Frank Zappa

hot rats would have been a much better starting point

  On 11/12/2009 at 9:26 AM, Dirty Protest said:

  On 10/8/2009 at 10:44 PM, DNBJerk is for real life said:

By the way, if you haven't heard Hot Rats on vinyl, you haven't listened to Hot Rats. It sounds so much better on vinyl.

 

Your music taste is obviously an extension of your soul, im surprised you can bear to breath the same air as the rest of us culture pygmies.

It actually is mixed a lot differently than the CD version.

Yeah Zappa fucked up a lot of his old albums by re-recording the rhythm section with nasty '80s production for the CD releases. Damn shame

Try to stick to the vinyl for anything up to the eighties if possible. A lot of his stuff is available quite cheaply on wax.

Most of his albums are very different in sound and style from each other but I'd suggest the following as some of his better releases:

Absolutely Free

Weasels Ripped My Flesh

Hot Rats

200 Motels

Sheik Yerbouti

The Man From Utopia

Them or Us

It really does depend on what mood you're in. Cause if you're up for it, Jazz From Hell is the shit but if you're not it's torture

I'd say for live albums go with "The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life" (Hilarious covers of Purple Haze and Ring of Fire) and "Roxy & Elsewhere" (the best version of Pygmy Twylyte imo)

Best "starters" albums I'd say are "Over-nite Sensation" and "Hot Rats"; But my real favourites are "Joe's Garage" and "One Size Fits All"

I have not listened to the whole zappa's body of work, i think I listened to circa 30% of it. But my favourite works, so far, are:

Tinseltown rebellion: all original compositions but recorded live, plus wonderful versions of peaches en regalia and brown shoes don't make it

Sheik Yerbouti: the perfect mix between the 70's rock and his 80's satirical comedy music

Apostrophe/overnight sensation: "Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon"

Civilization Phase III: his last work, almost completely programmed on the synclavier, the first cd is awesome, especially the starting track "put a motor in yourself"

Live at fillmore east: Lot's of spoken word acts, hilarious. I spent some months transcribing the lyrics (when the internet was not avalaible for the world... you remember those times? :) )

Worth mentioning:

Burnt weenie sandwich

The yellow shark

You can't do that on stage anymore vol.2

Joe's Garage

cheers. p.

  On 5/21/2010 at 3:54 AM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

hot rats would have been a much better starting point

indeed. try apostrophe, i think you'll like it.

One size Fits All + Zoot Allures

Joes's Garage.....First Zappa I ever heard and I'm a musician.............Changed my LIFE!

not a big zappa head, but i'd definitely second the obvious Hot Rats suggestion—peaches en regalia and willie the pimp are amazing enough for me not to want to explore zappa's career any further.