Zappa is very singular. i like talking about his music but i find you kind of need to “prepare an area” as mixing zappa with other stuff is often not productive. i’ve been on a long hiatus from listening to him, as i went really overboard in 2013-2015 and probably listened to like 90% Zappa in those years lol. uniquely rewarding discography; he has more masterpiece records than probably anyone.
one of the things i find interesting about his music is how varied the takes can be. there’s some consensus — like, yeah We’re Only In It For The Money is pretty universally beloved and Thing-Fish is pretty universally reviled — but there is really quite a lot of variance in which things speak to which people. some people really dislike the Flo & Eddie stuff, for example, while i think Billy the Mountain is among the absolute pinnacle of Zappa works.
i just revisited Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. weird record, but i think it mostly works. interestingly, it’s kind of intolerable as background music. Apostrophe or One Size Fits All, this ain’t. it really demands to be listened to closely. unfortunately, Valley Girl is a bit too one-note to really encourage this behavior. the mix is also fucked. vocals a smidge too prominent, drums and bass a bit too subdued, some kind of weird flatness/scooped EQ. not as sterile and lifeless as later 80s stuff (Them or Us sounds like total dogshit in this regard and don’t get me started on the 1986 remix of Cruisin’ with Ruben and the Jets), tho.
re: SATLTSADW the originally planned Chalk Pie double-LP is much better (available in bootleg form), but it’s still pretty good. mostly because side 2 is pretty much peak Zappa - Drowning Witch’s lyrics veer more toward the amusing than gross-out, and the instrumental is sublime. the second side comprises a suite, and it’s strong thruout. be forwarned, tho; you’ll need to prepare yourself for the lyrics on the final cut, Teenage Prostitute. i love it, though - the operatic delivery, that truly unexpected chord in the chorus and the glorious reharmonization of it in the climax are strong components and it comes off well if you can stomach the lyrics initially
nothing will ever redeem Thing-Fish for me. as diehard of a Zappaphile as i am, that one is just beyond the pale. indistinguishable from the things it is satirizing, it sounds more like self-parody than social commentary.
anyone looking for a place to start with Zappa, it’s gotta be Hot Rats. Peaches en Regalia is a track i can easily mark as ‘mind-blowing’. on a shortlist with stuff like richard harris / jimmy webb’s macarthur park, great gig in the sky on dark side of the moon, talking heads’ once in a lifetime, the beatles’ i am the walrus, beach boys good vibrations, sabbath’s war pigs, etc. a tune i can remember hearing for the first time distinctly (in Johan Blixt’s car driving around Atlanta). hearing this tune and the effect it had on me pretty much convinced me of Zappa’s greatness by itself.
somehow the rest of the record is nearly as good!
but more broadly, if you want the most consistently experimental, musically boldest and lyrically least cringe Zappa: everything from 66-70 is basically essential save perhaps Cruisin’ with Ruben and the Jets, as much as I like that one.
if you can tolerate or are willing to skip the Flo & Eddie era (personally find it to be fantastically good stuff but it’s way more comedy-oriented than before, and the bootlegs (notably the Just Another Band From L.A. 2-LP leaked test pressing is god-tier if you like F&E) and posthumous releases from this era are more complete) from late 70-72, you could continue on or jump ahead to Waka/Jawaka (hot rats 2 basically) and continue relatively safely up to 75-76ish and hear a lot more incredible music without getting too extreme on the cringe meter. at that point you’ll want to assess, it gets a lot nastier afterward. i think Läther is phenomenal in a lot of ways (mad diversity, orchestral/classical stuff often sublime, soloing often exceptional), but it’s not where i’d point someone first i think
There’s also Joe’s Garage which is very nasty but musically exceptional. as a non-fan, you can ignore most of Zappa’s later output but this one is probably worth hearing.
two others i’d highlight from later studio releases are Jazz From Hell (unique avant garde Synclavier stuff, pretty striking for the mid-80s) and Civilization Phaze III (written and completed while dying from cancer and released shortly after he died). more Synclavier, long but consistently fascinating. i consider it one of his best works if you are into the whole Zappa concept/continuity (which you inevitably will be if you end up listening to enough Zappa for that to even occur lol)
Yeah, Peaches En Regalia’s great! I particularly like the bit just before the smooth jazz breakdown with all the frantic clattering percussion and just that one note held by the big bassy brass sound…
The very little I know about Zappa has come indirectly from listening to a lot of Beefheart, so I harbour what may be some quite biased negativity towards him (mostly relating to his estate holding a lot of Beefheart music hostage + what felt like an inflated popularity when compared to Beefheart).
