Getting into Frank Zappa

I would really love to hear from fans why they think Freak Out!, of all Zappa and/or Mothers albums, is an ideal place to start for a newbie. I'm not cynic here but really curious.

I understand that FO was revolutionary in its day, though I'm inclined to say "novel" more than revolutionary.

I just don't get that, being what it is, it should be representative at all of the whole of Zappa's oeuvre, to the point of being an ideal place to start...

 

Good question. I don't think it makes sense as a starting point either.

 

Perhaps because of that "blueprint" or Project/Object thing. It's OK to believe in it. I just don't.

 

You're right .
Start with MOFO instead!

 

Oh sure, I think to myself - an interested newbie is going to dip his toe into the water of an artist he knows nothing about and just wants to know if he likes him, by ponying-up for four, ZFT-priced discs in a special, oversized plastic case...

...and then I look and find, the 2-disc version, is only $16.99 at Amazon! Although I really don't recommend starting with that...that's actually reasonably affordable!

 

God, so much variety, I suppose if I were to try to turn someone on to the full depth of Zappa's genius I'd say to start with the You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore series, and even after going through 12 discs of that you're still just scratching the surface! Not vinyl I know. For a 10 album overview I guess (beware, I actually love the Flo & Eddie era!) I would say:

We're Only In It For The Money
Uncle Meat
Hot Rats
Fillmore East - June 1971
Waka/Jawaka
One Size Fits All
Sheik Yerbouti
Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar Some More
You Are What You Is
The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life

Touches on most of Zappa's phases, some glaring holes (classical side ignored...) but it's a pretty good overview and certainly enough that would make me, as a new fan, want to explore several new avenues opened up to me. Just typing out the album titles had me put some Zappa on. My day just got that much brighter!

 

I got into Frank when I accidentally bought Have I Offended Someone? I was off to the races from there!

 

There is vintage vinyl for Vol. 2 ($$$). And also a vinyl sampler with the same yellow artwork as Vol. 1, but it is very disappointing and non-representative IMO.

 

That's kinda cool!
Nice to know that the 'Ryko-owned/second-issue-CD's' made someone a fan!
They made a cute little 'collect-them-all'-style booklet with each release.

 

Still have my "SAMPLER" LP!

 

YCDTOSA Vol. 1 is what converted me. Friend lent it to me, insisted I listen to the whole thing. Was ready to turn it off multiple times until Big Swifty came on, 8:46 that totally changed my life. All those bits I thought were nonsense that came before suddenly fell into place and I ended up spending a lot of money really fast acquiring every album I could find.

 

Yes, Vol. 1 is a very good overview, and its Big Swifty is indeed amazing and exciting!

 

I wouldn't agree, as a blanket statement, that any particular album is an ideal place to start for any artist. It all depends of the tastes and interests of the person doing the exploring. That goes even moreso when it comes to an artist like Zappa, who did a huge variety of music.

For me, for example, Freak Out would have been a horrible recommendation as a starting point for Zappa. Freak Out is without question my least favorite Zappa album, and I'm including all of the posthumous stuff in that, too (well, except for the spoken-word Congress Shall Make No Law . . . but it doesn't really make sense to rank that with musical works). Now I don't hate Freak Out, but most of it just doesn't click with me anywhere near the way that other Zappa does. I think it's a notably flawed album, and I see the bulk of the second half primarily as a failed experiment. If I'd heard Freak Out first I'm not sure I would have been very interested in exploring more. Any other album would have been a better starting place for me.

So really, to make a smart recommendation, we need to know something about the tastes of the person asking--and preferably, we know quite a bit about their tastes; we know not just what they like and dislike, but why they like and dislike it. It takes awhile to get to know someone well enough for that, it helps if we have some experience mutually listening to and talking about music with them, etc. In that situation, what we recommend isn't based on our personal preferences. It's based on the other person's preferences. Freak Out might be the best first album to recommend to some people. It doesn't matter that it's my least favorite. For some tastes, it will be perfect. For other tastes, it might make them uninterested in further exploring Zappa. And then there's everything in between.

 

While I do NOT agree with this guy, at least he tried........
Can you be a fan of Frank Zappa but not his music?
Considering, he's heard of Negativland, I'm surprised no one pointed him to "Lumpy Gravy"!

I can see his point in the fact that;
I'm more a fan of Kevin Smith, than I am of his movies!

 

...huh? Freak Out was the floodgate that opened my mind to the world of Zappa and what a great journey that turned out to be. Troutmaskreplica was just around the corner. What a great time in this music addicts life.

Possibly, I'm the exception to the rule.

 

I absolutely agree with you. But in the case at hand, we did have a clue from the OP to begin with.

 

Bought the Roxy Blu-ray this week after the Amazon price went down to under £13 (what was the thinking on the artwork, looks at first glance like a Weird Al Yankovich film).

I was utterly blown away by the performances of everyone concerned. I watched it in total disbelief. How they hell did they remember all of that?

Great 5.1 mix too, not normally a fan of those, but this was great.

 

And he's off!
Enjoy the ride Bob!

 

I first listened to Zappa (Hot Rats) in 1981. I've made intermittent attempts wtih him since then but am still an agnostic.

That said, I'm receiving We're Only In It For The Money and Sheik Yerbouti as Christmas presents, having recenlyt picked up You Are What You Is in a charity shop (not often you encounter his stuff there) and quite enjoyed it.

The main stumbling block for me is his highly questionable 'sense of humour'. When he shuts up and plays his guitar, I'm fine with him.

I've found it easier to get into Captain Beefheart than Zappa, which is not the case for most people. Apparently.

 

There are, besides the guitar solo albums, Wazoo and Imaginary Diseases are instrumental live albums with some banter between songs. Hot Rats and Grand Wazoo have minimal vocals. The two short tracks on Waka Jawaka have lyrics but are only about 1/4 of the album.

 

I think Zappa had to have delivered the albums as released since, except for Studio Tan, they all have music not included in Lather. Then again, he had to have assembled Lather at some point because it has music found no where else, he broadcast it on the radio in 77 and I bought a bootleg of it in 79 or 80. I assume the boot was sourced from the radio broadcast.

 

Get this reissue of Hot Rats remastered from the original tapes by Bernie Grundman. Its quite cheap and sounds amazing:
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats

These are great sounding reissues too for cheap:
Over-Nite Sensation: Frank Zappa - Over-Nite Sensation
One Size Fits All: Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention* - One Size Fits All

 

Do you have Congress Shall Pass No Law? Although it may not qualify as a disappointment as you know what you're buying. It's the only non-compilation official release I've never bought. I've also never bought a digital release of Francesco Zappa. Francesco Zappa was a bigger disappointment to me than Thingfish because I only bought Thingfish for completeness sake. I was pretty sure going in I wasn't going to like most of it. Francesco Zappa I bought on release day so I had no idea what I was getting.

 

I never bought Shall Pass No Laws or the Franscesco Zappa disks 'cause the description of the content did not appeal to me.

 

I was originally put off by the "humor" too, and as a teenager. I had friends who were very into Zappa and the albums they played the most were the ones with the most sexual humor. What hooked me was the title track from Apostrophe. I asked what was like that and was pointed to Grand Wazoo and Waka Jawaka and I was off. Of course Grand Wazoo and Waka Jawaka are nothing like the track Apostrophe other than being mostly instrumental. Down in De Dew is the the only thing like Apostrophe in his discography since it's from the same jam session. They're still my two favorite Zappa tracks.