would give Hot Rats anything less than a 10/10, and they’re probably right. I have a few very unpopular opinions about this record that I’m not afraid to- *ducks a bottle thrown at me*.
Hot Rats was a complete overhaul. Primarily for financial reasons, secondarily for personal reasons, Zappa cut the whole Mothers of Invention loose except for Ian Underwood because he knew how to play a trillion instruments and was therefore a cheap musician to hang onto! Almost entirely without vocals (the only words on the whole album come from Captain Beefheart’s raspy mucus voice), Hot Rats is the first in a “holy trinity”, if you will, of straight jazz-fusion albums.
My first VERY unpopular opinion is that “Peaches En Regalia”, Zappa’s most well-known and highly-lauded composition, doesn’t do much for me whatsoever. To me it sounds like some sort of Sesame Street music the way he utilizes happy-sounding major chords and overly-colorful instrumentation. This is purely my opinion, you won’t agree with it. No one will.
My second unpopular opinion is that this is not the best of the three jazz fusion albums (it’s Waka/Jawaka), but Hot Rats is still an incredible record and it runs through a nice range of bluesy, jazzy, heavy, delicate, scuzzy, and beautiful. “Willie the Pimp” is my favorite, featuring the aforementioned Beefheart vocals that launch into a raw, energetic extended blues jam that I find simply exhilarating the entire time through the song’s 9-minute runtime. I also love the other two extended jams “Son of Mr. Green Genes” and the 16-minute epic jam session “The Gumbo Variations” featuring sax, electric violin, and guitar solos.
The three shorter tunes (“Peaches in Regalia”, “Little Umbrellas”, and “It Must Be a Camel”) don’t do much for me, I’m sorry to say, but since the meat of the album comes from the long jams I’m a happy guy anyway. This album was my gateway to jazz fusion, and it will always have a special place in my dumb ol’ fat heart.
Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1970) – Rating: 9/10
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Possibly the biggest disparity between the aesthetics of the album cover and the nature of the music contained within, Burnt Weeny Sandwich contains some of Zappa’s most delicate and pretty arrangements. Of course, it’s pretty by Zappa standards, which means it’s still a little bit ugly. But hey, isn’t everything?
Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh are companion albums, each containing a different side of the coin from the pre-Hot Rats Mothers of Invention recordings that hadn’t been released on the earlier albums. This one contains more of the classical side bookended by a couple of pleasant doo-wop tunes. However, if the doo-wop tunes are the bread of this burnt weeny sandwich, then I guess that makes the rest of the album the burnt weeny itself? Seems a little harsh to me.
What we have here is the very first favorable and most accessible presentation of Zappa’s orchestral side. Almost all the music on here is enjoyable, and Zappa strikes an excellent balance between complexity and listenability (which is a somewhat rare accomplishment from him). Instruments aplenty, and better flow, this is what Lumpy Gravy could’ve been. Listen to this instead of that. On top of nice little plinky interludes (both “Igor’s Boogie” parts), a relaxing guitar jam session “Theme to Burnt Weeny Sandwich”, and melodious quasi-concertos (“Holiday in Berlin”, both the overture and the full-blown version), you also get an extended 18-minute live cut of “Little House I Used to Live In” featuring more of that sexy electric violin you heard on Hot Rats! Something for everyone!
I docked one point only because, as great as it is, Burnt Weeny Sandwich never really feels fully realized to me. Not in the way Uncle Meat does; as chaotically sequenced as that one is, all the songs feel like elements of one big picture. I can’t really see the big picture with Burnt Weeny Sandwich. Even Weasels Ripped My Flesh gives me a big picture. Maybe one day, when I’m smarter and wiser, I can follow up on this.
Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970) – Rating: 8/10
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If Burnt Weeny Sandwich features the Mothers at their most structured, accessible, and charming, then Weasels Ripped My Flesh features them at their most loose, experimental, and ugly…and weird, off-putting, fucked up, and terrible. It’s great!
This is the avantgarde jazz and noise side to the pre-Hot Rats band. Like Burnt Weeny Sandwich, it’s nothing more than just some cutting room floor scraps that didn’t make it to the earlier albums. And what scraps they are! A lot of this stuff is squeaky, skronky, mildly aggressive, primal, and captivating. And it’s not as hard to get into as everyone says. Honestly, most of it is actual music, ok? Hand to God! Of the 40 minutes of recordings here, you can call 18 minutes of it recognizable, straight-forward music by anyone’s standards. “Directly from My Heart to You” is a Little Richard blues cover. “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama” is a straight-up rock song. “Get a Little” is a mellow Hendrix-ian guitar exercise. “Oh No” is a pretty vocal number, a lead-in to “The Orange County Lumber Truck” which is a energetic instrumental rock jam!