Although, as the years have gone on and I’ve learned a bit more about both, I think I hold each of their bandmates in higher regard than the frontmen themselves… I’m sure both of them deserve a decent share of the credit too but there’s a lot of stories floating around of each them being jerks (or in Beefheart’s case outright physically abusive…) that’s left me feeling a lil uneasy about giving them too much credit…
That being said, I feel like with Zappa in particular so many other musicians I like have been in his orbit (Adrian Belew, George Duke, Shuggie Otis and probably many more I’ve yet to realise…) that I feel I kinda owe it to myself to give his music a more thorough listen…
Your suggestions for where to start are very helpful! Might try and find some time to give his stuff a fairer shake when I next get a chance.
Zappa’s output really depends on the band and tools he’s working with I find. After a while you have to anticipate a list of names after his for the kinda time you’re gonna have. The only albums I find a hard listen are the Guitar solo ones. It’s just too much solo.
Thing-Fish is in my top 10 but I can see why people would hate so much of it.
Need to crank out my top 10 and thoughts when I am not in a commuter train. I went through a hardcore Zappa binge from 2012-17 and he is a tricky artist to casually bring up.
my mother is a huge zappa head and i grew up hearing his jokier more puerile stuff (my mother thinks “Why Does It Hurt When I Pee” is one of the funniest songs ever recorded lol) so when i first heard Absolutely Free as an older teenager it really threw me. still jokey and puerile of course but the music was so out there that i couldn’t just take it as a joke record. i still think mixing cock jokes with avant garde art is a really good idea, it gives the curious-but-unprepared listener a hook in all the unfamiliar territory.
and like yeah the lyrics of Brown Shoes Don’t Make It are disgusting (it’s literally a 8 minute song about politicians sexually exploiting children and getting away with it while the average person is so caught up the rituals of capitalism that they can’t stop and see the horror)) but the people it is targeting are infinitely more disgusting and the song just describes what they do and continue to do every day. shame he was an idiot about women in his later years.
ending this post with a milder and more fun cock joke zappa track to make me defending Mothers lyrics go down better lol
the one you linked i think is either on The Yellow Shark or from one of the live performances for it.
the two Synclavier ones I mentioned earlier are somewhat musically similar, Jazz From Hell and Civilization Phaze III.
here are the ones i think you may like (or not, always hard to tell with Zappa lol), all in a list. mostly orchestral stuff:
Lumpy Gravy [Capitol Records orchestral version, 1967]
Uncle Meat [1969]
Burnt Weeny Sandwich [1970] - side 1 nah actually just the whole thing. side 2 is too good not to include
200 Motels [1971] - several selections, most specifically ‘Strictly Genteel (The Finale)’
Orchestral Favorites [1979]
Boulez Conducts Zappa - The Perfect Stranger [1984]
Jazz From Hell [1986]
The Yellow Shark [1993]
Civilization Phaze III [1994]
another one to consider is London Symphony Orchestra Vol. I & II [vol. 1 - 1983, vol. 2 - 1987, CD remix with new track order and reduced post production - 1995]
for whatever reason this one never really hit me. maybe it’s because i’m aware of the context that Zappa was upset about the orchestra not taking him seriously enough and as a result giving substandard performances. one to revisit for sure
I think a lot of Zappa music is secretly very sad. Particularly later stuff where you can feel his exhaustion with having to deal with a bunch of crap. Verges on angry in things like Joe’s Garage or Tinseltown Rebellion.
this is wild to me. i guess i gotta try listening to it again!! it’s the only [major] zappa i recall being effectively unable to make it through.
edit: when i say this is wild i really just mean i’m super curious your thoughts about it. i find a lot to love in most zappa but that one, phew. i couldn’t do it
I can’t recommend it but I think it has a lot of really interesting texture and melancholy themes in the background of the libretto scenes that I find compelling. I listened to it long before I heard the original versions of most songs and found it worked pretty well. I have a lot of tolerance for abrasive voices and his storytelling nonsense and there’s not much quite like it. Crab Grass Baby is the first thing I think of having not listened to it in a while.
when i started listening to zappa i went pretty much chronologically, so it was like 90% familiar material but with various annoying horseshit and worse lyrics lol
i love this take tho! and i want to hear more. i will also share some kind of “top 10” ish list, that sounds fun to me. lol
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