Yesterday I tried to pull off a full scale Frank Zappa show. The idea was to play five albums in a row: Absolutely Free, Lumpy Gravy, We’re Only in It For The Money, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets and Uncle Meat.
However, in comparison to Joe’s Garage, Hot Rats and Freak Out!, these albums proved to be far more paranoid than I could imagine. After listening to the third album, I had to give up listening to the rest due to a strong headache. For the future, I thought I’d restrain myself to only one Zappa album a day.
The Mothers of Invention — Absolutely Free
★★★★
When I wrote about unbearably paranoid music, it didn’t quite yet include this album. Although you can clearly feel the “stream of consciousness” with which Zappa writes his songs, this is a well balanced concept album with funny lyrics, talks about vegetables, etc. The seven minute long instrumental Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin was especially to my liking.
Frank Zappa and the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra — Lumpy Gravy (reedited 1968 version)
★★☆
This album begins with Duodenum, a nice makeover of Apache, and ends in a mind-soothing piece Take Your Clothes Off, which is probably supposed to relieve you from the pain you acquire in between. Indeed, this album gives you a headache on a sunny day. Is this even music? You might be better off considering this album to be a piece of art that portrays a paranoid state of mind. There’s too much speaking and random elements, too little of what I would call actual songs or compositions. Lumpy Gravy does have some interesting pieces like it’s good to hear once, but… I Don’t Know If I Can Go Through This Again.
The Mothers of Invention— We’re Only in It For The Money
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The Mothers of Invention seem to prevent Zappa from going completely paranoid, yet the songs still jump from one style to another, a feature which irritates rather than pleases (and doesn’t help the headache either). However it still is amazing how a human mind could come up with music like this. The brilliancy of Zappa is his ability to come up with stuff that’s completely different from anything else, music from a different existence, which it yet for us to hear. If you feel tired with music in general, listen to this.
“I will love the police as they kick the shit out of me on the street.” — Who Needs The Peace Corps?
There were some problems with the latter half of the album, so I will leave this album unmarked for now.