The rest of it is noise, granted, but it’s all right! “Didja Get Any Onya” is a take on avantgarde modern classical, the first folky half “Toads of the Short Forest” abruptly cuts to a live noise session in the second half where each instrument is playing in a different time signature (and Zappa announces each one), the first half of the flute-y, atonal and unnerving “Dwarf Nebula Processional March and Dwarf Nebula” abruptly cuts into a menagerie of electronic noises in the second half. “Weasels Ripped My Flesh”, the titular closer, is two minutes of guitar feedback! There’s some other stuff, but you get the gist.
I legitimately love Weasels Ripped My Flesh, but it’s not without its flaws. It certainly opened my eyes to the potential of “beautiful noise” and I’ll be forever in its debt. This was the finest and last truly unpredictable Zappa album, because after this Zappa would start to become too predictable in his unpredictability, and the sheer rawness and tangible uncertainty would never be replicated again. Oh well.
Chunga’s Revenge (1970) – Rating: 6/10
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Transition! Shortly after the original Mothers broke apart, Frank needed to assemble a new team to keep building new material and expanding his vision. Enter Chunga’s Revenge, the first (and best) release with this new band. Notable additions include George Duke on keyboards, Jeff Simmons on bass, Aynsley Dunbar on drums, and, SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (better known respectively, and referred to from now on, as Flo and Eddie) on vocals. Now, you see, you may Flo and Eddie better as the founders and lead vocalists of the Turtles. Yes, that Turtles. Their band dissolved, but their contract still forbade them using their own names until lawsuits were settled over a decade later. Anyway, fuck those guys, and I won’t be shy about sharing my hatred of both of those pricks over the next few mini-reviews.
But, hey, Chunga’s Revenge is pretty ok! Honestly, this album’s biggest claim to fame is the iconic photo of Frank yawning on the cover. It’s not great, it’s kind of middle-of-the-road, but it does not go overboard with the Flo and Eddie antics and there’s a lot of good music here to be heard. Most of this stuff is a mixed bag of old-school rock, blues, and instrumental pieces; almost all of it was recorded in the studio with the exception of “The Nancy & Mary Music”, which was extracted from a recent live performance of “King Kong” (too bad it’s a little bit uninteresting out of context, and Flo & Eddie’s yelping don’t help). “Tell Me You Love Me” and “Would You Go All the Way” are solid pop tunes with a hard rock edge. “Sharleena” is a another loyal doo-wop send-up, although almost every other available live version is better.
Don’t make this your first Zappa purchase, but don’t make it your last either. If you’re going to buy any Flo and Eddie-era record at all, for the love of Jesus X. Christ, pick Chunga’s Revenge.
Fillmore East – June 1971 (1971) – Rating: 1/10
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This album is a load of horseshit. At this point, Zappa is balls to the fucking wall with the Flo and Eddie stunt performing, which means 43 minutes of dick jokes, gratingly annoying wiseguy voices, straightforward rock arrangements low in the mix, and “comedy” music that your average 14-year-old wouldn’t find funny anymore. To add insult to injury, the CD version of the album omits “Willie the Pimp, Pt. 2” completely, which is probably the only extended jam that was even played at these abysmal concerts.
While Chunga’s Revenge kept the Flo and Eddie antics to a minimum, Fillmore East – June 1971 is mostly made up of their glorified comedy routine. Or, rather, they’re a vehicle for Zappa’s glorified comedy routine. The overly simple music takes a backseat to the funnyboy comic bits, and a lot of it has aged dreadfully. Possibly underaged groupie rape involving a fish is topic that is treated with levity, for example.
Fuck this stupid album. Don’t listen to it. I already wrote enough about it forever in my full review. It was the first review to get the coveted SUCKS rating!
200 Motels (1971) – Rating: 3/10
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It’s a slight improvement over the last one, but it’s still pretty bad. This serves as the official soundtrack to another theatrical Zappa production that I’m never going to watch in a million goddamned years! I won’t even bother recapping a plot synopsis, it’s dumb.
