Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage
Published in 1979
First off, this was actually a suggestion, so I am supposed to thank Tommy Clark for suggesting it. I say I am supposed to, but I am still reeling from listening to this thing.
WHAT THE FUCK, FRANK ZAPPA?
Okay, now that my confusion has been expressed, let me give you some opinions. You know why rock operas are so incredibly obscure and strange? It's because they are by nature subversive and strange. Instead of recognizing this and trying to formulate a regular thing around this, Mr. Zappa has chosen to take it to the other extreme, and just go fucking crazy with it.
This is the first album on the album project to do various things, allow me to list them, so you can be baffled if you haven't heard it.
- Wet t-shirt contest dedicated song
- Incredibly diverse mentions of VD
- Appliance Sex
- Dystopian future where music is banned (rock opera edition)
- "Subtle" allusions to Scientology
- Detailed Appliance Sex Music
- The fact that to have sex with appliances, you need to speak another language
- Catholic Girls are whores
- "Gimmie that, gimmie that, Bloooowwwjob."
- Breaking the fourth wall, referring to "two songs ago"
- And much much more.
Seriously. I'm not making one of those up, and I am amazed that I don't think that I could. It's like an album that was designed to completely fry your logical brain.
However, the non rational side of your brain is going to be fucking loving this shit. It's incredibly fucking strange, but beautiful and strange as shit. It is entirely non commercial, but it's fucking awesome.
You know what it is, it's the Aqua Teen Hunger Force of rock operas. It's obviously written while people were on fucking insane amounts of drugs. It has no recognizable structure. The acts are delineated by who the fuck knows what, and the resolution is crazy as the rest of it.
I'd never really listened to Frank Zappa in any capacity before, so this was a... something... experience for me. I don't believe that, even if I started doing drugs today, I will have ever done enough drugs in my life to fully understand what is going on in his mind. The writing is fucking insane, not in a bad way, but in a incomprehensibly amazing way.
Seriously.
However, if you listened to it just for the music, there are some real amazing bits in there. Mainly the parts between the weird fucking shit. However, even the weird shit is pretty musical. It's about 50 - 50 amazing music - fucking insanity.
So yeah, you should listen to this album. It's an assault on everything in the world, and it's amazing for it. If you didn't listen to it once, I'd be surprised, because what are you, some kind of coward? Cowards don't read the Album Project, now go out there and get crazy.
Well, thanks to Tommy for the robot fuckingest album I have ever heard. You're out of your damn mind, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Since this is the ATHF of music,
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I've been a bad host, would you guys like some juice?"
Matt
PS. GIVE PHIL FIVE, OR DIE!
Most people who are first introduced to Zappa's music think was on some serious drugs when he wrote it. (I know I did.) Funny thing is, Zappa only tried cannabis a few times but didn't enjoy it, never did anything harder, and labeled people on drugs 'assholes in action'. That 'craziness' is all Zappa, other people took drugs to do what Zappa did naturally.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested, check out some of his live performances; Here's a link to muffin man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFIMWRXWY90
Ahahaha, you know you liked it. And the actual song Joe's Garage may actually be the catchiest song ever. In fact Im humming it right now.
ReplyDeleteAlso the Central Scrutinizer is just basically awesome.
ReplyDelete