Twenty years ago..
- Thread starter JCH
- Start date
WhiteStrat
Don't stare at the eye.
I'm blaming him for Steve Vai!
Yeah, and I'm thanking him for Steve Vai!
Raisin' 'em up, waxin' 'em down...
If I were to give him a spin, where should I start? What's the definitive Zappa album?
Chili
Site Moderator
I never ever like Zappa or anything he did except for, maybe, possibly, Valley Girl. But I recently learned that Vinnie Cap-something-italian was his drummer and that guy is frikkin awesome.
Still, I understand what Zappa brought to the music world and the cult following he had. You gotta appreciate that.
Still, I understand what Zappa brought to the music world and the cult following he had. You gotta appreciate that.
fat_fleet
Swollen Member
I dunno, he really went through some phases but in general his songs were pretty academic with some lowbrow humor thrown in. The further you get from the 60s, the more fusiony and dad-rock it gets. Great musicianship but maybe a little on the dull side. The purest Zappa fans really inhabit their own universe and are often blissfully unaware of most non-Zappa music. I'd peg 'em as 50-60 year old males. Not many chicks get into him, at least not these days.
I think his coolest stuff is with Ian Underwood and the Mothers, and Ian left in the early 70s. You might like We're Only In It For The Money (my personal fave)... fun and all-over-the-place with wry hippie-lampooning lyrics. If you don't like that, I don't think you're gonna like the later stuff much more. Mad peeps are gonna suggest Hot Rats and Apostrophe/Overnite. You might kinda like A/O but I don't think you'll like Hot Rats at all. You know how every famous classical composition has like 2 famous minutes that everyone knows and that makes it into all the car commercials...and then 40 minutes of noodly complex stuff no one remembers? Most of Hot Rats is the rock equivalent of that noodly 40 minutes. Every once in awhile I try to get into it because it's so highly regarded but it always leaves me cold. And late-70s, early 80s... all the self-released stuff on Barking Pumpkin- that's where Steve Vai lives. There's a 13 minute version of Whipping Post on Them Or Us. Steer clear.
Probably more info than you want or need.
fat_fleet
Swollen Member
Yeah, y'know I was parked outside a liquor store a few weeks back and some older guy came out wearing a Hot Rats t-shirt and, even though I never personally liked the album, I had good feelings toward the guy just cuz you don't see that many Hot Rats shirts these days. These days it's more like- "Well there's a guy that appreciates music played on real instruments!"
As a longtime FZ fan, because of my age at the time, I came kind of late to the party. The earliest stuff was/is kind of over my head. Kind of like certain types of abstact performance art. Some of it is crap, but I'm sure that some of it means something, I just don't get it. Yeah, I may have burguois tastes, but my faves are O/A (which is really a rerelease of two albums packaged together), Zoot Allures (how can you not love The Torture Never Stops?), and Sheik Yerbouti. Lyrically, I would think you would like the songs Dirty Love, I'm The Slime, Flakes, and Broken Hearts Are For Assholes. Musically, I don't really see you liking much of anything of his. Abstract classical meets freeform jazz, with some lengthy noodling thrown in. Musically, I dig Black Napkins.
fat_fleet
Swollen Member
Yeah, to be fair alot of that later stuff, including Joe's Garage I've never heard in it's entirety. I heard The Torture Never Stops on college radio once and do remember liking it.