200 Motels is a deep cut in the Zappa catalog that many fans will point to as a case for Zappa’s genius, but they’re wrong. Loaded up as it may be with all sorts of rock and orchestral music, it also has a lot more of that Flo and Eddie comedy music and, along with it, more overly misogynistic material. What redeems 200 Motels slightly is that the orchestral arrangements are pleasant and sometimes interesting, and the interspersion of modern classical with rock music is certainly not something you hear often, but even here the experiment fails because the orchestra music tends to put the brakes on the momentum. It’s very different from Burnt Weeny Sandwich, which wove in the two elements with finesse. Here the two elements feel isolated and then hastily slapped together.
Even this version of “Strictly Genteel”, Zappa’s quintessential orchestral opus, is the worst one you can find, featuring homophobic monologues from the Fiddler on the Roof guy! Right?
Ugh. I’m supposed to like this album as a fan, but I absolutely do not. I hate the Flo and Eddie years with the fiery passion of a thousand fiery, passionate sons! Did I use that term right?
Just Another Band from L.A. (1972) – Rating: 2/10
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Thankfully, this is the final album of this phase of Zappa’s career (by force, literally, but we’ll get to that on Waka/Jawaka). This release documents part of a concert at UCLA two months after the Fillmore East show, and while featuring different music than that of the Fillmore East – June 1971 release, it’s uncanny how much it nearly sucks on the same level. Overall, with a gun to my head, I’d put this release at a notch higher in quality…but the notch is barely visible.
What keeps this album from being a complete ZERO is the concept (not necessarily the execution) behind the behemoth, nearly 25-minute “Billy the Mountain”. Chock full of zany barely-realized, but humorous, ideas, the stage performance tells the story of a mountain named Billy and his tree-wife named Ethell as they encounter wacky hijinks while travelling the United States. It’s even stupider than it sounds, and the track is mostly a vehicle for the Flo & Eddie comedy routine with lots of storytelling improvisation and a liberal sprinkling of local references as needed. This particular show, being in L.A., is chock full of southern California references that fly right over my stupid, Midwestern head. I don’t enjoy this track on a gut level at all, but I can definitely appreciate the ballsy decision to test the listener’s limits with something that could’ve been great with just few ounces more thought and a couple of rewrites. Plus, hey, Zappa was always one to prove that there are no limits to the art of live performance as long as you have the right attitude and the right people.
But, overall, this release stinks. Nothing is salvaged on Side 2 either, with an extended, dismal version of “Call any Vegetable” and even more tiresome local references on “Eddie, Are You Kidding?”. “Magdelena” is the absolute worst, it’s an overlong daughter-fucking joke.
Completely inessential. A tepid end to a tepid era of Zappa’s career.
Waka/Jawaka (1972) – Rating: 10/10
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What a fucking comeback! Here’s what happened: Zappa nearly got killed during a live show after he was pushed offstage into the orchestra pit. Touring had to end, Flo & Eddie had to go away. During recovery, Zappa went back to composing and created some vibrant jazz fusion, thus ending the dreaded Flo & Eddie era that could have literally gone on forever. It’s the best thing to ever happen to Frank Zappa!
The spiritual sequel to Hot Rats, I’m one of the few who thinks that Waka/Jawaka blows it out of the water. It’s so much cleaner, more diverse, more technical, and more fun. The album is bookended with two large slabs of experimental, dizzying displays of virtuosity that must be heard to be believed. Think the more jaw-dropping, complex, nimble and dexterous side of jazz fusion (Miles Davis / Mahavishnu Orchestra) and less the atmospheric shitty elevator music (Chick Corea / Pat Methany) and you’ve nailed it.
“Big Swifty”, the 17-minute opener, shows the band at its most experimental, with instruments weaving in and out of each other with a sense of spaced-out, yet tasteful, trippiness. “Your Mouth” is bizarro blues-rock that sounds like some alt-universe Chunga’s Revenge B-Side with swaggering, tipsy vocals (“Your mouth/Is your religion/You put your face in a hole like that“). “It Just Might Be a One-Shot Deal”, Zappa’s most underrated song of all time, fuses jazz with country-western pedal steel guitar in a blissful amalgam of these usually-disparate styles (and they should stay that way; Zappa perfected this unholy marriage and it shouldn’t be attempted by anyone else ever again. Hey, it just might be a one-shot deal, right?). The title track is another 11 minutes of straight jazz fusion that showcases his bombastic brass section, his exotic acoustic guitar noodlings, and even a hazy Moog synthesizer that doesn’t suckify the product one bit.
