Frank Zappa



Cheesy Feet said:
Never really heard owt by him but his videos have been appearing on my Facebook feed..I’ve watched half a dozen or so and I’ve got to say I’ve never heard so much shite in my life..any fans on here..am i missing something??
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You’re definitely not missing owt. Total shite. Anyone who says differently is pretending.
 
Cheesy Feet said:
Never really heard owt by him but his videos have been appearing on my Facebook feed..I’ve watched half a dozen or so and I’ve got to say I’ve never heard so much shite in my life..any fans on here..am i missing something??
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Not for everyone otherwise you'd have heard stuff by him before now
Like Prince I'd say ,a prolific intelligent genius
His various interviews where as clever as his guitar playing
 
Zappa went through phases of producing some very original and even brilliant stuff and then of being disappointing and poor. He was in the habit of recording everything that he did whereas I suppose that in the past other composers chucked their rubbish out and it was forgotten about. Zappa seemed however to have had a rather materialistic approach to music and if he thought he could make a few bucks out the stuff that even he knew was poor he would still release it. I thought that was a bit at odds with is obvious desire to be regarded as a serious musician and composer.

Although I have liked and admired some of Zappa's music since first hearing Uncle Meat in 1970 I don't think I would have liked him as a person as he appeared to be very focused on himself. He had a lot of collaborations with other often very gifted musicians but to me he always came across to me as being more of their "employer" than anything else. Even his friendship with his pal from their teenage years Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) appeared to be mostly based upon a mutual toleration of one another - perhaps that was a clash of egos
 
Joe's Garage, IMO, an excellent album totally ruined by that infernal whispering telling you the story between every track. Drives you nuts &, for me, makes it unlistenable.
 
Similar feelings to listening to Captain Beefheart for me. Safe as Milk is tremendous and I love rhe mirror man sessions but it all gets too arty for me then.

Me Dad loves his work like
 
Cheesy Feet said:
Never really heard owt by him but his videos have been appearing on my Facebook feed..I’ve watched half a dozen or so and I’ve got to say I’ve never heard so much shite in my life..any fans on here..am i missing something??
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He was extraordinarily prolific, very creative, very original, occasionally brilliant and equally f***ing awful.
 
Cheesy Feet said:
I listened to a couple more today and they were dreadful..i mean absolute dogshit bad.
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Try listening to the Apostrophe album. It’s a good ‘way in’ for the casual listener. Alternatively, there’s an album called (I think) ‘Strictly Commercial’ (a quote from a lyric) which is a compilation of his more… err commercial (duh) tracks. After that try Joes Garage, the next in line of ‘accessible’ stuff, in my opinion. After that you’re on you own.

He’s a pretty impressive guitar player and the musicians he selected are technically brilliant so the live stuff is usually very well played. But not exactly easy listening.
 

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