I love this album. It’s perfection all the way through.
The Grand Wazoo (1972) – Rating: 8/10
No Full Album Review Yet
Arranged and recorded concurrently with Waka/Jawaka, the Grand Wazoo is the second 1972 jazz fusion release.
At first listen, The Grand Wazoo appears to be more dynamic and varied than its predecessor. The title track is a 13-minute chunk of experimental improvisation. “For Calvin (and His Next Two Hitch-Hikers)” is a spooky bit of tense, rumbling horns and percussion. “Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus” is two minutes of “jazz comedy” with boisterous and squonky horns and a “rum-pa-pum-pum”-style scat singing. “Eat That Question” is an upbeat “straight” number with some excellent George Duke keyboards. “Blessed Relief” is a calm, straight (this time without the quotes), perfectly normal and beautiful slice of ambiance. Play that one at Christmas!
Repeated listens bring some diminishing returns. The title track isn’t as tight as one (me) would hope for its entire duration, and it definitely meanders in a way that “Big Swifty” off of Waka/Jawaka manages to not. “Eat That Question” is exciting in the moment, but I can barely remember the main melodies as I write this. The high point is how “For Calvin (and His Next Two Hitch-Hikers)” slowly runs off the rails instrumentally after the vocal section ends and builds to a fever pitch. That’s some good shit. But the album as whole stays plateaued overall with its mood and musical decisions, and if aren’t super into this flavor of music then there’s a lot here that you might not like.
Still a decent album by my personal standards, but this one is pretty polarizing. Also, the original version kicks the album off with “For Calvin (and His Next Two Hitch-Hikers)” with “The Grand Wazoo” coming second. The CD reissue switches these two tracks. Don’t ask me why, but I’m only familiar with the CD reissue and I personally can’t fathom the original sequencing at all. Seems weird.
Over-Nite Sensation (1973) – Rating: 8/10
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Behold, Over-Nite Sensation popped my Zappa cherry! I bought this album in June, 2005 after many hesitant minutes at my local mall’s FYE outlet store! It was one of the major pivotal decisions of my teenage years. After absorbing all 900 of Zappa’s albums fully since then, I have to admit that you can’t get much better than accidentally picking Over-Nite Sensation for the very first taste of the Zappa experience. There are only a couple better options for a quintessential mix of tight soloing, melodic song structures, and humor without being scared off by too freak-out experimentation, political nonsense, cheesy ’80s synths, completely gross sexual content, or extended guitar soloing. I’d personally say all three albums that come after this one (Apostrophe (‘), Roxy & Elsewhere, and One Size Fits All) are more superior entry points, as well as maybe We’re Only in It for the Money, Shiek Yerbouti, You Are What You Is, and Them Or Us. Maybe. This is a solid choice too, maybe 7th in line! Not bad!
Take out “Dirty Love”, which is an upbeat funk about a woman fucking a dog, and “Dinah-Moe Humm”, which is a six-minute slow disco funk about graphically making a woman orgasm on a bet, and you’ve got a nearly perfect album here. Over-Nite sensation sees Frank at his most musically accessible without compromising his adventurous weirdness or his desire to stay commercially unsuccessful even at his most commercially sensible. “Camarillo Brillo” is a relatively musically normal comedy rock song that, along with “Dinah-Moe Humm”, made its way frequently into Zappa’s encores during live shows. The TV-bashing “I’m the Slime” was played by the band when they were musical guests on Saturday Night Live in 1976; the studio version flexes Zappa’s new deep voice following that pre-jazz fusion era stage incident that crushed his vocal chords. And, of course, everyone knows “Montana”! The one with the dental floss! That’s on here too!
So yeah, points off the overwrought deliberate grossness, but these songs are solid and the extended solo section on “Fifty-Fifty” featuring George Duke’s keyboards, Jean-Luc Ponty’s electric violin, and Zappa’s guitar is pure, unadulterated bliss! Don’t sleep on this one, friends.
Apostrophe (‘) (1974) – Rating: 8/10
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Ah yes, here it is. “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow”, the first phrase any individual with working knowledge of Zappa will think of. The 11-minute “Yellow Snow” suite is here, in its semi-full glory, and the many live versions floating out there stay generally faithful to the studio recordings except for some extended passages and/or the inclusion of the lewd “Rollo” ending that Warner Bros. wouldn’t allow him to put on the record (just one of the thousands of problems Zappa had with Warner Bros., as he would be very eager to point out during his performances at the time).
Put this together with Over-Nite Sensation and you have the quintessential one-two punch of entry-level Zappa. If you want to try to sell a newcomer on his albums, you might not do better. The aforementioned “Yellow Snow” suite is a glorious display of Frank’s take on a concept album without the out-of-control self-indulgence (and even though Joe’s Garage is an excellent starting point too, I won’t ignore its out-of-control self-indulgence). Broken up into four sections, you get a silly, loose story about someone having a dream that they became Nanook the Eskimo, who witnesses a fur trapper trying to club his baby seal. The fur trapper, having eventually been defeated, eats pancakes at the parish of St. Alphonso. This spitfire section features some of Ruth Underwood’s incredible marimba work, and is her most famous solo. Just try not to think too hard about any of the lyrics.
The second half of Apostrophe (‘) seems cobbled together by comparison, but the music is good enough to make up for its thrown-together vibes. “Cosmic Debris” and “Stink-Foot” are concert staples, the former commenting on new age ripoff cures for ailments and the latter being exactly about what you’d expect it to be about. The other three tracks, you’ll never hear again! “Exentrifugal Forz” is some nonsense that’s less than two minutes long before leading into the sublime title track: a bluesy jam that may have been some leftovers from the Hot Rats sessions. “Uncle Remus” is the kind of George Duke piano-driven number that you’ll hear more of on One Size Fits All, with sexier results!
Apostrophe (‘) is highly recommended as a first Zappa album. The record runs the range of most of the facets of Zappa’s rock sensibilities, and it’s one of the best options to kickstart your insane Zappa obsession. Pretty soon you’ll be cobbling together a Zappa shrine made out of vegetables and keeping it in your closet in no time! Get some insecticide.
Roxy & Elsewhere (1974) – Rating: 9/10
No Full Album Review Yet
This is the perfect live Zappa album. It’s the only one you’ll ever need. Immaculate production, talented musicians, tight playing, almost entirely new material, great melodies, fun subject matter, warmth, coziness, Napoleon Murphy Brock, George Duke, Ruth Underwood. Rock, jazz, solos, skits. The only available live music that tops this is the full Roxy Performances 7CD box: All four performances with rehearsals and extra bits. For fanatics only. For everyone else, Roxy & Elsewhere captures the essence of those legendary nights (plus a couple of other tracks) here on one 70-minute CD.
So why a 9? Why a goddamned 9? Why a motherfucking 9? It’s because of “Be-Bop Tango (Of The Old Jazzmen’s Church)”, that’s why. A solid point taken off because the (possible) impact of this extended audience participation section is woefully lost on audio (and if you have a chance to see the Roxy movie, it’s not any better visually either). To end such an excellent fucking album with 16 minutes of mostly conversational material with drunk people on stage dancing to George Duke’s insane free jazz piano work is frustrating. I’ve never liked this track, but the famous “Jazz isn’t dead, it just smells funny” quote came right from here. That has some serious historical significance in the Zappa canon.
But it’s a high 9. It’s the highest award a Zappa live album will get, I can certainly tell you that much. Near perfect tracks like the groove of “Pygmy Twylyte”, the fast-paced technical workout of “Echidna’s Arf (of You)”, the sci-fi monster movie epic “Cheepnis”, the sweet jam on (Elsewhere’s) “Son of Orange County”, the Ruth Underwood percussion and call-out on “Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing”, the surprising straight-played ode to Sun Village, California “Village of the Sun”. These are worth revisiting again and again. And again and again and again!
But wait, there’s more! “Penguin in Bondage” starts us all off with a dildo song! “Dummy Up” is a rather surreal conversation between Mr. Big Afro Jeff Simmons and Napoleon Murphy Brock about rolling up a high school diploma and smoking it because that’s all it’s really good for. It’s nonsensical and somewhat captivating, but it’s also kind of long and it honestly lowers the score a tad too. Sorry. And there’s a newer version of “Trouble Every Day” from Freak Out! that makes it into an actual melody-driven song! That’s not to say the original is bad. It’s just a different beast.
THIS should definitely be in the running as a first Zappa purchase. It was probably my 10th purchase, but you can make it your first. If you don’t like this, you won’t like anything.
One Size Fits All (1975) – Rating: 10/10
No Full Album Review Yet
Ha, a 10. Everything about this album is completely brilliant, but don’t take my word for it. I’m an idiot! Not a single track is wasted this time. This is the final form of the Overnite-Nite Sensation / Apostrophe (‘) sequence. The cream of the crop! The filler is removed, the tracks are tight and diverse and enjoyable, man. The very best rock album of ’70s Zappa is right here. Relish in it.
An argument could be made that “Inca Roads” is the single most quintessential Zappa track. Everyone likes this song! It has it all: Ruth Underwood’s percussion, falsetto singing from George Duke, brief experimental skronking, angular guitar solos, electric piano jazz fusion solos, and, dare I say, even a little bit of emotional resonance. For a track that’s literally all over the place, it’s interesting how well the various pieces fit together into something satisfying. The deliberately obtuse and shallow lyrics about UFOs are a funny compliment as well. “Was it round?/And did it have a motor?/Or was it something different?…”
Lyrically, every song is one snide, juvenile joke after another. “Evelyn, a Modified Dog”, for example, presents Zappa’s desire to flex his unabashed purple prose in spoken-word form: “Evelyn, a dog, having undergone further modification, pondered the significance of short-person behavior in pedal-depressed panchromatic resonance and other highly ambient domains… ‘Arf’, she said“. Ok, that’s kind of funny, actually! How about “Po-Jama People”, which is a spiritual successor to the early Mothers’ “Plastic People”, which uses obtuse metaphors with no real meaning: “The pajama people are boring me to pieces/They make me feel like I am wasting my time/They all got flannel up and down ’em/A little trap-door back around ’em/And some cozy little footies on their mind“. Hey, that’s entertaining too! I was going to dock a point for lyrical stupidity, but the lyrical stupidity is stupid enough to be funny and not stupid. That doesn’t happen too often. The 10/10 remains.
Musically, One Size Fits All is flawless. FLAWLESS. Accessibly experimental. Proggy, jazzy, bluesy. The band has never been tighter without sacrificing the WARMTH. The WARMTH, man. The next era is a slight downturn in quality. Future bands would be even more technically proficient, but the eventual ’80s production means the sound will never be this organic again. Shame.
You get skunky blues on “Can’t Afford No Shoes” and “San Ber’dino” (the latter sung by Johnny “Skunky” “Guitar” Watson). There are beautiful piano suites with “Sofa No. 1” and “Sofa No. 2”. “Andy” is bombastic and reserved all at once, with more excellent piano lines and a toe-tapping drum cadence to boot! That one’s my favorite.
I won’t belabor the point. Everything is good! Don’t sleep on this one unless you have incurable narcolepsy!
Bongo Fury (1975) – Rating: 6/10
No Full Album Review Yet
What a weird album, and they’re all kinda weird. This one features Zappa’s good buddy Captain Beefheart in all his raspy-voiced, inscrutable glory. Bongo Fury collects the best live bits from the small handful of shows where Beefheart shared the stage, and I must say that the results are rather phlegmy, murky, brown, and gross.
I’m a big Beefheart fan, but he’s easily the worst part of the record. Freakout poetry as heard on “Debra Kadabra”, “Sam with the Showing Scalp Flattop”, and “Man with the Woman Head” are at best vaguely interesting, and at worst completely disruptive to the surround, better music. Keep in mind, too, that this tour fits snugly within Beefheart’s down period when he released Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams. He wasn’t on top of his game anyway, whatever the fuck “his game” actually ever was.
So throw out the poetry tracks and you’re left with a handful of decent tracks and two indispensable ones, the latter comprising “Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy” and, probably my favorite Zappa track if I absolutely had to pick one, “Advance Romance”. Both of these tracks are free of Beefheart vocals, but he does pop in occasionally with his harmonica. There are about 50 different recordings of “Advance Romance”, but this one is phenomenal. It’s dingy and dirty and the solo is nasty and unrelenting. Just like me.
Not much else is worth noting except that this is the album with the infamous “Muffin Man”, a song of which I never understood the widespread acclaim. It was a common show closer post-1975, but I find it underwhelming. This particular version has a preamble monologue from Zappa himself, and we get to hear him crack himself up a bit when he says “poots forth”. It’s always fun to see him break once in a while, because it doesn’t happen often.
Everything else? Not much to write home about, and it’s no wonder you don’t hear anything else on any other releases. Enjoy this as the transition album that it is.
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